english song

In this month’s podcast we celebrate the fascinating subject of song and singing. We start with Benjamin Britten, and his lifelong attachment to song – inspired to explore it in multiple ways by his partner Peter Pears’ voice, by poetry, and by the occasion he was composing for. Following his example, Britten Pears Arts has song at the very centre of its work. Lucy is joined by Dr Chris Hilton (Head of Archive and Library) and Caro Barnfield (Head of Music Programme) who discuss how song manifests in the continuing work of the organisation, from teasing out stories in the archive collections, to featuring strongly in the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, to performances on the stage, and to serving the wider community. Lucy speaks to two further guests who have directly benefited from the remarkable song legacy of Britten Pears Arts, composer Arthur Keegan and mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean. They are working together on a project based around the poetry of Thomas Hardy, a writer whose words have been passed from composer to composer over the last 100 years, continuing to find their way into song. The music extracts are performed by Lotte Betts Dean, James Girling and the Ligeti Quartet.