Posts Tagged ‘bbc radio 3’

This weekend, BBC Radio 3 announced the 2012 World Routes Academy apprentice – José Hernando.

Hernando is a 19-year-old UK-based accordionist born to Colombian parents. He first developed a love of vallenato – the folk music style of Colombia’s Caribbean coast – from cassettes his father brought back to the UK and online music clips. He has since formed the Revolucion Vallenata, a multicultural vallenato band, and played with various vallenato and cumbia outfits.

That’s when the BBC Radio 3 World Routes Academy came calling. Founded in 2010, the academy turned to Indian music in 2011, when Karnatic vocal star Aruna Sairam mentored veena player Hari Sivanesan. 2012 sees this rare opportunity awarded to Hernando, as he gets the opportunity to spend six months working with Colombian master accordionist Egidio Cuadrado.

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Tags: accordion, bbc radio 3, colombia, egidio cuadrado, hari sivanesan, jose hernando, khyam allami, vallenato, world routes, world routes academy.

The album World Routes: On the Road, featured as a Top of the World album in the current issue #81, will be released on January 16.

The 2 disc compilation features previously unreleased material recorded on location by BBC Radio 3′s World Routes programme. Compiled by producer James Parkin and co-produced by presenter Lucy Durán, it features some fantastic tracks.

Editor-in-chief, Simon Broughton, reviewed the album in the current issue:

World Routes (currently broadcast on Sunday evenings) is BBC Radio 3’s flagship world music programme. And to my knowledge, there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. The programme has over ten years travelled the world exploring and making top quality recordings of local music. The programmes could be more journalistic and less effusive, but they bring fantastic music to a wider audience at the press of a button. This CD, compiled by producer James Parkin and co-produced by the programme’s main presenter Lucy Durán, is a tenth anniversary celebration featuring recordings made specially for the programme.

There are some real gems here: Tito Paris in Cape Verde singing ‘Mar Azul’, the morna by B Leza made famous by Cesaria Evora; the fantastic pit-xylophone in the village of Nakibembe, Uganda; the Riho Ensemble in Svanetia, the mountainous province of Georgia; and Justin Vali and Paddy Bush playing valiha in Madagascar. There are exquisite tracks from oud player and World Routes Academy mentee Khyam Allami and his mentor Ilham Al Madfai, sounding softly reflective in his song about Baghdad and the wonderful South Indian singer and this year’s mentor Aruna Sairam, a real World Routes discovery.

Having strong memories of hearing fantastic recordings in Xinjiang and Algeria, I was a little disappointed not to find any of that here, but I understand that’s down to licensing problems. So better to enjoy what there is – which is plenty. I’d recommend starting with CD2 which kicks off thrillingly with Venezuelan harpist Carlos Orozco, quickly followed by other tasty morsels from Cape Verde, Georgia, Uganda and Madagascar. Then have a listen to CD1. Apart from Toumani Diabaté and Tito Paris, there aren’t many well-known names here and that is exactly the point. Often these are musicians who play for local audiences or are only just on the international radar – like the fabulous clarinettist from Epirus, Petroloukas Chalkias; Peruvian guitarist Manuelcha Prado, who includes Jimmy Page amongst his admirers; and the Azeri singer (raved about before in these pages) Gochaq Askarov.

The entertaining notes by producer James Parkin broaden the picture, but what this selection of 30 tracks certainly does is drive you to the programmes where you can get more of the context and atmosphere. Luckily they are all archived on the Radio 3 website.

You can listen to tracks from the album on SoundCloud.

The release will be celebrated with performances by Azerbaijan’s Gochaq Askarov and World Routes Academy protégé Hari Vrndavn Sivanesan at the Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall (free admission) on February 3. You can find the concert details here.

For more details on BBC Radio 3′s World Routes, please visit: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnmp

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Tags: bbc radio 3, gochaq askarov, hari vrndavn sivanesan, james parkin, lucy duran, Simon Broughton, top of the world, world routes.

Much loved DJ, Songlines contributor and world music explorer Andy Kershaw returns to BBC Radio 3 in the near future and with him come exciting new plans.

He is set to present Music Planet – a programme being created in conjunction with BBC One’s Human Planet. Alongside co-presenter Lucy Durán, he will visit more remote outposts of world music in the footsteps of his legendary North Korean and Iraqi sojourns.

Music Planet is being touted by the station as the “most significant and ambitious world music project ever” and will include throat singing in Greenland, shamanic music from Mongolia and the sounds of the remote Bat People of Papa New Guinea.

Of a trip to Thailand, Kershaw had this to say: “I cheerily risked incineration at a rocket festival in Thailand to take our Radio 3 audience into the fiery thick of the action.” Watch this space.

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

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Tags: andy kershaw, bbc radio 3, kershaw, music planet, radio 3.