Music Matters: Music on the Front Line

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Music Matters: Music on the Front Line: Lyse Doucet

Lyse Doucet

Music on the Front Line

BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Music on the Front Line, Lyse Doucet

Lyse Doucet tells Clive Myrie about music she's heard while reporting from conflict zones.

Clive Myrie in conversation with news correspondents. He and Lyse Doucet share stories revealing the power and meaning of music when reporting from extreme conflict situations.

Clive Myrie is in conversation with news correspondents about the music they’ve heard whilst reporting from the front line. With his own extensive experience of covering wars, and his personal love of opera and jazz, Clive and Lyse Doucet share stories to reveal something of the power and significance of music when working in extreme conflict situations.

As BBC Presenter and Chief International Correspondent, Lyse’s working life is full of encounters with music and musicians.  When she was starting out as a freelance journalist in conflict situations in Chad, Liberia, Burkina Faso, she fell in love with the playing of Korean violinist Kyung-Wha Chung and Mendelsohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor was a constant companion during her travels. She heard Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in B Minor K27 at the height of the Syrian war in the Damascus Opera House. It felt like a mournful elegy to a lost land. In 2021 she attended the last rehearsal by the Afghan National Orchestra before the Taliban swept into Kabul and destroyed the Conservatoire. They were rehearsing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the Ode to Joy. She still can’t believe that everything then fell apart so quickly.

Producer: Rosie Boulton
A Must Try Softer Production

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.

Clive Myrie in conversation with news correspondents about music heard on the front line.

Clive Myrie in conversation with news correspondents about the music they've heard whilst reporting from the front line.

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