EPISODE · Nov 29, 2021 · 42 MIN
Kelly Lee Owens, Stephen Sondheim, Rowan Williams, Black Obsidian Sound System
from Front Row · host BBC Radio 4
The electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens won this year’s Welsh Music Prize for her album Inner Song. She tells Samira Ahmed about her inspiration - and her collaborations with John Cale, Björk and Michael Sheen. This evening theatres in the West End dim their lights in honour of the great composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the words for the songs in West Side Story, and the musicals Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Company, Assassins, and more. From Front Row's archive we hear Sondheim himself talking about matching words to music, and his biographer, David Benedict, looks closely at one song, explaining how it demonstrates his remarkable skill. Throughout his life Rowan Williams, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 until 2012, has written poetry. Now his previous collections have been gathered with new pieces in a single volume, his Collected Poems. He talks about his work, which ranges from poems inspired by the landscape of West Wales to a sequence of sonnets inspired by Shakespeare's plays, another commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, and translations from German, Russian and Welsh and, his latest poem set in a vaccination centre in Splott. The nominees for this year’s Turner Prize are all artists’ collectives and Front Row has been hearing from them in the run up to the announcement of the winner. Tonight, we hear from Black Obsidian Sound System, a London based collective who use their sound system to organise events that connect communities. They tell Samira how their collective works and explain why being nominated for the UK’s biggest art prize hasn’t been a totally positive experience.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie HarrisPhoto: Kelly Lee Owens Photo credit: Sarah Stedeford
What this episode covers
The electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens won this year’s Welsh Music Prize for her album Inner Song. She tells Samira Ahmed about her inspiration - and her collaborations with John Cale, Björk and Michael Sheen. This evening theatres in the West End dim their lights in honour of the great composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the words for the songs in West Side Story, and the musicals Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Company, Assassins, and more. From Front Row's archive we hear Sondheim himself talking about matching words to music, and his biographer, David Benedict, looks closely at one song, explaining how it demonstrates his remarkable skill. Throughout his life Rowan Williams, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 until 2012, has written poetry. Now his previous collections have been gathered with new pieces in a single volume, his Collected Poems. He talks about his work, which ranges from poems inspired by the landscape of West Wales to a sequence of sonnets inspired by Shakespeare's plays, another commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, and translations from German, Russian and Welsh and, his latest poem set in a vaccination centre in Splott. The nominees for this year’s Turner Prize are all artists’ collectives and Front Row has been hearing from them in the run up to the announcement of the winner. Tonight, we hear from Black Obsidian Sound System, a London based collective who use their sound system to organise events that connect communities. They tell Samira how their collective works and explain why being nominated for the UK’s biggest art prize hasn’t been a totally positive experience.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie HarrisPhoto: Kelly Lee Owens Photo credit: Sarah Stedeford
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Kelly Lee Owens, Stephen Sondheim, Rowan Williams, Black Obsidian Sound System
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