The year ahead on BBC Radio 3
The station controller Alan Davey picks out some of the highlights to enjoy in 2020
I was given my first radio when I was four: a Soviet/estonian LW/ MW model called a Selga. I still have it, as it opened the door to a lifetime of love and enjoyment – not just of sound and of different types of music, but of the medium’s power to whisk us away to other worlds. In 2020, we’ve got plenty of magical moments in store.
Natually, we’ll be celebrating Beethoven with our year-long season Beethoven Unleashed. Composer of the Week, for instance, will be looking at all aspects of his music during the year in fortnightly programmes, its biggest commitment to a single composer in many years. The BBC orchestras and ensembles from across the UK will feature heavily in Beethoven Unleashed, with performances on In Concert and Afternoon on 3 throughout the year. Highlights include Fidelio from the Royal Opera House, the CBSO and
Mirga Graz˘inyte˙ -Tyla performing Symphony Nos 2 and 4, and Simon Rattle conducting the LSO in Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives on Valentine’s Day.
But before our Beethoven extravaganza, Radio 3 will kickstart 2020 with its annual ‘New Year
New Music’. We’ll be traversing the last ten years in contemporary music, looking at unfamiliar and forgotten new works. We’re one of the most significant commissioners of contemporary classical music and are always keen to ensure that that’s at the heart of our schedule.
Other ways we’ll be focusing on the new and experimental is in our New Generation Artists
Day in February, celebrating 20 years of a scheme that supports young artists at a crucial time in their career, giving them the chance to record and perform with our orchestras, to learn music that stretches their repertoire and to form new collaborations. The roll call of New Generation names – Paul Lewis, Catriona Morison, Sean Shibe and many more – reflects the importance of the scheme in giving support at the right time.
All year, every year, BBC Radio 3 takes its listeners deep into the concert hall experience – and 2020’s concerts are as strong as ever. Highlights include Mark Elder conducting the Hallé in Beethoven’s Ninth in January; the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Kirill Karabits playing Schumann and Schubert in February; and in
March the Ulster Orchestra and Jac van Steen in a programme of Wagner and Dvo ák.
I’m particularly looking forward to some of the operas that we have lined up, too. In January we’ll air David Lang’s futuristic retelling of Beethoven’s Fidelio, Prisoner of the State performed by the
BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Opera North’s production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene. Until
May we’ll still be in New York Met season, with its broad range of brilliant productions including Manon, La Cenerentola and Kat’a Kabanova, while our Royal Opera House season will include Elektra, Jen fa, Tosca and Tristan und Isolde. Opera on 3 really is the best seat in the house!
I’ve hardly dipped my toes into the waters of 2020 across Radio 3, but I hope that some of these highlights will encourage you to keep revelling in the joys of radio and podcasts. Together they make up a place where surprising, audacious, questing, even quirky things can be discovered.