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| Concerto Grosso performed by Academy of Saint Martin in the Field |  |
CLASSICAL COMMONWEALTH Part 2 | |
Errollyn Wallen Composer of the Week Jan 3 - 7 2022 |  |
| Watch this thrilling performance of Concerto Grosso in a filmed performed by ASMF and conducted by John Butt. Live on Facebook and YouTube at 7.30pm January 21st 2022. | Errollyn Wallen unravels more stories of how classical music fused with local musical traditions across the British Commonwealth, speaking to acclaimed South African double-bassist Leon Bosch, Canadian indigenous composers Cris Derksen and T. Patrick Carrabre, and the Jamaican musical polymath Peter Ashbourne, who works across the genres of classical, jazz and reggae. Errollyn explores the remarkable hybrid musical identities at play in the nations of South Africa and Jamaica - and tells the fascinating and complex story of how the music of Canada's indigenous communities has been celebrated by a new generation of composers and performers seeking to capture their cultural "in-between"-ness in sound. Errollyn is also joined by the music historians Stephen Banfield and Wayne Weaver, as well as the Thai-American cellist and researcher Jon Silpayamanant, to explore challenging questions around our reception (and sometimes neglect) of this music in a postcolonial era. In celebrating and championing this repertoire - how much do we also need to confront ideas of musical colonialism? What does this all tell us about how musical culture was disseminated - and sometimes imposed - across the British Empire? And what should we make of it today? An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 3 Producer: Steven Rajam |
Donald Macleod chats to composer Errollyn Wallen about her heritage and musical upbringing. Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen has been called a “renaissance woman of contemporary music”. She’s a remarkably versatile and prolific composer, pianist and songwriter and one of our most in-demand musical voices today. She was the first black woman to have a piece performed at the Proms. In 1998, her music opened the 2012 Paralympic games. She's even been performed in space, aboard Nasa’s STS115 mission. Wallen writes in a kaleidoscopic range of styles; her music constantly crosses and re-crosses musical boundaries and it brims over with a sense of adventure and delight. All this week, Donald Macleod gets to know Errollyn as she dials into his studio from her Scottish lighthouse where she retreats to concentrate on her work. |
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