Stuart Barr uncovers the colourful career of British composer and transgender pioneer, Angela Morley.In 1972, Wally Stott's transition to Angela Morley made front page news. Wally was famous. He was composer for the Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour, and music director to stars like Frankie Vaughan and Shirley Bassey. "TV Music Man changes his sex" screamed the headlines. Where would Angela go from here? Stuart talks to Angela's friends and colleagues to discover how she made her mark in the music business, as a woman and a man. And he explores the special qualities of the music she wrote and arranged, from the famous 'Hancock' tuba theme to her work alongside John Williams on blockbusters like Star Wars and Superman.
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Folge vom 26.02.2016Musical Variations: The Life of Angela Morley
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Folge vom 19.02.2016Batman and EthanEthan was born blind. He's now a 10 year-old boy who collects sounds on his 51 dictaphones, composes music, and performs on stage in concerts. Until now he's been home-schooled, but last year he was offered a place at St Mary's Music School in Scotland - one of the best in the country. The problem is he struggles to get around. This is where Batman comes in. His real name is Daniel Kish and like Ethan he's blind. He's a master of echolocation. He makes clicking noises - like a bat - to build a picture of the world around him. Neuroscientists have done experiments on him and found that he's managed to activate the visual part of his brain. He's taught people all over the world to "see through sound" and he's so good at it that he goes hiking, cycling and rock-climbing. "Batman" (Daniel) comes to Scotland to spend 10 days with Ethan, to teach him echolocation and help him prepare for his new school. The documentary follows Ethan's progress as he learns from Daniel Kish. Listeners are introduced to the principles of echolocation, they follow Ethan practicing at home, on the train and at his new school. They're brought into Ethan's world, through music composed specially by Ethan, and they're with him on his birthday, on long walks in the Scottish hills, right through to his experience at school. We follow Ethan up to his final day of term to find out how he's done, and see how he copes with his biggest challenge yet: playing an accordion solo with the orchestra at the school concert. Produced and presented by Helena Merriman.
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Folge vom 14.02.2016Reaction Time"Your breasts look fantastic in that dress." From abysmal chat-up lines like this, to love at first sight in Victoria Train Station, BBC Radio Four listeners have some incredible relationship stories. Reaction Time broadcasts them to the nation, in a programme composed entirely of smartphone contributions from the public. BBC Radio Four shouted out for stories about love on social media - gave out the reactiontime@bbc.co.uk email address and received poignant, funny and downright odd tales - which have been crafted into a half-hour of dreadful dates, poignant memories and one incredible relationship that begins with a heart attack. Contributors simply recorded their two minute stories on their phone recorders - and emailed the sound file in. The contributor Narelle Lancaster, was called back and asked to record the script over her phone - so it's 100% listeners in a programme made on phones - a new way of creating a programme, and a unique platform for the wit and inventiveness of the BBC Radio 4 audience. Presented by Narelle Lancaster Produced by Kevin Core.
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Folge vom 09.02.2016Jarvis on McCullersThe writing of Carson McCullers has perhaps never been as popular or acclaimed as that of contemporaries such as Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams, but nonetheless she remains one of the most remarkable and individual writers to come out of twentieth century America. She only wrote a few works, in large part because rheumatic fever left her paralysed in her left arm, and she was beset by ill health and alcoholism for many of her fifty years. Her writing style was enormously sensuous, filled with the heat, sounds and smells of the American south, and the characters who populated books like 'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe', 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' and 'A Member of the Wedding' were most commonly troubled misfits. Her personal life was similarly idiosyncratic - the man she married twice committed suicide having tried to get her to do the same - though it is her very particular writing style, with a strong musicality drawn from the years she spent training as a classical pianist, that has made many of her fans so vociferous in their attachment to her. Jarvis Cocker hears from a number of them, including academic Carlos Dews, author Laura Barton and musician Suzanne Vega, who has not only written and starred in three versions of a play about Carson, but often feels herself to be in conversation with her spirit. Jarvis explains his own personal devotion, explaining how Carson's ability to bypass the brain and connect straight to the heart is what makes her such an important figure to him.