Music TV - December 9 - 15

Hello again, 

More pre-Christmas highlights this week, including another chance to see last year's excellent Christmas session.

1930 - 2030: What Makes A Great Tenor?

The great tenor Rolando Villazon takes us inside the world of the sexiest and most risky of all operatic voices. It's a journey which includes some of the great names of the past, such as Caruso and Lanza, and some of the brightest stars performing today, like Domingo, Alagna and Florez. We hear how they tackle their most famous roles and what the risks and rewards are. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sm1js

2030 - 2100: The Highland Sessions

The episode opens with Da Mihi Manum (Give Me Your Hand), performed by Steve Cooney and Kathleen MacInnes. Rona Lightfoot performs canntaireachd, an oral music form traditionally used to teach and pass on pipe tunes that Rona has made her own, elevating it to a kind of Gaelic scat singing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074rx7

2100 - 2200: Still Folk Dancing After All These Years

Repeated: BBC Four - Sunday 2535, Wednesday 1930

Young Northumbrian folk-singing siblings Rachel and Becky Unthank take a journey around England from spring to autumn 2010 to experience its living folk dance traditions in action. They lead us through the back gardens and narrow streets of towns and villages from Newcastle to Penzance to discover the most surprising of dances, ceremonies, rituals and festivities that mark the turning of the seasons and the passing of the year. On their journey the Unthanks learn about the evolving history of the dances, whether connected to the land and the cycles of fertility or to working customs and practices in industrial towns. The girls talk to local historians and visit Cecil Sharp House to explore the dances' 20th century revival and codification through archivist Sharp and others, and we get to enjoy extraordinary film archive of the dances through the decades which show that although the people have changed, the dances have often remained remarkably constant.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wgrtr

2200 - 2300: Fire and Ice - The Christmas Session

BBC Four celebrates merry midwinter in unique style, with an exhilarating blend of folk tradition and burlesque fun. Energetic 11-piece Bellowhead and Mercury-nominated alternative folkies The Unthanks get together with the impressive young singers Thea Gilmore and Lisa Knapp, plus other special guests.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pcnsp

2300 - 2400: Folk at the BBC - The 50s & 60s

Repeated: BBC Four - Sunday 2435

A compilation of folk performances from the 1950s and 60s, news items on the folk movement from the vaults and newly-shot performances. Featured artists include Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Lonnie Donegan, Martin Carthy, A L Lloyd, the Coppers and Bob Davenport.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074s5l

Saturday 11 December - BBC Four

1900 - 2000: Come Clog Dancing - Treasures of English Folk Dance

Repeated: BBC Four - Sunday 2335, Thursday 1930

At the height of the industrial revolution in the last decades of the 19th century there was a dance, now rarely seen, that resounded through the collieries and pit villages of the north east of England - the clog dance. For conductor and musician Charles Hazlewood, clog dance has become an obsession and he plans to put it firmly back on the map by staging a mass flashmob clog dance. Helped by a team of local enthusiasts led by expert clog dancer Laura Connolly, Charles recruits and trains 140 men and women from across the north east, and one sunny Saturday in a busy square in central Newcastle they ambush the public with a six-minute performance.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wmy5q

2000 - 2100: Folk at The BBC: The 60s & 70s

Compilation of archive performances by some of the 60s folk boom's biggest names, quirky factual items from the vaults and some newly shot performances from the 60s folk stars. Featuring Donovan, Richard Thompson, Pentangle, Sandy Denny and an Alan Whicker cameo from 1960.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074s6b

Next week; Festival Britannia, Ray Davies, Soul Noel.

Take care of yourselves

Rory