Music Matters Folgen

This week Kate Molleson focusses on Northern Ireland. Kate visits pianist Ruth McGinley at her studios in The MAC in Belfast to chat about her upcoming album of Irish airs and her unique approach to music making. Beyond Skin is an arts collective using music as a means for cultural education and exchange. Darren Ferguson explains how the collective has been working with musicians seeking asylum and refugee status through creative collaboration and social support. Kate meets with some of these musicians including Shiva, a guitar teacher from Iran.The Lambeg Drum is one of the loudest acoustic instruments and Kate gets to hear one in Co. Antrim, in the company of Willie Hill and Dr Diana Culbertson. They talk about the role the drum plays in the Ulster-Scots community. Back in Belfast fiddle player Kevin McCullagh talks about his journey into experimental improvisation and subverting audiences' expectations of traditional music.Kate hears about the Ulster Orchestra’s new home embedded in the community at Townsend Street, Belfast and she takes a short walk to visit pupils at Malvern Primary School in the Lower Shankill as they begin their cello class as part of the orchestra’s Crescendo Project.Producer: Marie-Claire Doris

To mark World Mental Health Day, Tom Service presents a special programme in collaboration with Professor Sally Marlow, a mental health specialist at King’s College London and BBC Radio 3’s first ever Researcher in Residence. Composer Gavin Higgins talks to Tom about how his early musical life in brass bands helped him to deal with his symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. We visit Bethlem Gallery to meet composer and artist Gawain Hewitt and Fiona Lambert from City of London Sinfonia's 'Sound Young Minds' project, a music-making programme with young people under the care of psychiatric hospitals. Daisy Fancourt talks about a large-scale study looking at how singing can be used to treat postnatal depression, and James Sanderson from NHS England sets out what he sees as music's role in social prescribing. We explore mental health among musicians with writer, musician and mental health advocate Tabby Kerwin reflecting on the situation in the brass band movement, and James Ainscough from the charity Help Musicians discusses the recent increase in the number of musicians from across the industry seeking help from their new charity Music Minds Matter. Plus we talk to soprano Patricia Auchterlonie, composer Oliver Leith and director Anna Morrissey about their new opera Last Days at the Linbury Theatre and how the mental health and wellbeing of the cast is being supported.And we're in Crook in County Durham to catch up with the community arts organisation Jack Drum Arts, which provides music sessions to help support the mental health of children and young people in the local area.

Presenter Tom Service visits Blackpool to explore the iconic seaside town’s rich musical history and learn more about the energy of a musical ecosystem famed for its ballrooms, dance bands, and Wurlitzer organs; to hear from the those responsible for creating new musical opportunities for the area’s residents and visitors; and to speak those nurturing the next generation of musicians from across the town. Tom starts at the world-famous Tower Ballroom, where he hears organist Phil Kelsall after his turn at the Wurlitzer Organ. He also tours the wider Blackpool area with Andrew White, Head of Blackpool Music Hub, who tells Tom about his organisation’s work to break down the barriers that often exist in providing all children with access to musical instruments as well as giving them memorable opportunities to perform in Blackpool’s many entertainment venues. Music Director Helen Harrison also joins Tom to discuss the role of Blackpool Symphony Orchestra and its place at the heart of the town’s musical community. Tom speaks to luminaries of Blackpool’s long tradition in band music, including David Windle, who directed the Tower Circus Band, as well as Bandleader Albie Hilton, and discusses the legacy of music making within the town’s dance circuit. And, local resident Elaine Smith reminisces about tripping the light fantastic in Blackpool’s many dance halls. We’ve contributions, too, from Blackpool brethren including singer Alfie Boe and the singer-songwriter Rae Morris, eavesdrop on the George Formby Society convention, and talk to the visiting guitarist Alexander Hacke reflects on how the town inspired his experimental band Einsturzende Neubauten while recently recording their new album on location.