World of Classical

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

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Music: Classical

Music: World: Cross Cultural

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Jon Silpayamanant joins the dots between classical music traditions across the globe.

Thai-American cellist, composer and transcultural researcher Jon Silpayamanant traces shifting global trends across different musical cultures.

World of Classical: Pious Voices and Plucked Strings

Pious Voices and Plucked Strings

BBC Radio 3 - World of Classical, Pious Voices and Plucked Strings

Jon Silpayamanant joins the dots between different music traditions in the Middle Ages.

Jon Silpayamanant joins the dots between different classical music traditions in the Middle Ages, from Europe to Africa and China.

How much richer would our listening experience be if we could join the dots between classical music traditions around the world? 

In this three-part series, Thai-American cellist, composer and transcultural researcher Jon Silpayamanant traces shifting global trends across different musical cultures. 

This episode visits the Middle Ages, and the emergence of music notation. Silpayamanant opens with music from the 12th century by Hildegard von Bingen, then travels back to show how liturgical chant was being preserved 600 years prior to this in Ethiopia, while developing in parallel in other Christian cultures such as Armenia. Other forms of musical record keeping were emerging in China, in the griot lineages of the Mali empire, and with the troubadours of south west Europe, allowing increasingly complex and rich musical traditions to be sustained.

Produced by Chris Elcombe
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3.

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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World of Classical

Pious Voices and Plucked Strings

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