Podcast appearances and mentions of Tom Service

Journalist Siân Pattenden & critic Stephanie Merritt join Tom to discuss Self Esteem's third album A Complicated Woman, which features collaborations with Nadine Shah and Moonchild Sanelly. Ahead of the release, Self Esteem AKA Rebecca Lucy Taylor showcased the album by staging a five-night theatrical presentation at London's Duke of York theatre. Tom and guests also talk about the Belgian film Julie Keeps Quiet, where a star player at a top tennis school deals with the aftermath of her coach being suspended. And they review the RSC's Stratford-upon-Avon contemporary production of Much Ado about Nothing which is set in the world of elite football. Plus, presenter Tom Service talks about the line up for the 2025 BBC Proms.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

Isn't it great to be able to listen to so much music, to be able to search and scroll and find anything you want…? Or to have tracks suggested for you without even thinking about it…? Or is it? Perhaps you miss the days when you had to save up to buy a recording, and you loved it so much you listened over and over again. Or you waited for something to be played on the radio, knowing it might be the only chance you'd have to hear it. Tom Service explores how we listen today in the digital age and reflects on the pieces of music that changed his life when he heard them first, and then really listened to them, again and again.Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service talks to Sir Mark Elder about the legacy that he is leaving behind him after 24 years as Music Director at the Hallé Orchestra. He talks to Tom about Charles Hallé and his mission to set up an orchestra for all the people of Manchester, and how his ethos is still central to the orchestra today. Not only has mark Elder evolved the sound of the orchestra and transformed music-making in Manchester, putting generations of choral singers associated with the Hallé centre stage, but he has forged an identity for Hallé as the orchestra to play British music, and particularly the works of Elgar. Mark Elder also talks to Tom about his tenure at English National Opera, and the current funding crises that face music in the UK. As he prepares to step down from the Hallé, he also reflects on how coincidental it is that he should have been destined for Manchester, once the home of his great Uncle. Norman Cocker, who was a well-known organist at the Cathedral there.

Tom Service discovers the mighty musical power of needle drop - the use of pre-existing music in film soundtracks.From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Barbie, from The Shining to Maestro, Tom listens in to some of the most iconic film scenes using needle-dropped classical music. He explores how directors harness the resonance and meanings of a piece of music to enrich the film's storytelling, and how a successful fusion of sound and image can leave such a deep impression in viewers' minds that music and film become inextricably entwined in popular consciousness.Plus, Maggie Rodford - one of the film industry's most sought-after music supervisors - pulls back the curtain on the processes and thinking behind choosing the right needle drop for the right scene to make the most meaningful movie.Producer: David Fay

Tom Service talks to pianist and writer, Susan Tomes, about her new book Women and the Piano - a History in 50 Lives. Those lives include well-known names today, from Clara Schumann to Nina Simone, but also many women like Marianne Martinez who have been eclipsed from previous histories of pianists. Tom and Susan discuss how women went from being the Queens of the piano in domestic settings to being excluded from public performances and conservatoires during the development of the concert piano. Pianist, Lucy Parham, talks to Tom too about the impact that Susan's book has had on her, and she talks about life today for female pianists.The Afghan Youth Orchestra is embarking on its first UK tour - Breaking the Silence. Currently exiled in Portugal, the young musicians live and study, having escaped the Taliban's censorship of music. The orchestra's founder, Dr Ahmad Sarmast and two of his violinists, Sevinch Majidi and Ali Sina Hotak, talk to Tom about their hopes of keeping Afghanistan's situation on the international radar through their music, which fuses traditional and Western instruments into a bold new sound.Tenor Allan Clayton and Aurora Orchestra join forces in a new and highly imaginative theatrical production of Hans Zender's composed interpretation of Schubert's Winterreise. Tom Service finds out more when he visits them in rehearsal. He talks to Allan alongside Aurora's conductor Nicholas Collon and creative director Jane Mitchell about Zender's interpretation of Schubert's original song-cycle.Tom Service also talks to Kerry Andrew, multi-talented composer, singer, performer and writer. Kerry's third novel, We are Together Because, is out now and Tom talks to them about how music infuses their writing. Tom also talks to Kerry about their last album - Hare - Hunter - Moth - Ghost - recorded as You Are Wolf and in which they turn folk songs and myths inside out.

"For me, the best music is an impassioned argument". So said one of Britain's greatest 20th-century composers, Elizabeth Maconchy. Who?? Despite her many awards and medals - including a damehood in 1987 - and a lifetime spent promoting new music, Elizabeth's work slipped out of fashion and out of view in the latter part of her remarkable career. With concertos and symphonies, vocal music, chamber works, five operas, an operetta and three ballets to her name, Elizabeth's voice is that of economy, elegance and rich expression. And it is in her century-spanning 13 string quartets that her development - and musical outlook - as an artist are most closely expressed. With a cultural resurgence in all things mid-century, Tom Service chats to Janell Yeo of the Bloomsbury Quartet and considers whether the time is now ripe for a reclamation of Elizabeth's place at our musical top table.

Presented by Tom Service. This week, Tom talks to the American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato about her life in music, and her creative mission to challenge the status quo. From her work in refugee camps, to her long relationship with the maximum security prison SingSing in New York State, as well as in concert halls and opera stages, DiDonato confounds expectations of an international classical artist. She talks about the joy of engaging differently with young audiences, and of recording and touring projects like Eden, which makes real connections with the natural world and includes the publishing of new music for anyone to sing.Conductor Edward Gardner and artist Ben Cullen Wiliams talk about their reimagining of Szymanowski's ballet Harnasie: a story of love, bandits, and how the robbers of the Tatra mountains in Poland win out over the civilisation below. Also featuring filmed choreography by Wayne MacGregor, the production has received its premiere in Katowice and comes to London this month, and uses human and digital intelligence to form a kinetic, sculptural video installation opening a portal to new worlds of dance.And Caroline Potter reveals the mission behind her new book, 'Pierre Boulez: Organised Delirium', which aims to change perceptions about the French composer. A leading figure of the musical avant-garde in the mid-20th century, Boulez is known for the mathematical and structural elements of his music, but Caroline Potter places just as much importance on the influences in his early career from the worlds of literature, magic, surrealism and the music of other cultures.

Many of the most instantly recognisable works in classical music are inspired by the Earth's moon – Debussy's ‘Clair de Lune', Beethoven's ‘Moonlight Sonata', Dvořák's ‘Song to the Moon'. Tom Service takes us on a musical voyage to the moon (and back), from the cosmic-scale classical to the lesser known music invoking and inspired by our mysterious celestial companion. With Professor Monica Grady CBE, leading British space scientist.Producer: Lola Grieve

Tom Service talks to composer Anna Meredith as her soundtrack to the poetic British film The End We Start From, and starring Jodie Comer, is featuring in cinemas across the UK. She talks in detail about the compositional process; from the very beginning as she hums a tune and records it onto her phone, to the workings required to produce music that is full of irresistible energy. Pianist Igor Levit talks to Tom about his new album featuring Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words. He talks about his admiration for Busoni and the deep emotion and connection he feels when he plays music by Mahler.

Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony is given the subtitle "Pathétique", the use of the French word removing some of the negative connotations that the word pathetic has in English, which is the literal translation. Pathétique suggests something of great passion with perhaps a sense of great sadness too. Tom Service examines how this word might apply to one of Tchaikovsky's most profound and intense works.

Tom Service meets French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet during his recital tour where he performs both books of Debussy's Préludes. His 1996 recording of the pieces has just been re-released on vinyl with artwork created by his friend Vivienne Westwood, shortly before she died. Jean-Yves talks to Tom about the need to collaborate, his love of Debussy, Gershwin and Bill Evans, and why challenging conventions and being yourself as an artist are the keys to success and happiness. He also shares his excitement about an upcoming multisensory performance of Alexander Scriabin's 1910 tone poem 'Prometheus, The Poem of Fire' - a collaboration with Cartier in-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and San Francisco Symphony which involves not only light and colour in addition to the music, but scent too.Tom talks to pianist Alice Sara Ott and composer Bryce Dessner about a new piano concerto he's written for her, which receives its UK premiere in February. Inspired by Alice's playing, the piece is also dedicated to Bryce's sister Jessica, a dancer and choreographer who has shaped his musical life. Alice talks about her love of Bryce's music and the challenges of getting inside a new piece. Bryce discusses his approach to the concerto, the power of acoustic music and how his work as a composer for the concert hall relates to his life as guitarist and writer in the band The National.

Tom Service meets Finnish soprano, Karita Mattila as she prepares for her role as Klytämnestra in Strauss's Elektra at the Royal Opera House in London. She talks to him about the roles her voice now allows her to sing 40 years after winning the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Tom drops in on rehearsals at Song in Sign, the latest project from FormidAbility, the opera company founded to put accessibility at the centre of creativity. Tom talks to director, Caroline Parker and to founder and soprano, Joanne Roughton-Arnold ahead of the company's forthcoming tour.Musicians, Mary Dullea and Darragh Morgan and composer, Matthew Shlomowitz join Tom in studio to pay tribute to composer, John White who died earlier this month. And finally, Tom talks to double-bassist, Edgar Meyer as he prepares for his visit to Glasgow to perform his Concertino with the Scottish Ensemble at this year's Celtic Connections. He talks to Tom about his collaborations, his sound and how he is influencing the next generation.

Tom Service explores the world of the Ukulele, from the Hawaiian Royal Court of King Kalakaua to Blackpool Pier with George Formby, the Royal Albert Hall where hundreds of ukulele players performed Beethoven's Ode to Joy at the 2009 BBC Proms, and into thousands of classrooms where it's now the most widely taught instrument in British primary schools. With Hawaiian born ukulele virtuoso and composer Taimane Gardner.Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service speaks to the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director of the Montreal Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He is one of the starriest and most sought-after conductors in the world. also one of the most loved by the musicians who work with him. Nézet-Séguin is guest conductor to some of the world's top orchestras, like the Vienna Philharmonic, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Berlin Philharmonic, and he has recorded cycles of symphonies by Brahms, Beethoven and Bruckner, plus operas by Mozart, Gounod and Wagner. Alongside the core repertoire, he's on a mission to perform new works that represent all of society and thereby draw new audiences to the orchestras that he leads and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He tells Tom about the richly fulfilling experiences of putting on Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut up in My bones and Kevin Puts' The Hours, and how these two new operas are both bringing in audiences who have never been to the MET before, whilst also refreshing the cherished classics traditionally staged there. 2024: what does the new year hold for the musical scene? What's the impact of cuts across classical music, from education in schools to opera companies, and what are the opportunities of the moment for those who run our orchestras and lead music education? Tom Service convenes a Music Matters counsel of musical sages to discuss their thoughts of the state of music as we step into 2024: Sophie Lewis, Chief Executive of the National Children's Orchestras and Chair of the Association of British Orchestras; Gillian Moore, Artistic Associate of the South Bank Centre in London, writer and consultant; and Phil Castang, Chief Executive of Music for Youth.

Priscilla is Sofia Coppola's film about Priscilla Beaulieu who first met Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old and later became his wife. Critics Hannah Strong and Ryan Gilbey review it. They also look at Kagami, a mixed-reality posthumous concert featuring the music of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.The power of music often relies on the spaces between the notes. Sarah Anderson's book The Lost Art of Silence explores the quality of absence and she discusses this with the music broadcaster Tom Service.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Harry Parker

The word 'resolution' has several meanings. It can refer to something that has been settled or resolved. It can infer a desire to do something differently or to behave in a changed way - as in a New Year resolution. It can also mark the final unravelling of some great complication or drama. In music, it means something more specific: the progression from discord to consonance. With New Year in mind, Tom Service considers the idea of resolution in music in the widest sense of the word; including a look at how composers set about creating a resolve to their musical ideas. Tom's guest expert is the composer Dobrinka Tabakova.

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Tom Service, exploring the musical life of The Big Apple, from its underground scene to John and Yoko's loft and Superman's skies. He roams The City That Never Sleeps, whose origins as the swampy "hilly island" known as Mana-hatta are buried under the modern day powerhouse that acts as both setting and character in the music it inspires. From Bach in the subway to minimalist taxi drivers and King Kong, by way of Varese, Thomas Ades and Bernstein, Tom celebrates this astonishing musical city.

Tom Service chooses his favourite recording of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor

Tom Service learns about adaptive instruments, and celebrates Maria Callas's centenary.

At the back row of the orchestra, usually three in number, sit the trombone section, but why three and how long have they been there? Tom Service reflects on their history and the ways in which they are employed. He looks back on over five hundred years of the story of the trombone and offers insight into the meaning of things such as 'Tower Music' and 'Stadtpfeifer'. Tom looks at the role of the trombone in religious music and in music for the theatre, and at its comparitively late arrival within the symphony orchestra, back in the final decades of the 18th Century. And there's a chance to enjoy some of the distinctive qualities that trombones offer to the orchestral music of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Shostakovich and Berg. This week's guest expert is the principal trombonist of the Halle Orchestra, Katy Jones.

Tom Service talks to Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinettist with the New York Philharmonic, as he commences his tenure as Artist-in-Residence at Milton Court in London. They discuss his recent performances of Anthony Davis powerful and operatic work for clarinet and orchestra, You Have the Right to Remain Silent, and his Grammy nominated album, American Stories, on which he collaborated with the Pacific Quartet. On the 400th anniversary of the death of the composer Thomas Weelkes, Music Matters visits Chichester Cathedral - the scene of some of his greatest music and noted misdemeanours. BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, Dr. Ellie Chan, and Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral, Charles Harrison, discuss how he advanced the English choral tradition. Following the recent news that the Music Department at Oxford Brookes University it set to close, Professor of music at Oxford University, Jonathan Cross, shares his thoughts about the place of music education in our society. And, Sara Mohr Pietsch sits down with the pianist Imogen Cooper to talk about her life in music, studying with Alfred Brendel, her love of Schubert, and how she's curating darkness and light into her forthcoming concert programmes.

Tom Service explores J. S. Bach's extraordinary Well Tempered Clavier, a series of 48 preludes and fugues for keyboard in all 24 major and minor keys. It's widely regarded as a towering achievement and a cornerstone of western art music. The 19th century German conductor and pianist, Hans von Bülow famously described it as “The Old Testament of Music” and generations of musicians and scholars have spoken of its monumental stature in the history and development of music. From the first, C major prelude with its lean and simple series of arpeggios, taking listeners on an exquisite harmonic journey, through to darker and more complex moments, with plenty of playfulness and joy along the way, the Well Tempered Clavier is an astonishing feat of imagination. These two books of preludes and fugues are a treasure trove, where Bach combines contrapuntal wizardry with his extraordinary gift for expressing human emotion. With help from American pianist, Jeremy Denk, Tom Service lifts the lid on the Well Tempered Clavier to discover its secrets. Producer: Jonathan Hallewell

As his new album Letter(s) to Erik Satie is set to be released, the French pianist Bertrand Chamayou talks to presenter Tom Service about the connections he sees between the visionary composers it features, including John Cage, James Tenney and Erik Satie, and how the project took him to places he'd never been before. He tells Tom how collaborating with the soprano Barbara Hannigan opened the door for this Satie project, about the unpredictability of the recording process, and how he'd like classical music performance to become more like visual art. Tom travels to Bristol's The Galleries shopping centre, home of Bristol's Eye Hospital Assessment centre, to visit a new installation featuring the testimony of 100 voices from across 12 NHS hospitals - including doctors, porters, nurses, consultants, and patients - which have been curated into an hour-long immersive experience. Providing a therapeutic space for contributors to express themselves, and an opportunity for audiences to contemplate the lived experience of hospital communities, Tom learns how the project's composer, Hannah Conway, and librettist, Hazel Gould, created four arias around common themes they encountered, and hears how they've become creatively projected into a bespoke structure that will tour Bristol, London, Preston and Addenbrooke over the coming weeks. With contributions, too, from Manager at NHS Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, Dipa Dave, and Head of Arts at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Natalie Ellis. Also today, as the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble prepares to perform a concert including Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Carter at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London this weekend, the violinist Michael Barenboim tells Music Matters how, despite the situation in the Middle-East, the collaborative principles behind his father's and Edward Said's orchestra – which seek to bring together Arab, Palestinian and Israeli musicians – are more important than ever. And the composer Jack van Zandt - author of a new book, Alexander Goehr, Composing a Life - speaks to Tom about the ongoing teacher-pupil relationship he's developed under the tutelage of Alexander - Sandy - Goehr, and how Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, and among others, Richard Hall, have in turn provided tuition and inspiration across Sandy's musical life.

From Strictly to village fête vegetables, competitions are embedded in our culture. And music is no exception: think of the Pythian Games of ancient Greece, the mediaeval singing competitions which selected the Master Singers, the improvisatory keyboard face-offs of 18th-century Vienna, and the international media-driven events of our own times. But are musical instinct and the competitive spirit uneasy bedfellows? Why do some musical tournaments consistently produce winners who go on to have spectacular careers, and others winners who sink without trace? What's the value of music written for competitions? On hand to help Tom Service answer these questions and throw light on the sometimes murky world of music competitions are Lisa McCormick author of Performing Civility, a study of the social aspects of music competitions, and saxophonist and 2016 BBC Young Musician finalist, Jess Gillam. David Papp (producer)

Tom Service explores the enduring appeal of the tenor voice.

Tom Service explores one of the most popular, played, and performed works of all time - Johannes Brahms's Symphony No 4 in E minor.

As his new recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra of the complete symphonies of Anton Bruckner - all eleven of them - hit the record stores, Tom Service speaks to the German conductor Christian Thielemann. He tells Tom about what had, for him, been a burning desire to embark on the journey to record all of the composer's symphonies, as well as the consolations of working with one of the world's greatest orchestras. Thielemann shares his vision, too, for audiences in the German capital following the recent news he'll succeed Daniel Barenboim as the General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera. With preparations well underway for this year's London Jazz Festival, Tom catches-up with the ‘Queen of African Music' - Angélique Kidjo. She describes her first encounter with Beethoven among the vinyl records of classical music her father had collected before the disruption of Benin's dictatorships, and speaks about her escape to Paris in the 1980s, as well as the joyous spirit of defiance and power of music in the conflicts she's witnessed in Sudan and Uganda. And as ensembles around the country gear up for the finals of this year's National Brass Band Championships, Music Matters eavesdrops on the preparatory rehearsals of last year's winner's, Foden's Brass Band. With contributions from principal cornet, Mark Wilkinson, principal trombone and Chairman, John Barber, flugel horn player, Melanie Whyle, and conductor, Russell Gray, Tom also speaks to the composer of this year's test piece, Edward Gregson, about his ‘Of Men and Mountains', which will be performed by twenty bands at this year's championships.

The opening orchestral strains of Wagner's opera Lohengrin with its high shimmering strings prompted the French poet Charles Baudelaire to observe that in Wagner's music he found "something rapt and enthralling, something aspiring to mount higher, something excessive and superlative". The ability of music to evoke a sense of the ethereal has a strange and powerful effect on listeners, something that composers have been aware of across the ages. Tom Service examines how this music creates its affect and to what ends. He draws on examples from Hldegard of Bingen, Gregorio Allegri, Wolfgang Mozart, James Horner, Einojuhani Rautavaara and George Crumb - among others - and of course Richard Wagner.

Mozart's famous Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola makes its effect not least through the unusual tuning of the strings of one of the solo instruments. Mozart asks the viola player to retune the strings half a tone higher than is usual. A process known by musicians a "scordatura". But what is the reason and what is the story behind this method of tuning instruments? Tom Service explains why "scordatura" is so significant and so effective.

Tom Service enters the sublime and joyous world of Poulenc's Catholic choral work Gloria.

What exactly is a symphony, and how can one written in the 18th century by the ‘father of the symphony' Joseph Haydn (he wrote over a hundred), have anything in common with one written today? Where did they come from in the first place, and why did they come to dominate classical music for centuries? Why do they still feature in almost every orchestral concert programmed, when so few are actually commissioned? Tom Service investigates with help from our witness, composer Deirdre Gribbin. Producer: Ruth Thomson

With a main suspect finally in their sights and on the run, Bianca and Cole close in on the truth. But is solving the case and unraveling the mystery the same thing, and will the answers be worth the cost? Homicide at Heavensgate stars Marta da Silva as Bianca Buchanan, Lofty Fulton as Cole Duncan, and features the voice talent of David Ault -- June Yoon -- Joanna Tope -- Antonio King -- Sasha Masakowski -- Ethan Carlson -- Andy Harvey -- Daniel Cross -- Hesham Elshazly -- A. G. Willoughby -- Joseph Narducci -- Nato Jacobson -- Joseph Narducci -- Laura Richcreek -- Georgia Mckenzie -- Shaun Conde -- Hannah Glavin -- Chaz Alberti -- J. K. Robbins -- Randy Streu -- Vinay Nariani -- Bjorn Munson -- Nathaniel Battaglia Written and Directed by Richard C. Mills. Editing by Christian Carlson, Richard C. Mills, and Dayn Leonardson. Sound Design and Engineering by Richard C. Mills and Dayn Leonardson. Musical score created and produced by IB Aural. Lunar concert music written and performed by Sasha Masakowski. Casting assistance by June Yoon and Jasmine Sabry. Recording assistance by Tom Service and Ramy Hussein. Artwork and graphic design by Jordan H. Mills. A special thanks to our supporters including Rich and JaNett Mills, William and Sharon Heath, Eric Carlson, and Chaz Alberti. Support our Vision: https://vault.sentinelstudios.net/access

On the day of the concert and the eve of the New Century, Bianca's choices from a past case begin to bleed into the present, and she has to decide if she's the good cop, the bad cop, or something even worse. Homicide at Heavensgate stars Marta da Silva as Bianca Buchanan, Lofty Fulton as Cole Duncan, and features the voice talent of David Ault -- June Yoon -- Joanna Tope -- Antonio King -- Sasha Masakowski -- Ethan Carlson -- Andy Harvey -- Daniel Cross -- Hesham Elshazly -- A. G. Willoughby -- Joseph Narducci -- Nato Jacobson -- Joseph Narducci -- Laura Richcreek -- Georgia Mckenzie -- Shaun Conde -- Hannah Glavin -- Chaz Alberti -- J. K. Robbins -- Randy Streu -- Vinay Nariani -- Bjorn Munson -- Nathaniel Battaglia Written and Directed by Richard C. Mills. Editing by Christian Carlson, Richard C. Mills, and Dayn Leonardson. Sound Design and Engineering by Richard C. Mills and Dayn Leonardson. Musical score created and produced by IB Aural. Lunar concert music written and performed by Sasha Masakowski. Casting assistance by June Yoon and Jasmine Sabry. Recording assistance by Tom Service and Ramy Hussein. Artwork and graphic design by Jordan H. Mills. A special thanks to our supporters including Rich and JaNett Mills, William and Sharon Heath, Eric Carlson, and Chaz Alberti. Support our Vision: https://vault.sentinelstudios.net/access

Tom Service experiences musical time travel as he listens to "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with its magical interplay of ancient and modern. And film music expert Neil Brand examines how this and other classical adagios have been used to great effect in Hollywood blockbusters.

Personal feuds abound, but as Cole faces his fears and retrieves a solid lead, a shadowy conspiracy begins to emerge. Homicide at Heavensgate stars Marta da Silva as Bianca Buchanan, Lofty Fulton as Cole Duncan, and features the voice talent of David Ault -- June Yoon -- Joanna Tope -- Antonio King -- Sasha Masakowski -- Ethan Carlson -- Andy Harvey -- Daniel Cross -- Hesham Elshazly -- A. G. Willoughby -- Joseph Narducci -- Nato Jacobson -- Joseph Narducci -- Laura Richcreek -- Georgia Mckenzie -- Shaun Conde -- Hannah Glavin -- Chaz Alberti -- J. K. Robbins -- Randy Streu -- Vinay Nariani -- Bjorn Munson -- Nathaniel Battaglia Written and Directed by Richard C. Mills. Editing by Christian Carlson, Richard C. Mills, and Dayn Leonardson. Sound Design and Engineering by Richard C. Mills and Dayn Leonardson. Musical score created and produced by IB Aural. Lunar concert music written and performed by Sasha Masakowski. Casting assistance by June Yoon and Jasmine Sabry. Recording assistance by Tom Service and Ramy Hussein. Artwork and graphic design by Jordan H. Mills. A special thanks to our supporters including Rich and JaNett Mills, William and Sharon Heath, Eric Carlson, and Chaz Alberti. Support our Vision: https://vault.sentinelstudios.net/access

Bianca calls in a favor, and as she and Cole try to narrow down the list of suspects, they both come face to face with encounters that leave them shaken up and claustrophobic. Homicide at Heavensgate stars Marta da Silva as Bianca Buchanan, Lofty Fulton as Cole Duncan, and features the voice talent of David Ault -- June Yoon -- Joanna Tope -- Antonio King -- Sasha Masakowski -- Ethan Carlson -- Andy Harvey -- Daniel Cross -- Hesham Elshazly -- A. G. Willoughby -- Joseph Narducci -- Nato Jacobson -- Joseph Narducci -- Laura Richcreek -- Georgia Mckenzie -- Shaun Conde -- Hannah Glavin -- Chaz Alberti -- J. K. Robbins -- Randy Streu -- Vinay Nariani -- Bjorn Munson -- Nathaniel Battaglia Written and Directed by Richard C. Mills. Editing by Christian Carlson, Richard C. Mills, and Dayn Leonardson. Sound Design and Engineering by Richard C. Mills and Dayn Leonardson. Musical score created and produced by IB Aural. Lunar concert music written and performed by Sasha Masakowski. Casting assistance by June Yoon and Jasmine Sabry. Recording assistance by Tom Service and Ramy Hussein. Artwork and graphic design by Jordan H. Mills. A special thanks to our supporters including Rich and JaNett Mills, William and Sharon Heath, Eric Carlson, and Chaz Alberti. Support our Vision: https://vault.sentinelstudios.net/access

Tom Service surrounds himself in Tallis's Spem in alium, a colossal Renaissance masterpiece for 40 individual voice parts, arranged in eight groups of five voices, each situated all around the listeners. This was the original surround sound experience - one that came about not in 20th-century cinemas but in 16th-century churches. Produced by Dom Wells

With a killer in their midst, Bianca urges the guests to stay on guard, and come to her with any leads they might have. Meanwhile, Cole finds some revealing connections. Homicide at Heavensgate stars Marta da Silva as Bianca Buchanan, Lofty Fulton as Cole Duncan, and features the voice talent of David Ault -- June Yoon -- Joanna Tope -- Antonio King -- Sasha Masakowski -- Ethan Carlson -- Andy Harvey -- Daniel Cross -- Hesham Elshazly -- A. G. Willoughby -- Joseph Narducci -- Nato Jacobson -- Joseph Narducci -- Laura Richcreek -- Georgia Mckenzie -- Shaun Conde -- Hannah Glavin -- Chaz Alberti -- J. K. Robbins -- Randy Streu -- Vinay Nariani -- Bjorn Munson -- Nathaniel Battaglia Written and Directed by Richard C. Mills. Editing by Christian Carlson, Richard C. Mills, and Dayn Leonardson. Sound Design and Engineering by Richard C. Mills and Dayn Leonardson. Musical score created and produced by IB Aural. Lunar concert music written and performed by Sasha Masakowski. Casting assistance by June Yoon and Jasmine Sabry. Recording assistance by Tom Service and Ramy Hussein. Artwork and graphic design by Jordan H. Mills. A special thanks to our supporters including Rich and JaNett Mills, William and Sharon Heath, Eric Carlson, and Chaz Alberti. Support our Vision: https://vault.sentinelstudios.net/access

Tom Service programmes himself into the matrix of musical artificial intelligence.

Former cop turned private detective Bianca Buchannan gets an unexpected phone call, takes a new case, and finds all is not well in the gates of heaven. Homicide at Heavensgate stars Marta da Silva as Bianca Buchanan, Lofty Fulton as Cole Duncan, and features the voice talent of David Ault -- June Yoon -- Joanna Tope -- Antonio King -- Sasha Masakowski -- Ethan Carlson -- Andy Harvey -- Daniel Cross -- Hesham Elshazly -- A. G. Willoughby -- Joseph Narducci -- Nato Jacobson -- Joseph Narducci -- Laura Richcreek -- Georgia Mckenzie -- Shaun Conde -- Hannah Glavin -- Chaz Alberti -- J. K. Robbins -- Randy Streu -- Vinay Nariani -- Bjorn Munson -- Nathaniel Battaglia Written and Directed by Richard C. Mills. Editing by Christian Carlson, Richard C. Mills, and Dayn Leonardson. Sound Design and Engineering by Richard C. Mills and Dayn Leonardson. Musical score created and produced by IB Aural. Lunar concert music written and performed by Sasha Masakowski. Casting assistance by June Yoon and Jasmine Sabry. Recording assistance by Tom Service and Ramy Hussein. Artwork and graphic design by Jordan H. Mills. A special thanks to our supporters including Rich and JaNett Mills, William and Sharon Heath, Eric Carlson, and Chaz Alberti. Support our Vision: https://vault.sentinelstudios.net/access

Tom Service explores Ravel's Bolero – a classical chart-topper, concert-hall-filler and the soundtrack to Torvill and Dean's Olympic skating glory. Written in 1928, Ravel described it as a 'piece without music in it' and agreed with the lady at the Paris premiere who shouted 'rubbish! rubbish!' over the applause. But he also admitted that with Bolero he had gambled and won, making one of the most experimental and popular pieces of orchestral music ever composed.

Tom Service assesses the history of the Masters of the King's (or Queen's) Music - a pantheon of 21 names, some brilliant, some average, some really rather forgettable. What have the incumbents done with their time in the post, and how has the role changed in recent years? And how do they compare with their equivalents in literature, the Poets Laureate? With literary historian Oliver Tearle.

Tom Service delves into the deep (and often dark) worlds of Judith Weir's fairy-tale and folk-inspired operas, including Blond Eckbert and The Vanishing Bridegroom.

Inspired by David Attenborough's Wild Isles series, Tom Service goes in search of music that reflects British wildlife and wilderness, and our relationship with it. From the songs of Henry Purcell written whilst wolves still roamed the British Isles to orchestral representations of composers like Hamish MacCunn, Grace Williams and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the score for Wild Isles itself, written by the Oscar nominated film composer George Fenton. But perhaps truly wild music isn't music written about wild places: perhaps it's music which has a wildness of spirit, of process, or of uncontrollably organic construction, music that releases the untamed and the untameable, by composers like Peter Maxwell Davies, Brian Eno, and Chris Wood. But where do the real sounds of nature fit into all this – the sounds of birdsong, bacteria, and fungi…? Our witness today is the award-winning author and naturalist Mark Cocker. Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service with a guide to music written for and performed at weddings.

Tom Service intrepidly explores Bluebeard's Castle - the one-act Symbolist opera by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok first performed in 1918 which features just two characters: Duke Bluebeard and his fourth wife Judith. Newly married, he brings her home to his murky castle for the very first time, where she finds a torture chamber, armoury, treasury, garden, and lake of tears. And unfortunately for Judith, it's not long before she discovers just what happened to those first three wives... With Harvard Professor of Folklore and Mythology Maria Tatar. Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores Luciano Berio's Sinfonia - an iconic piece of the late 1960s modernism, scored for orchestra and eight amplified voices who speak, whisper and shout texts by Samuel Beckett and Claude Lévi-Strauss. This groundbreaking work also incorporates a mass of musical quotations, from Bach to Stockhausen and everything in between. Tom's witness is the virtuoso sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun, who like Berio, took Monteverdi's opera Orfeo and reinvented it. Produced by Dom Wells

Tom Service examines Mozart's final masterpiece - a work shrouded in mystery, rumour and deception. He's joined by Dr Kathryn Mannix, a specialist in palliative care, who considers the factors of creativity - and music-making in particular - at the end of life.

The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works. Today - repetition. It's been estimated that in 90 per cent of the music that we hear in our lives, we're hearing material that we've already listened to before, And if you think about the music you love the most - it's often built on repeated patterns, phrases and riffs. So why do we need our music to be so repetitive? Musicologist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis is on hand as Tom finds out why repetition is hard wired into our musical brains. So join Tom as he presses repeat on music from Bach to Beyoncé, Haydn to Herbie Hancock, Stockhausen to Schubert. Tune in and rethink music with The Listening Service... Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that "to listen" is a decidedly active verb. How does music connect with us, make us feel that gamut of sensations from the fiercely passionate to the rationally intellectual, from the expressively poetic to the overwhelmingly visceral? What's happening in the pieces we love that takes us on that emotional rollercoaster? And what's going on in our brains when we hear them? When we listen - really listen - we're not just attending to the way that songs, symphonies, and string quartets work as collections of notes and melodies. We're also creating meanings and connections that reverberate powerfully with other worlds of ideas, of history and culture, as well as the widest range of musical genres. We're engaging the world with our ears. The Listening Service aims to help make those connections, to listen actively. First broadcast in May 2016.

The most famous thing about Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is the riot that took place at its premiere.  Perhaps its overcompensating for classical music's reputation for being a bit stuffy, but musicians and musicologists LOVE talking about the riot at the Rite of Spring, and I'm no exception.  But you might be surprised to know that the Rite Riot was by no means the only disturbance at a classical concert. There are myriad stories of chaos at concerts throughout musical history, but none of them are as famous as what happened on May 29th, 1913. We'll talk about the riot, why it happened, and its aftermath. We'll also discuss this groundbreaking piece, which was revolutionary in almost every way, while being more grounded in the past than you might think. As the great writer Tom Service says, “there's nothing so old as a musical revolution.” Join us this week for part 1, the Adoration of the Earth!