2021 Radio Music Shortlist

21 aprile 2021 ore 16:14
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AUSTRALIA    ABC

Alone with J. S. Bach

The year 2020 marked the 300th anniversary of some of the most iconic - and mysterious - music ever written for the violin: Johann Sebastian Bach's Six Sonatas and Partitas. Almost a world unto themselves, they are a music of enigma, challenge, lightness, pathos, dance and faith. In this radio programme, we'll hear personal stories - and performance excerpts - from six of today's top interpreters of Bach's music. Following a six-part structure that resonates with Bach's musical architecture, this 30-minute feature presents the voices, stories and insights of these violinists in a manner that brings listeners closer to the heart of Bach's remarkable music.

CANADA    CBC/SRC

This is Not A Drake Podcast

This is Not a Drake Podcast is a podcast series that uses seminal moments in Drake's career to explore the history and evolution of hip-hop, R&B and Black culture.

CZECH REPUBLIC    CZCR

Hudba k sirénám
(Music for Sirens)

Music for Sirens was a two-year project (2019–2021) co-produced by the Berg Orchestra and Czech Radio. It gave rise to 20 new music miniatures by Czech composers which were intended to be performed every month during the regular siren test and broadcast live on the radio and on Facebook. For the Prix Italia 2021 music category, we have chosen the recording of one of the compositions as an example. It is a miniature for two opera voices, accordion and siren, called A River Call. This piece by Petr Hora includes an abstract story of tension between danger and ecstasy with a reference to the mythical Sirens. It features two women, a man, a hole between two old houses as well as water and the warning signal of the acoustic siren. It was performed in the laboratory of the Water Research Institute in Prague in August 2019.

DENMARK    DR

Farlige toner
(Dangerous Sounds)

Dangerous Sounds is the story of 100 years of jazz in Denmark. About how jazz music has influenced society, and how society has influenced jazz. In 17 episodes, listeners are led through the highlights of the people, events and controversies that were critical to its ongoing development. Ep. 4 tells the story of the first major star of Danish jazz, Leo The Lion Mathisen, who, with his cigar, charisma and interpretation of American swing music, became a nationwide hit. He had his heyday during World War II, and his popularity and devotion to jazz was met with great disapproval by the occupying Germans and Danish Nazis. With the interplay between narrator, host, music and archival clips, in an editing style that mirrors jazz's own boundary-seeking nature, we've tried to create a jazzy listening experience for all audiences.

GERMANY    ARD

Gegenwärtig lebe ich allein ... Hörstück in neun Bildern mit Texten von Henri Michaux
(Presently, I'm living alone ... Radio piece in nine pictures with texts by Henri Michaux)

"I no longer travel. Travelling, how could this be of any interest to me?". Heiner Goebbels is regarded as one of the most important contemporary German composers and the renewer of music theatre of international renown. The dual language French/German libretto of his radio composition is a collage of texts by Poet and Painter Henri Michaux. The work mirrors life in the time of Covid-19 in a musical and poetic way. "A time of unexpectedly enforced quiet gave me the opportunity to go back to Michaux's texts. What he does in them is to engage in a kind of exorcism directed against himself and the rest of the world. With his paintings, he tries to express the unspeakable. Maybe I'm trying to get closer to him via an acoustic medium: with a sound composition that is solely based on one voice and me playing the piano".

IRELAND    RTÉ

The Ballad of the Stolwijk Rescue

In December 1940, eight fishermen from the remote Arranmore Island off the Donegal's Atlantic Coast in Ireland rescued 18 Dutch sailors from the SS Stolwijk, a cargo ship which had been wrecked on rocks by a combination of war and storm. They risked their lives on the wide open seas in hurricane winds and the ever present threat of U boats to save the lives of others. Singer and multi Instrumentalist, Brían Mac Gloinn, heard the story from the last living eye witness, Andrew Early (87), who knew the lifeboat crew who effected the rescue. Using his testimony and interviews with other islanders, Brían has written music and song to piece together the events of the day of the rescue. The result is a record and celebration of the bravery of the Arranmore Lifeboatmen. Andrew Early died in November 2020, soon after he was interviewed.

UNITED KINGDOM    BBC

Between the Ears: The Rising Sea Symphony

A blend of original music, sounds and stories, The Rising Sea Symphony transports the listener to the front line of the climate crisis. In this ambitious new musical work, Composer Kieran Brunt has woven together electronic, vocal and orchestral elements recorded under lockdown conditions by players from the BBC Philharmonic. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, each musician recorded their part individually at home and these recordings were then painstakingly combined to recreate a full symphonic sound. Producer Laurence Grissell gathered stories from Ghana, the Arctic and Mont Blanc in France - and scripted a final movement which ponders two possible outcomes to the crisis. He then worked in close collaboration with Kieran Brunt to create a completely original evocation of the causes and consequences of climate change.

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