Radio 3 strengthens neo-classical, early and jazz coverage

Martin Cullingford
Tuesday, September 10, 2019

BBC station to also launch a New Generation Baroque Ensemble

Elizabeth Alker's Unclassified show to become a weekly Radio 3 fixture
Elizabeth Alker's Unclassified show to become a weekly Radio 3 fixture

A strong focus on neo-classical, early and jazz music will be among the additions to BBC Radio 3’s programming this autumn.

The autumn schedule will contain four new regular programmes. Unclassified, hosted by Elizabeth Alker, will become a regular weekly programme following three short series; the show explores the ever-shifting and increasingly popular area where music crosses genres, embracing neo-classical, ambient and electronica music. It will be joined in the schedules by a new late-night show called Night Tracks, presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch.

Another new programme, Early Music Now, coincides with the launch of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Baroque Ensemble, a new scheme designed to nurture a young, UK-based Baroque Ensemble, complete with performance and broadcast opportunities, created in partnership with the National Centre for Early Music and the Royal College of Music. Completing the new line-up will be a new late-night jazz programme which it is promised will focus on ‘exploring cutting-edge, adventurous jazz’.

Other announcements include a partnership between BBC Radio 3 and the New York art gallery MoMA for a series called ‘The Way I See It’, and the continuation of the ‘slow radio’ initiative with Horatio Clare travelling to Greenland for an Arctic Sound Walk plus a sonic journey down the River Thames from central London to the estuary.

Meanwhile, Beethoven’s 250th anniversary in 2020 will be marked with a year-long focus, Beethoven Unleashed, featuring 25 editions of Composer of the Week dedicated to his music over the course of the year. There will also be a specially commissioned score by composer Alex Woolf to mark the 70th anniversary of the UK’s first motorway, to be performed by the BBC Philharmonic, and a week dedicated to exploring the music and culture of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s interwar period, 100 years on. 

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