Yet another ‘Come join me’: Classical Fix

[teamsaint]

Some people may follow the people they know and trust if by sheer chance they find out about a programme presented by the people they know and trust in a foreign CONTEXT but lots of people will listen to unfamiliar music if it is introduced to them by people they know and trust in their home ground. They won't mind a presenter from R3 if s/he is a guest of the people they know etc.. on their own stations.

COMMON SENSE innit.

I couldn't agree more, DS. Most young ( or even older ) people really aren't going to switch on Radio 3 for the first time just because somebody they may have heard spinning discs on 6 music pitches up on R3. They may well listen up if something unfamiliar, interesting , different pops up on the channel they/platform they habitually use, such as 6 music.

If I was marketing military history books, with the intention of reaching a new young audience, it would be pretty pointless using the specialist press, because the new audience simply isn't there. The specialist press is where they will end up. Actually, ( and I'm not a marketing professional) I think outside of the obvious media routes, I would try to look at "events led" activity. In classical music that would equate to piggy backing on events such as like the Proms.

[french frank]

Yes, why can't Clemmie do the rounds of R1, 1Xtra, R2, 6music, Asian Network with her programme, publicising R3 to the masses? Proselytising. Evangelising. What's the point of introducing Radio 3 listeners to these people?

CONTEXT innit

(I always say that and you always say what you just said. If we didn't the crops would die in the fields and we would have to sacrifice another policeman on the hills outside Plockton)

Yes, it's context. That is my argument. How many of Sean Keaveney's listeners are listening to him on Radio 3 and how many are listening to him on 6Music? Take the music where the audience is. Sean talking to Clemmie rather than Clemmie talking to Sean. It's the 6Music listeners who we want to hear the new music. So: Clemmie introduces Sean to some music she thinks he'll like, and he starts popping bits into his own programme.

When you just say: "CONTEXT innit", I've no idea whether you're agreeing or disagreeing because as a stand-alone it makes no sense.

PS I agree with ds and team.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Three hours x five mornings seems more than enough to me.

It's worse than that: 5 and a half hours weekday mornings and 2 to 2 and half hours before the evening concert.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh come on guys, everyone gotta start somewhere.... I rather like any idea of innocent ear type listening... I'll try to find some of this and have a go....if I have a meaningful comment I'll tell you.

It might be a good idea - but first let's ditch and replace the 6.30 a.m to 12.00 noon programmes, as well as the 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 ones. Then there might be a point.

But the word "curate" turns my stomach nowadays, it being a term used to tell people what to think.

[french frank]

They will be hostile to anything that might lose any part of their massive listenership, so just going along and saying can we have a 30min of your airtime for Radio 3 each week, won't work.

I certainly agree that that is the case. The bit that I think Radio 3 has to get over to its confrères is that it isn't "Radio 3" just because the content is "classical music". As the BBC has expanded its number of radio stations, so it has cut back on the classical music played on stations other than Radio 3; specifically, on Radio 2, which used to have three or four such programmes. It's the BBC that has decided: Radio 3 = all classical music; and classical music = Radio 3.

I would like to think it was a 'pilot' to be used elsewhere but it isn't giving it the best chance of success by putting it on Radio 3 where it doesn't have much of a natural audience.

[french frank]

It's worse than that: 5 and a half hours weekday mornings and 2 to 2 and half hours before the evening concert.

What about Sunday Morning? Doesn't have all the features that we know and love from Essential Classics, but the music seems to be a similarly curated gallimaufry of varied bits and pieces, averaging about 6-7 minutes each. Please explain the thinking behind this playlist as a totality. The height of sophistication seems to be that the same performer played on consecutive pieces.

Tarquinio Merula Ciaccona a 3 (Canzoni overo sonate concertate per chiesa e camera, Book 3, Op. 12: Chiacona)
Gabriel Grovlez Siciliene et allegro giocoso for bassoon and piano
Felix Mendelssohn Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, op. 27
Aidan O'Rourke A Fox and a hound met [on] early one morning on a hillside
Leos Janáček On an overgrown path; The barn owl has not flown away!
Felix Mendelssohn Die Nachtigall (Op. 59 no. 4); Lerchengesang (Op. 48 no. 4)
William Walton In Honour of the City of London.
Malcolm Arnold Comedy Suite (Exploits for Orchestra) from "The Belles of St Trinian's"
Howard Skempton We Who With Songs; Opportunity; Rose-berries .
Sergei Prokofiev Piano Sonata no. 2 in D minor
Sergei Prokofiev 10 Pieces Op. 12 (arr. For harp): VII: Prelude.
Kelly-Marie Murphy And Then at Night I Paint the Stars: iii. Scintillation
Boris Ivanovič Tiščenko 4th movt 'Romance' Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra Op. 144
George Gershwin I loves you Porgy
Bedrich Smetana Die Moldau (Ma Vlast)
John Sheppard Te Deum
Manuel de Falla Matheu Homenaje pour le Tombeau de Claude Debussy
Johnny Handle Felton Lonnin
Antonio Vivaldi Concerto for 2 Oboes in A minor RV 536
Johann Sebastian Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV.565

[jayne lee wilson]

It might be a good idea - but first let's ditch and replace the 6.30 a.m to 12.00 noon programmes, as well as the 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 ones. Then there might be a point.

But the word "curate" turns my stomach nowadays, it being a term used to tell people what to think.

You really think so? I rather like the term with its religious and artistic overtones, from the Latin root, of - care, love, affection for Art and how people might apprehend and comprehend and respond to it. An Offertorium of - challenge, wisdom, beauty, insight, that old PSB principle of giving people something they didn't know they wanted....

Great idea to get The Classical Fix onto other stations.... but how best to achieve...?

[french frank]

I rather like the term with its religious and artistic overtones, from the Latin root, of - care, love, affection for Art and how people might apprehend and comprehend and respond to it.

Nothing wrong with the term itself. It's the way it's used to aggrandise what is being done.

[/I]Great idea to get The Classical Fix onto other stations.... but how best to achieve...?

Only the BBC can actually do it, and as has recently been suggested in Another Place, the main task for R3 management is not to put such things on Radio 3 but to persuade the BBC to shoulder some of the responsibility, if it thinks it should be done at all (i.e. widening the audience for classical music). The strategy has cost R3 listeners it can't spare but might lose a few from mass audience services who could afford to lose a few.

[BBMmk2]

It's good to see the BBC doing something about getting people interested in our music genre. We need organisations doing this, otherwise, after the next two or so generations, it will no more but the Beeb could do better.

[muzzer]

In Australia, a cricket groundsman has always been known as a curator. Make of that what you will ;)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In Australia, a cricket groundsman has always been known as a curator. Make of that what you will ;)

Curiator and curiator.