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Ballet and dance on BBC Radio 4 (and occasionally elsewhere)


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1 hour ago, zxDaveM said:

Max Richter is currently featured on 6Music (1pm-2pm) Sunday 22nd (and on 'Sounds' later, no doubt)

 

ah - nothing about his ballet music (except a snippet of his reworked Vivaldi Four Seasons, which has been used in ballet - so not exactly unmissable

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13 hours ago, Scheherezade said:

And for anyone who is interested, you can catch Saturday's Music Matters on Radio 3 which, towards the end, included a fascinating account by Allegra Kent of dancing Agon in Russia with Arthur Mitchell during the Cuban Missile crisis.


I can’t work out how to share it at the moment, but I can tell you it starts at 28 mins in and I found it very interesting. 

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  • 4 months later...

Non-news, I'm afraid. This week Radio 3 is exploring and celebrating Stravinsky in the week in which he died, 50 years ago. All this week he is the subject of Composer of the Week. On Saturday there were notable programmes about him, included even in the remarkable Jess Gillam's wide-ranging This Classical Life (in which she referred to Diaghilev as a ballet master!) and Julian Joseph's J to Z, which explored the relationship between Stravinsky and jazz. On Sunday Tom Service's The Listening Service. focused on the key works created for ballets. So what have we got on TV? Firebird? Petrushka? Rite of Spring? Apollo? Pulcinella? Les Noces?  Orpheus? Any of Balanchine's remarkable, ground- breaking ballets to Stravinsky? No, of course not. The lack of ballet on the BBC is serious and only likely to get worse.

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  • 2 years later...

Today, BBC Radio 4, 4.30 (and on BBC Sounds thereafter, of course): 

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Ninette de Valois

 

Ninette de Valois

 

The Godmother of English - and Irish - ballet, Dame Ninette De Valois or ‘Madam’ as she was known to those around her. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet. She established the Royal Ballet School, the Royal Ballet and the UK’s premiere touring ballet company, which went on to become the Birmingham Royal Ballet.
Under the guidance of ‘Madam’, these institutions grew and became celebrated around the world, with post WWII Ballet tours generating much needed funds for the British Treasury and company members, including Margot Fonteyn and Robert (Bobby) Helpmann, becoming international celebrities. Madam was also instrumental in the development of National Ballets in Turkey, Iran and Canada. She achieved all of this despite a childhood diagnosis of polio and was dedicated to ballet right up until her 102nd year.
She is nominated by choreographer Sir David Bintley. He met Madam while studying at the Royal Ballet School in the mid 70’s. To David, who was originally from Huddersfield, ‘Madam’ was his ‘Southern Grandmother’. David is joined by Anna Meadmore – dance historian and curator of the Royal Ballet Schools Special Collections Archive. Together they reflect also on Madam's formidable character, her unprecedented contribution to English Ballet and her legacy as an adventurous traditionalist.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry to highjack this thread but I'm not sure it's worth setting up a new one. Or perhaps a mod could retitle this one so that it refers to radio programmes relevant to ballet in general?

 

I have been listening to a fascinating programme on Radio 3's Composer of the Week, Errollyn Wallen. In today's episode she talks about her love for ballet and how she trained for a while with the Dance Theater of Harlem, where one of her teachers was none other than Tanaquil LeClercq; she felt so privileged to have that indirect link to Balanchine. She also refers to some of the ballets she has composed for.

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1 hour ago, SheilaC said:

Sorry to highjack this thread but I'm not sure it's worth setting up a new one. Or perhaps a mod could retitle this one so that it refers to radio programmes relevant to ballet in general?

 

I think this one will do well enough ;)

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