Charles Hazlewood, conductor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Charles Hazlewood is a conductor and the founder of Paraorchestra, the world's first professional ensemble of disabled musicians. Once described as the Heston Blumenthal of orchestral music, Charles has spent his career challenging Britain’s musical palate, exploding boundaries and expanding our ideas about what an orchestra can be - and do. His repertoire encompasses Beethoven, Bruckner and Barry White, and his critically-acclaimed projects include more than 100 world premieres and the first orchestral headline performance at Glastonbury. Paraorchestra, the ensemble he established in 2011, reached a global audience at the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Paralympics. He also co-founded an opera company in South Africa, and its production of Carmen, with a mainly black cast, won international acclaim. He studied music at Keble College, Oxford and was the Organ Scholar there. He won the EBU conductor's competition in 1995 and has had an international career as a conductor. DISC ONE: Somebody’s Gonna Off The Man by Barry White & The Love Unlimited Orchestra DISC TWO: A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley DISC THREE: Ach, ich fühls, composed by Mozart, conducted by Otto Klemperer and performed by Gundula Janowitz and Philharmonia Orchestra DISC FOUR: R. Strauss: 4 Lieder, Op. 27 - 4. Morgen! by Richard Strauss, conducted by Kurt Masur, performed by Jessye Norman and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra DISC FIVE: Improvisation by Olivier Latry DISC SIX: Kraftwerk-Rewerk, composed by Charlotte Harding and Lloyd Coleman, conducted by Charles Hazlewood DISC SEVEN: Ndisakuthanda Mna, composed by Georges Bizet, performed by Pauline Malefane, Andile Tshoni and Dimpho Di Kopane, conducted by Charles Hazlewood DISC EIGHT: The Last Time/Ultima Vez by Pauline Oliveros BOOK CHOICE: A book of poetry by Ivor Cutler LUXURY ITEM: An espresso machine CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Ach, ich fühls, composed by Mozart, conducted by Otto Klemperer and performed by Gundula Janowitz and Philharmonia Orchestra Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.7	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks podcast.
0:08.4	Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to
0:12.8	take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:16.2	And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:20.7	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:30.0	Music Music
0:42.4	My cast away this week is the conductor Charles Heiselwood.
0:45.8	Once described as the Heston Blumenthal of orchestral music, his appetite for radical musical
0:50.8	exploration is much less.
0:53.1	He has spent his career challenging Britain's musical palette, exploding boundaries and
0:58.0	expanding our ideas about what an orchestra can be and do.
1:02.3	His repertoire encompasses Beethoven, Brookner and Barry White and his critically acclaimed
1:07.1	projects include more than 100 world premieres and the first orchestral headline performance
1:12.3	at Glastonbury.
1:13.7	He formed the world's first professional ensemble of disabled musicians, Power Orchestra,
1:18.5	who reached a global audience at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.
1:22.8	And on BBC television's The Scrap-Eap Orchestra, he delivered exactly what it said on the
1:27.2	tin and indeed the oil drum.
1:30.0	His musical epiphany came when he was 15 and the drummer in a punk band, hanging around
1:34.4	in a school choir rehearsal, he decided to give conducting a try and swapped his drumsticks
1:39.4	for a baton for good.
	...

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