Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast

In this episode, conductor Alice Farnham is working with English Touring Opera in September and October in performances of The Elixir of Love and Britten's Rape of Lucretia. The productions pop up in a variety of different locations across England. Visit the ETO website for more details.

When she and I met for this podcast interview, I provided a provocation. I'd seen something short and surprisingly thought-provoking o...

In this episode, composer Julian Anderson discusses his new work Life Cycle, to be premiered by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in September 2025. Conducted by Stephan Meier, and featuring soprano Anna Dennis, the concert also includes Charlotte Bray’s Reflections in Time and the premiere of Serpentine by Birmingham composer Marcus Rock.

At the heart of this conversation, though, is Anderson’s Life Cycle: eight songs that span E...

Trumpeter Matilda Lloyd releases her third album on the Chandos Label featuring four premiere recordings by Roxanna Panufnik, Richard Barbard, Deborah Pritchard and Owain Park, alongside transcriptions of music by Johan Sebastian Bach, Martini, and Johann Ludwig Kreps. Matilda is an invigorating presence on the classical music scene, combining her craft with an astute eye for social media content that avoids aesthetics, pays defere...

Audiences. Strategy. Credibility. What does cultural leadership in classical music look like when credibility is tested by data? Sam Jackson - Radio 3 Controller and BBC Proms Director - talks to Jon Jacob about Radio 3's new sound, recent listening figures (have they been spun or are they actually improving?), strategy, and his role as an audience-facing leader in a changing BBC challenged by funding, budget cuts, and future m...

Hello

Grab a pillow and lay down. Drift off. Allow yourself to dream.

Such overt direction wouldn't normally feature in a Thoroughly Good Podcast introduction, but its fitting for this one with pianist Hanni Liang who, ever the experimenter with concert formats, tests out an element of her forthcoming Edinburgh Festival appearance on me in a bit of a podcast first.

Liang combines a performance of Debussy Reverie with au...

Georgian pianist Mariam Batsashvili shares her journey from student to international artist. She reflects on her roots in Georgia’s rich musical culture, her transformative experience as a BBC New Generation Artist, and the thrill of returning to the Royal Albert Hall. Mariam discusses the emotional depth of Liszt’s music, recounts how reading Dante at 13 shaped her interpretation of his Fantasia quasi Sonata, and explores the spir...

London chamber music venue Wigmore Hall stages something in the region of 600 events a year. That’s partly why its season brochure stretches to 206 pages — and that’s just for September to December 2025. A weighty piece of print that, for some (myself included), reads more like a guaranteed programme of discovery. An in depth syllabus. A prospectus.

The new season sees the usual draw of international artists and homegrown talent: C...

Four years after the premiere of ‘Woke’ at the BBC Proms in 2021, composer Daniel Kidane is riding high, this year Composer in Residence at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival. Kidane reflects on his training, his mindset for composing, and what’s changed (or not) since the work that promoted empathy, compassion and togetherness. The BBC Symphony Orchestra performs Woke (now named Awake) at the Aldeburgh Festival alongside a whole host of ...

This episode spotlights contemporary classical composer Oliver Davis talking about his new album Life.

Davis writes music that makes a montage of your own life. Had author Augesten Burroughs had access to Davis he'd have had access to soundtracks that would have consoled and celebrated the very life BUrroughs ended up documenting in Running with Scissors.

Davis brings his experience writing music for TV to scores that elevate real ...

Following a stunning opening concert in Manchester Camerata's new Mozart series, horn player Martin Owen talks about Mozart's Horn Concertos, working with Camerata, and a 30-year career spanning many of the UK's leading orchestras. Owen is warm, playful and generous, and that is reflected in his captivating performance. His is an instantly likeable sound on stage, one that conveys an infectious sense of confidence in pe...

Jan returns to the podcast after what we both reckon is probably around 12 years. He remains, as I dimly recall from a sunny day in Verbier, candid, down to earth, and completely and utterly absorbed by his craft. But what’s evident now — and what I definitely don’t remember sensing then — is his resolute vision: a clear sense of what he wants to do, and how he wants to do it. It’s reflected not only in his achievements, but also i...