Zadie Smith with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

BBC Radio 4 - Zadie Smith with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

The latest in a series of concerts featuring great writers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The multi-award-winning author reads extracts from a selection of her own writing and even sings, accompanied in concert at the Barbican centre by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Zadie Smith is one of Britain’s most notable living novelists. Her first work, White Teeth, completed while the author was still a student, became an instant hit when it was published in 2000. Soon enough, she came to define what it was to live in Britain – and particularly London – at the turn of the new millennium.

Music has always coursed through Zadie Smith’s works. At university she worked as a jazz singer while her 2016 novel Swing Time, long listed for the Booker Prize, explores her love of music and dance. In the latest of our collaborations with great writers, Zadie joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra for this entertaining concert. And there's even the opportunity to hear Zadie sing!

This is a shortened version of the full concert, recorded on Earth Day, 22nd April at The Barbican, edited for broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The full concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in the coming months.

READINGS:
Chapter 2 from the novel Swing Time
"Joy" from the collection "Feel Free"
"Lazy River" from the collection "Grand Union"
extract from "Canines: The Ripping Teeth" from the novel White Teeth
All by Zadie Smith

MUSIC:
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Act 2 "Dance of the Mirlitons"
Gity Razaz: "Mother" 
Leonard Bernstein: Overture to "Candide" 
Frank Zappa: "Outrage at Valdez" 
Rogers and Hart - arr Simon Nathan: "I Could Write a Book" 

Recorded at the Barbican on Earth Day, Friday 22nd April 2022

Conductor: Ben Gernon
Producer for BBC Radio 4: Steve Doherty
Producer for BBC Radio 3: Ann McKay
Executive Producer: Paul Hughes

A Giddy Goat/BBC Symphony Orchestra co-production for BBC Radio 4

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