Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Diverse Classical Music

Diverse Classical Music

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Diverse Classical Music

Digging into the music of composers Joseph Bologne, Kikuko Kanai and Julia Perry.

Christienna Fryar speaks to the researchers uncovering classical music that has been left out of the canon – Christopher Dingle, Mai Kawabata and Michael Harper.

Widening the repertoire of classical music comes under the spotlight in today's Free Thinking conversation as New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar speaks to  researchers uncovering music that has been left out of the canon. Ahead of a concert featuring their work, she hears about the stories of three composers: the 18th-century French polymath Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Japanese trailblazer Kikuko Kanai and the prolific African-American composer Julia Perry.

Christopher Dingle, a Professor of Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, is studying the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799). Born in Guadeloupe to an enslaved mother and a French plantation owner father, Bologne lived an extraordinary life – as well as being one of the first black colonels in the French Army, he was a master fencer, celebrated violinist and conductor, whose concertos rival his contemporary Mozart in their fiendish virtuosity.

Mai Kawabata, from the Royal College of Music, is a musicologist and violinist. She shares the story of Kikuko Kanai (1906-1986), the first female composer in Japan to write a symphony. Kanai made waves in the musical establishment by fusing Japanese melodies with Western-classical influences –her “life mission” was to popularise the folk music of her native Okinawa.

Michael Harper, a vocal tutor from the Royal Northern College of Music, is championing the work of Julia Perry (1924-1979). Perry occupied a unique place as a black American composer – female and upper-middle class, she won Guggenheim fellowships to train in Europe. Despite a life cut short by paralysis and illness, her works include 12 symphonies and three operas.

This research, done in collaboration with the AHRC and Radio 3, will result in special recordings and a concert performed by the BBC Philharmonic broadcasting works by Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds and Joseph Bologne in Afternoon Concert on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 2nd February at 2pm and then on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001414g 
and listen out for a follow up episode of Free Thinking featuring the research being done into the classical musicians: Nathaniel Dett, Margaret Bonds, Ali Osman and Isaac Hershow and a further concert.

Produced by Amelia Parker
 
If you want more information about the Diverse Composers project you can find that on the website of UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/news/celebrating-classical-composers-from-diverse-ethnic-backgrounds-2/

If you enjoyed this – there’s a playlist called New Research on the Free Thinking website where you can find discussions about everything from conserving fashion and putting it on display in museums to recording the accents found around Manchester, so do dip in. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

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.

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