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The Choir of King's College Sings on Christmas Eve. Team UNPLUGGED wishes you a very merry CHRISTMAS !!
Pictured: Bob Willis Matthew Bannister on Bob Willis, the former England cricket captain, who was seen as one of the finest fast bowlers of his generation. Gary Rhodes, the spiky-haired TV chef who won Michelin stars for his re-invention of classic British recipes. Shuping Wang, the Chinese doctor who lost her job and her marriage after blowing the whistle on a trade in blood products that was spreading HIV through Henan province. Sir Stephen Cleobury, the musical director of King's College Cambridge for thirty-seven years. He commissioned a new carol every year for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. Interviewed guest: Jonathan Agnew MBE Interviewed guest: Fiona Pitcher Interviewed guest: Thane Prince Interviewed guest: Sir Michael Boyd Interviewed guest: The Reverend Dr Stephen Cherry Interviewed guest: Peter Lindsay Producer: Neil George Archive clips from: Today, Radio 4 05/12/2019; Test Match Special, 5 Live 04/12/2019; Rhodes Around Britain, BBC Two 08/06/1995, 25/05/1995, 05/07/1994, 07/06/1994; Top of the Class, Radio 4 18/08/2008; Great British Food Revival, BBC Two 17/11/2011; Woman’s Hour, Radio 4 19/09/2019; CD Review, Radio 3 25/12/2004.
The latest recording from King's College Cambridge explores the music of Herbert Howells, featuring choral music (including An English Mass), organ works, and a newly completed Cello Concerto. Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford met with Music Director Stephen Cleobury to talk about the album - and, as Cleobury prepares to retire from the position this summer, to look back over 37 years of extraordinary music-making.Â
Emily Buchanan talks to Libby Purves about her collection of Nativity scenes. After which, Bishop David Walker and the Revd Dr Ian Paul will discuss if Jesus was actually born in a stable and whether or not it really matters. Fergal Keane remembers a happy Christmas time in Soweto in the early 1990s and Yolande Knell has been celebrating the Feast of St Nicholas with Palestinian Christians. The Bishop of Manchester comments on recent figures from the Office of National Statistics which show that the number of homeless people dying in England and Wales has risen by 25% over the past five years. The Dean of Blackburn talks about the gin he has created with a local distillery to raise money for the cathedral and Samantha Calvert, from the Vegan Society, describes a vegan Christmas and discusses why veganism should become a protected belief. And there is a taster from a documentary going out on Radio 4 on Christmas Day about the Once in Royal David City solo which is always sung at the beginning of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge. Producers: Helen Lee Peter Everett Editor: Amanda Hancox
Why do we sing Lessons and Carols? On the 100th anniversary of the first singing at King's College Cambridge, we remember that it was a new service, and one that brings our own lived experiences into church and helps us to make meaning in the voices of poets and musicians throughout the years who have worked to explain the scriptures we read. Merry Christmas!
Yolande Knell soaks up the atmosphere in Bethlehem's Manger Square as Christians worldwide prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Reporter Vishva Samani talks to women sleeping rough in Manchester and asks why their numbers are increasing. A Muslim, a Jewish and a Hindu family each describe what they get up to on the 25th December. Two years ago, the Butrus family fled persecution Iraq and Syria because of their Christian faith. As they prepare to celebrate their second Christmas in this country, they tell Edward Stourton about their flight and their hopes for the future. In recent years, Islamic extremist such as ISIS and Boko Haram have attacked Christians in the Middle East and Africa but there is growing concern for Christian communities in India, Pakistan and China too. John Pontifex from Aid to the Church in Need tells Edward why persecution against Christians is on the rise. Since 1983, the choir of King's College Cambridge has performed a new carol at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. This year's is by Welsh composer Huw Watkins, Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, we get a sneak preview. In the early years of the 20th century, 'the wizardry of Mr Marconi' enabled the BBC to celebrate a very British sort of Christmas with the rest of the world. To take a look at those first festive offerings from Auntie Beeb, Edward is joined by Paul Kerensa, author of a new book called 'Hark! The Biography of Christmas'. Sarah Mullally has just been appointed to the one of the top jobs in the Church of England - she is going to be the next Bishop of London. She talks about the challenges ahead and how her background in nursing will impact on her new role. Producers: Helen Lee Lissa Cook Series Producer: Amanda Hancox.
Sean Rafferty with guests from across the week on In Tune, including harpsichordist and director Trevor Pinnock, folk duo Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage, the Doric String Quartet, The King's Men (close harmony group of choral scholars from King's College Cambridge) with composer and Radio 3 presenter Michael Berkeley on his commission for Nine Lessons and Carols, and BLOCK4 the recorder quartet from BBC Classical Introducing.
Stephen Hugh-Jones is a fellow of King's College Cambridge and has spent 45 years researching - and living among - the Amazonian Indians who live on the Equator, in South-Eastern Colombia. They are still one of the most remote peoples on earth, and when Dr Hugh-Jones and his wife Christine first went to live there, in the late 1960s, this was a people, and a culture, completely untouched by modern life. This was partly because people were afraid of them; they had a reputation for being dangerous and cannibalistic. In fact, Dr Hugh-Jones discovered that really they were a pacific people, with a very sophisticated set of religious beliefs. And music is a key part of their religious ceremonies. For Private Passions, Stephen Hugh-Jones brings along musical instruments that he has brought back from Colombia, and recordings he has made of music there. He chooses, too, music which he took with him to listen to when he was living so far from home, particularly Bach - who caused a surprising reaction in the Amazon. Other choices include Purcell, Alfred Brendel playing Schubert, Beethoven's String Quartet No 15 in A minor, and Cuban music played by an African band. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.
Track Record with Sue Dougan goes on location at King's College, Cambridge. This week she talks to college provost Michael Proctor, a professor of Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics, about his career and musical influences. We also hear about his preparations for reading the final lesson in the iconic carol concert.
Matthew Bannister on Sir David Willcocks - one of the most influential choir masters of his generation. Known for his descants to Christmas carols, he was director of music at King's College Cambridge for 17 years - and led the Bach choir for 38. Merv Adelson the property developer who founded the TV company Lorimar which made hits like the Waltons, Dallas and Knots Landing. Mariem Hassan, the singer from the marginalised Sahrawi people who used her music to promote their cause. Brian Close the Yorkshire and England cricket captain noted for his courage at the crease. And Beryl Renwick who became a presenter on BBC Radio Humberside in her eighties and won the industry's top award.
Presented by Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir. Kanya King MBE is the founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards, Europe's leading urban music brand, which has played a major role in bringing black music and culture to the mainstream. Now in its 19th year, it reaches in excess of 400 million viewers. Kanya reveals how she started it from a makeshift office in her bedroom, and by re-mortgaging her home. George The Poet describes his dizzying itinerary from Uganda to the Albert Hall via Stonebridge Park, and King's College Cambridge and performs from his latest work about fatherlessness and premature parenthood. Ben Collins is better known as "The Stig" from the BBC's internationally acclaimed Top Gear TV show. He discusses how he has coached hundreds of celebrities from Tom Cruise to Lionel Richie and his twenty year career as one of the best drivers in the world - from Le Mans Series racing to NASCAR, piloting the Batmobile and dodging bullets with James Bond. JP Devlin goes to meet Mike Cobb. As a budding songwriter in the 1970s Mike found himself recording at a studio in Leatherhead. It was located above the local Co-Op dairy. His songs didn't go anywhere but he ended up staying on at the studio as a studio manager for the next 11 years. The Police recorded their album Outlandos D'Amour there and all the while the milk floats whirred in and out. They'd start at 5am when many bands like The Police were in the middle of recording. Milkmen would bump into bleary eyed rock stars. Did the early morning sound of the milk floats inspire some of the great tunes of the 70s and 80s? Phil Worsley and pupils from The Joseph Whitaker School in Nottingham explain how they are preparing to smash the world speed record for a model car. Bonnie Langford shares her Inheritance Tracks - Bring Me Sunshine by Morecambe and Wise, and The Overture of Gypsy by Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra. And Len Biddlecombe has written 47 poems for his wife Barbara, to mark every year they have spent together. Barbara now has Alzheimer's and lives in a nursing home. Len shares his last poem to her. The MOBO Awards 2014 - will take place on 22 October at The SSE Arena, Wembley. George the Poet's new EP is Chicken and Egg. He will be performing at the Scala London on 13 October. How to Drive - The Ultimate Guide - from the man who was The Stig, by Ben Collins, is published by Macmillan. Bonnie Langford is appearing in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy Theatre in London. Life of Love by Len Biddlecombe is published in paperback by Blackheath Dawn Ltd.
Melvyn Bragg examines the literary and political career of the poet John Milton. If it wasn't for the poet Andrew Marvell we wouldn't have his later works; Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. Milton spent the English Civil Wars as a prominent politician and right hand man to Oliver Cromwell. When the Monarchy was restored in 1660 it was only Marvell's intervention that saved Milton from execution. By then, Marvell argued, Milton was old and blind and posed no threat to Charles II. But as a young man Milton had been an activist and pamphleteer extraordinaire. Allegedly inspired by a meeting with Galileo he wrote in passionate defence of Liberty. He detested the Church's insistence on empty ritual. And most dramatically for his time he demanded that the state serve its people rather than the people serve the state. How then should we remember Milton - as poet or politician - as an idealist or an apologist for a revolutionary yet intolerant regime? And was he a man at one with the people or an elitist who preached to the masses but lived his own life only in the most rarefied of circles? With John Carey, Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Oxford University; Lisa Jardine, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary College, University of London and Honorary Fellow of King's College Cambridge; Blair Worden, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Sussex.
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is a man who, among many other achievements, gave his name to a famous report in the 1970s on the future of broadcasting - Lord Annan. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his long and distinguished career which has ranged through the Cabinet War Office, King's College Cambridge, The Royal Opera House and London University - as well as recalling many friends and acquaintances from his university days, from EM Forster to the notorious Guy Burgess. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: 7th Symphony Final Movement by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The Iliad in Greek & English by Homer Luxury: Bath essence