After the terrible BBC funding scares we all lived through last year (you too, ACE) what a pleasure it is to see the BBC Singers poised to celebrate their official 100th birthday with a huge Barbican concert on October 2nd. I will be there, celebrating together I'm sure with a great throng of chorally minded people, and the whole thing will be audible on BBC Radio 3.
Radio 3 is also devoting large stretches of its daily broadcasts next week to the Singers. I feel particularly honoured that Monday's broadcasts kick off (at 3pm) with my own In the Land of Uz, an oratorio written for them as a Proms commission. This recording, from the recent Three Choirs Festival in Worcester Cathedral, is conducted by Sofi Jeannin, and features a beautiful performance by Mark Padmore as the biblical prophet Job.
Pictured - amongst quite a few BBC Singers events I've been involved in this year was their performance of blue hills beyond blue hills in the Aldeburgh Festival - another oratorio written especially for them, setting Zen-inspired texts by Alan Spence. Here we all are, once again directed by the brilliant Sofi Jeannin.
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