Music Matters

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The stories that matter, the people that matter, the music that matters

Music Matters: Music Under Restriction

Music Under Restriction

BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Music Under Restriction

Tom Services examines whether classical music has managed to rebuild itself after Covid.

Music Matters explores how classical music is emerging from Covid. And, as the Taliban regain control of Afghanistan, we hear about fears of a clampdown on music by the new regime.

As Music Matters returns to the airwaves for the Autumn, and classical music emerges from Covid along with the rest of the world, Tom Service assesses the current state of play with musicians and industry leaders, and asks them how much has really changed in the last eighteen months and what the future holds.  Gillian Moore, Director of Music at the Southbank Centre in London, and Roger Wright, Chief Executive of the newly-merged Britten Pears Arts in Suffolk, explain how they navigated the issues raised for their organisations by Covid restrictions, and what they take from these experiences moving forward.  

Freelance trumpeter Chris Cotter spoke to Music Matters last year about finding a new living from painting and decorating when his concerts dried up in lockdowns, and he updates Tom now on his return to live music.  Soprano Juliet Fraser talks, too, about her adventures with the TC Helicon during lockdown and her experiences of returning to the stage.  Tom Service also speaks to Igor Toronyi-Lalic, arts editor of the Spectator and director of the London Contemporary Music Festival, who points out what went wrong for classical music in its digital online ventures.

To discuss the many issues raised by these experiences of the classical music world during the Covid era, Tom Service is joined by Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, Chief Executive of UK Music, Stephen Maddock, Chief Executive of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Sarah Willis, horn player with the Berlin Philharmonic.  

When the Taliban held power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, they banned music and persecuted musicians. Two decades later as they regain control of the country, we speak the Director of Afghanistan's National Institute of Music, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, about his fears of a clampdown on music by the new regime. We talk to the BBC reporter Yalda Hakim about the evolving situation inside the country and hear from Afghanistan’s most famous pop-star, Aryana Sayeed, about why musicians’ lives may be endangered as they become political targets. We speak, too, to Massood Sanjer, who’s in charge of Afghanistan’s Tolo TV network, and hear how the Taliban’s disapproval of music affects their output.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Music Matters

Music Under Restriction

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3