April Schedule Changes

[doversoul1]

I find myself very much in two minds about this one. On the one hand my initial reaction is that it's not something of interest to me, partly because of the 'presenter as most important element' you mention and also partly because I fear it might tend towards the over-enthusiastic, gushy, excitable, lacking in content approach which too often seems to be required of programmes featuring young people nowadays. On the other hand young musicians are the future(as always) and so deserve to be heard, and by the same token young presenters need to be given a chance as the old ones won't last indefinitely. On balance I think my main concern is not so much the concept as the realisation not living up to potential(as I perceive it) or expectation(again personal), as happened with 'Choir and Organ' and 'Inside Music'. I'll give it a go and hope to find it of interest.

Exactly but in this case the chance has been given to a performer not to an aspiring broadcaster, in the same way as in 'Choir and Organ' and 'Inside Music'. Radio broadcast is a highly specialised profession and yes, performers can be excellent broadcasters: Catherine Bott comes to mind. There have been many very interesting individual Early Music Show presented by performers but they were not ‘sharing their thoughts with listeners’ but presenting their knowledge about the music.

Apart from Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Hannah French, when did Radio3 last had new, young presenters who are trained in classical music and (I assume) in presentation, in other words aspiring, serious professional broadcasters? I can’t imagine Nicola Benedetti or Benjamin Grosvenor would have been interested in presenting a three-hour weekly radio programme on which they are to share their thoughts and discoveries with listeners etc. at the start of their performing careers (this is to say that time has changed and not to blame the 20-year old).

I am sorry to keep on about it but this complete lack of professionalism on Radio 3 really bothers me.

[Bryn]

Exactly but in this case the chance has been given to a performer not to an aspiring broadcaster, in the same way as in 'Choir and Organ' and 'Inside Music'. Radio broadcast is a highly specialised profession and yes, performers can be excellent broadcasters: Catherine Bott comes to mind. There have been many very interesting individual Early Music Show presented by performers but they were not ‘sharing their thoughts with listeners’ but presenting their knowledge about the music.

Apart from Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Hannah French, when did Radio3 last had new, young presenters who are trained in classical music and (I assume) in presentation, in other words aspiring, serious professional broadcasters? I can’t imagine Nicola Benedetti or Benjamin Grosvenor would have been interested in presenting a three-hour weekly radio programme on which they are to share their thoughts and discoveries with listeners etc. at the start of their performing careers (this is to say that time has changed and not to blame the 20-year old).

I am sorry to keep on about it but this complete lack of professionalism on Radio 3 really bothers me.

No names, no pack drill, but think how the true professionals among the Radio 3 presenters must feel when the most glaring gaffs are made by their essentially amateur colleagues.

[french frank]

No names, no pack drill, but think how the true professionals among the Radio 3 presenters must feel when the most glaring gaffs are made by their essentially amateur colleagues.

That may well be the case. Nevertheless, I think it's mistaken to think that professionals/performers will make better - or even good - presenters. They will certainly have something valuable to contribute, but I don't believe musicians are any different from anyone else who has specialist knowledge: that knowledge will be circumscribed by the specialism and the breadth of experience of the individual.

Some of the most satisfactory presenters have been those with much more general interests; a strong interest in classical music, yes, but getting facts right or wrong is a matter of care and research - not being able to play the violin brilliantly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am sorry to keep on about it but this complete lack of professionalism on Radio 3 really bothers me.

I don't think that there is any need for any apology on your part, dovers - it is something that should bother the Beeb, too. I suspect/reckon that everything is down to money - that "young" just means "cheap", and that the BBC needs to reduce its spending across the board so that they can pay Graham Norton (and, indeed, The Board). Seen from the finances side of things, Radio 3 has amongst the smallest audiences of the Corporation, so young presenters who have a certain amount of fame are going to be both cheaper than an experienced presenter whose main focus is as a professional broadcaster AND whose facebook following might also bring more listeners to tune in to their programmes. Win-Win as far as they are concerned - and if that further jettisons the more "picky" listeners, who cares? Fees are down, audiences are up - Job Done.

Of course, this is all prejudice on my part - the new programmes and their presenters could end up bringing new enthusiastic audiences for 13th Century isorhythmic motets, or the delights of complentary hexachordal set invertions in Babbitt - and Ms Gillam also has a Tee Shirt with a picture of Brian Ferneyhough which she was told not to wear. I need to hear the programme before deciding that it's all going to be presenter-drivel-led dross.

But, if Ladbroke's were taking bets, I have £100 I wouldn't fear losing ...

[teamsaint]

I don't think that there is any need for any apology on your part, dovers - it is something that should bother the Beeb, too. I suspect/reckon that everything is down to money - that "young" just means "cheap", and that the BBC needs to reduce its spending across the board so that they can pay Graham Norton (and, indeed, The Board). Seen from the finances side of things, Radio 3 has amongst the smallest audiences of the Corporation, so young presenters who have a certain amount of fame are going to be both cheaper than an experienced presenter whose main focus is as a professional broadcaster AND whose facebook following might also bring more listeners to tune in to their programmes. Win-Win as far as they are concerned - and if that further jettisons the more "picky" listeners, who cares? Fees are down, audiences are up - Job Done.

Of course, this is all prejudice on my part - the new programmes and their presenters could end up bringing new enthusiastic audiences for 13th Century isorhythmic motets, or the delights of complentary hexachordal set invertions in Babbitt - and Ms Gillam also has a Tee Shirt with a picture of Brian Ferneyhough which she was told not to wear. I need to hear the programme before deciding that it's all going to be presenter-drivel-led dross.

But, if Ladbroke's were taking bets, I have £100 I wouldn't fear losing ...

And it’s all so bloody lazy,apart from anything else.
Apart from a few star conductors and soloists( and they are busy people.) classical and other music must be full of people with real expertise, knowledge and an ability to comminicate decently on radio ( which isn’t THAT rare a skill) who really don’t command large fees. University music departments just for starters,not to mention performers, composers, critics.

[Bryn]

That may well be the case. Nevertheless, I think it's mistaken to think that professionals/performers will make better - or even good - presenters. They will certainly have something valuable to contribute, but I don't believe musicians are any different from anyone else who has specialist knowledge: that knowledge will be circumscribed by the specialism and the breadth of experience of the individual.

Some of the most satisfactory presenters have been those with much more general interests; a strong interest in classical music, yes, but getting facts right or wrong is a matter of care and research - not being able to play the violin brilliantly.

I think you have misinterpreted my use of the word "professionals" in my message. I was not referring to performers but those with a secure grounding in 'classical' music and a professional attitude towards researching the music they are presenting.

[Quarky]

I need to hear the programme before deciding that it's all going to be presenter-drivel-led dross.

But, if Ladbroke's were taking bets, I have £100 I wouldn't fear losing ...

That's certainly my fear about the New Music programme.

Both Tom Service and Kate Molleson have the ability to be very enthusiastic and very voluble about absolutely anything, regardless of merit.

[edashtav]

Ferney: you mention :

delights of complentary hexachordal set invertions

I suspect that your combinations have got into a typo twist as Milton Babbitt's combinatorial hexachord system yields complementary inversions. With my compliments, ED

[Sir Velo]

Musics of different sorts.

Wrong in so many ways! Does one listen to a music? Please, let's have some respect for the English language!

[Bryn]

Wrong in so many ways! Does one listen to a music? Please, let's have some respect for the English language!

I definitely listen to the music, and musics was good enough for W. B. Yeats.

[cloughie]

That's an interesting interpretation, DracoM - I had read it as meaning the opposite; that he felt/believed that there are increasing numbers of listeners who regard Classical Music as "just another type of Music", and who do listen to many different genres - and that he therefore feels that R3 content and presentation needs to be adjusted to meet the expectations of this "growing" audience. I might be wrong in my interpretation, of course.

But, as frenchie says, there's no indication in this Press Release as to where he gets the evidence for his "knowledge". He may be right - there may be a growing section of young adults who are keen to have access to a Radio Channel that freely mixes Musics of different sorts. And, if so, maybe the new programmes will bring in and expand audiences for Classical Music. Maybe. But is Radio 3 the best place for such a programme? Isn't something like BBC3 - a purely online broadcaster - more tailored to what this potential new audience is used to accessing? (Genuine questions - I am terribly old, and no longer have regular communication with young people: maybe MW radio is now all the rage?) And how this will further impact upon the regular R3 audience, or what's left of it, and upon what they want to listen to ... does this matter to the BBC?

The BBC has a history of ignoring the preferences of an existing audience, in the interest of creating a new one (Radio 1 under Matthew Bannister in the '90s) - so I suspect that any protests will be high-handedly ignored.

So - more streaming and reliance on our own collections - and greater call for the Forum, not so much as to protest to the BBC, as to make our usual, more widely-informed, recommendations for fellow Forumistas' listening interests. "The New Radio 3 Forum" may well take on a meaning that wasn't intended at the start - as a replacement for the majority of the content and presentation on R3.

Or am I being unduly pessimistic? Do Forumistas think that there might be any purpose served by making a presentation to AD, expressing yet again our concerns? I'd be genuinely interested to know.

I just think that the BBC has totally lost the plot when it comes to music. There is this overwhelming obsession to attract younger listeners, maybe they see them as necessary to fund the licence, but do they think that by ignoring or alienating older listeners is the way to do it? Do we not deserve having delivered something we want to listen to? Do thiey think we either too ga ga to be bothered or maybe that if we live a few more year will be 75 and blagging the licence so we should get what we’re given with no say? Clearly R2 and BBC local radio has minimalised the amount of 60s music played, R3 is the mess we know - I really do not thing they want to listen to what we old duffers have to say and the answers they give to any criticism are defended as they know what is best!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ferney: you mention :
delights of complentary hexachordal set invertions
I suspect that your combinations have got into a typo twist as Milton Babbitt's combinatorial hexachord system yields complementary inversions. With my compliments, ED

Thankshh, ed <hic> yer me besht mate, you are <hic>

(But it's more my natural modesty rather than a typo - I didn't want to bring me into it,)

[oddoneout]

Exactly but in this case the chance has been given to a performer not to an aspiring broadcaster, in the same way as in 'Choir and Organ' and 'Inside Music'. Radio broadcast is a highly specialised profession and yes, performers can be excellent broadcasters: Catherine Bott comes to mind. There have been many very interesting individual Early Music Show presented by performers but they were not ‘sharing their thoughts with listeners’ but presenting their knowledge about the music.

Apart from Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Hannah French, when did Radio3 last had new, young presenters who are trained in classical music and (I assume) in presentation, in other words aspiring, serious professional broadcasters? I can’t imagine Nicola Benedetti or Benjamin Grosvenor would have been interested in presenting a three-hour weekly radio programme on which they are to share their thoughts and discoveries with listeners etc. at the start of their performing careers (this is to say that time has changed and not to blame the 20-year old).

I am sorry to keep on about it but this complete lack of professionalism on Radio 3 really bothers me.

Do we know she has no ambitions in that field? I thought she was quite keen on communicating and might see this as another way to achieve that. In any case being a performer isn't a bar to being a presenter.

[doversoul1]

Do we know she has no ambitions in that field? I thought she was quite keen on communicating and might see this as another way to achieve that. In any case being a performer isn't a bar to being a presenter.

Oh, I’m sure she is very keen on becoming a radio presenter. A glamorous media job like (insert a name or two)! However, if she thinks sharing her thoughts and discoveries is what is required to become a Radio3 presenter or any Radio presenter, she may have ambitions but clearly no clue.

Again, I have nothing personally against Jess Gillam. She has only been brought in by those who have no respect for the professionals and the serious listeners of Radio 3.

If Radio3 (or the BBC) thinks the voices (other than their performances) of young performers should be heard, it can create a programme hosted by an experienced presenter and invite them to talk about whatever they want to talk about. But we know that that isn't their/its interest.

[DracoM]

What is a HUGE shame in all this is that Jess Gillam is a very fine performer and really nice young person too, but already she is lining herself up / BBC are lining her up for detailed evisceration and wholesale judgements on every syllable she utters. Before she has a single minute on air.

So, so sad.