Front Row artwork

Alison Balsom, Fez, Robert MacFarlane

Front Row

English - November 06, 2019 19:57 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MB - ★★★★ - 108 ratings
Society & Culture Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed


Alison Balsom, Britain's leading trumpet soloist, talks about her new album Royal Fireworks, a collection of Baroque pieces by Bach, Telemann, Handel and Purcell, played on the "natural" trumpet, a baroque instrument without any valves, which means that each note is made by the shape of the lips.

The inaugural Drake YolanDa British Producer and Songwriter Prize has been won by the jazz musician Fez, who had to compete against other producers to write and record a new song in front of the judges in 45 minutes!

Writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Stanley Donwood talk about their new work Ness, which is part novella, part prose poem and part mystery play, about the land reclaiming a place which once threatened its very existence, an atomic weapons test centre.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Timothy Prosser