Classical Hour: Sundays at 1800, Repeated Wednesday at 1300 and Friday at 1400

Starting this week, we add another 4 hours per month of original programming to our schedule.

Classical Hour is a new music slot on Frome FM created by 4 local producers, each with a different take on ‘Art Music’ – as distinct from Rock or Pop, but not excluding jazz and its derivatives.

The four shows are – Performance, Inside Music, Very Very Vintage and Classical Analysis, airing on Sundays at 1800 with repeats on Wednesdays at 1300 and Fridays at 1400. All the shows will be available on the website as stream-able and downloadable podcasts too.

Helen Ottaway, herself a composer and piano tutor in Frome, who has created many works for piano and also pieces and installations for other instruments – produces Inside Music – her personal journey through the art-music of the twentieth century.

Very Very Vintage is the name of the third show in the monthly series – produced by local resident Nick Cotterell, it’s an homage to the years of Swing – the dance orchestras and bands that kept our parents and grandparents up at night in the middle of the last century. Nick comments: “I’ll be playing jazz and nostalgia from 1927 onwards, with a particular emphasis on the dance bands of the 1930s.”

‘Classical Analysis’ is an in-depth look at a composer or piece of music from many periods, produced by Mike Burrows. Mike has written classical music shows for Somer Valley FM for 5 years and joins Frome FM for his first outing on 96.6fm in August.

The first show in the 4-week cycle is ‘Performance’, produced by Frome resident and Frome FM director, Rupert Kirkham. “I’m really excited about this series.” he says, “Although Frome FM listeners are no strangers to classical music – many established programme-makers use classical music in their productions, ‘Performance’ will give an insight into the hundreds of local performances that take place every year in our region. It will also enable us to meet some of the musical directors, composers, musicians and administrators who work so hard to put on musical events in our community.”

The first ‘Performance’ features recording engineer, sound mixer, producer turned performance artist Stephen Tayler who works out of Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio complex in Box, near Bath.

Stephen’s professional career began at the age of 11 as a chorister at New College, Oxford and after studying at the Royal College of Music, through humble beginnings as a tea boy and tape op in one of London’s major studios progressed to one of a handful of top sound engineers mixing and producing many international bands and artists from the 1980’s to today.

One such is Kate Bush, with whom he formed a unique working relationship as her ‘vocal navigator’ on the recent tour. Stephen gives us an insight into how the recording industry has changed over the last 50 years and how he finds himself performing the world première of a multi-media event (based on his latest album, ‘Ostinato’ and created entirely at his studios in Box), next weekend, in Corsham.

OSTINATO LIVE will be performed by Stephen Tayler at the Pound Arts Centre in Corsham, next Saturday, 22nd July at 7.30pm. Details of the event and tickets can be found at www.poundarts.org.uk .

Email studio@nullfrome.fm with any questions or comments.