Jo Cheung is director and founder of Olympias Music Foundation, a Manchester charity championing diversity in music – from violin lessons for children on free-school meals, to community choirs for vulnerable BAME women and school children. Since 2015, they have delivered over 2000 free music lessons to 250 children in Manchester, and engaged with many more through workshops and performances. We chat how Olympias got here, where it’s going and stop off along the way at: The completely unregulated nature of teaching music Taking music education from school to the community and what that really ..read more

Raymond Yiu is a Hong-Kong born, London-based composer, jazz pianist, conductor and writer on music. Originally trained as an engineer, Yiu was self-taught as a composer until he undertook his DMus under the auspice of Julian Anderson at Guildhall in 2009. His debut album The World Was Once All Miracle showcases his talent with three identity-exploring works informed by his time at Guildhall. How to get your foot on the ladder as a self-trained composer Why he won’t be getting a publisher any time soon Why Raymond never wrote the Cantonese pop songs that inspired him so much https://raymondy ..read more

Lara Agar is a composer, violinist, and collaborator who recently caught my eye with a credit on Shades of Blue, a dance piece performed at Sadler’s Wells and broadcast on the BBC. We talk about how the piece came about, curating nights, and the different relationship musicians, dancers, and actors have with their art. Also in the episode: The benefits of long-term creative partnerships Lara’s accidental rock opera Lara’s love of chaos Music’s uniquely non-visual role in today’s world https://www.laraagar.com/ This episode is sponsored by Dorico: the next-generation music notation software ..read more

I chat with composer David McFarlane and writer Gregory Kearns on their 2018 collaboration about the Christmas apocalypse, which all stemmed from a set of small bells David received in a Christmas cracker set. As well as hearing excerpts of their piece, Carol For Our Children, performed by No Dice Collective, we branch out into chats about leading community workshops, space to make mistakes, struggling to take our own creative advice, hang-ups about writing overtly emotional work, and the role of intuition and emotion vs formalised thinking in the creative process. A really interesting, cross ..read more

Hello there! Come on in… Today I’m speaking to Czech composer Jiří Kadeřábek and No Dice pianist Jasmin Allpress about their shared journey bringing the piece Hindyish together. We’ll hear how they worked across Europe via Skype and phone calls to bring the piece together, how Jiří makes this very stylistically post-modern piece sound cohesive, as well as walk through the piece itself before ending with a recording of Jasmin playing it at our Soloist concert of June 2018. Rate us on iTunes - it really helps! Subscribe to the mailing list for new episode notifications Links and show notes: Li ..read more

Jo Cheung is director and founder of Olympias Music Foundation, a Manchester charity championing diversity in music – from violin lessons for children on free-school meals, to community choirs for vulnerable BAME women and school children. Since 2015, they have delivered over 2000 free music lessons to 250 children in Manchester, and engaged with many more through workshops and performances. We chat how Olympias got here, where it’s going and stop off along the way at: The completely unregulated nature of teaching music Taking music education from school to the community and what that really ..read more

Raymond Yiu is a Hong-Kong born, London-based composer, jazz pianist, conductor and writer on music. Originally trained as an engineer, Yiu was self-taught as a composer until he undertook his DMus under the auspice of Julian Anderson at Guildhall in 2009. His debut album The World Was Once All Miracle showcases his talent with three identity-exploring works informed by his time at Guildhall. How to get your foot on the ladder as a self-trained composer Why he won’t be getting a publisher any time soon Why Raymond never wrote the Cantonese pop songs that inspired him so much https://raymondy ..read more

Lara Agar is a composer, violinist, and collaborator who recently caught my eye with a credit on Shades of Blue, a dance piece performed at Sadler’s Wells and broadcast on the BBC. We talk about how the piece came about, curating nights, and the different relationship musicians, dancers, and actors have with their art. Also in the episode: The benefits of long-term creative partnerships Lara’s accidental rock opera Lara’s love of chaos Music’s uniquely non-visual role in today’s world https://www.laraagar.com/ This episode is sponsored by Dorico: the next-generation music notation software ..read more

Aubrey and I geek out about marketing in the classical realm. Why classical’s core product will always be live music Why we shouldn’t be streaming whole concerts for free Plus Aubrey gives her advice on how new groups should approach finding and keeping new listeners, and how to get around the fear of the unknown with newly written music. If you’re a musician or arts administrator of any kind, this is an essential listen. If you fall outside of that, enjoy looking behind the curtain at what an orchestra exec spends her time thinking about. Some Aubrey bio fun facts: she grew Seattle Opera’s ..read more

Shruthi Rajasekar is a composer from Minnesota USA who straddles the worlds of Western contemporary music and south Indian Carnatic music from a truly unique position. Having grown up in the US with prominent Carnatic musician Nirmala Rajasekar as a mother, Shruthi is a joy to talk with as we cover: Choral culture and education in the US vs UK How the pandemic is actually improving conversations around pieces in the rehearsal process Shruthi’s experience at SOAS and RNCM We also get super into the weeds discussing how despite its insane cross-rhythms, Carnatic music never changes time signatu ..read more