BBC radio and television
BBC radio and television will be supporting BBC Music Day, including:
Published: 11 May 2017
On BBC Music Day, BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra will be highlighting the power of music to support mental wellbeing as part of My Mind And Me, the stations’ year-long mental health campaign. Throughout the day on Radio 1 and 1Xtra, listeners will hear from young people who have struggled with mental health problems and used music to help them move forward and transform their lives.
BBC Radio 2
North West
Lancaster
On Friday 9 June, Get It Loud In Libraries is staging an exclusive show at Lancaster Library featuring hotly tipped artist PIXX.
Liverpool
A series of performances will be taking place to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album. The day’s events are inspired by the John Lennon penned song Good Morning, Good Morning and highlights include: young artists from Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, 20 Stories High and LIMF will perform along the length of Church Street in the city centre; actor Paul McGann will be reading from Herman Melville at The Athenaeum; and acclaimed baritone Marcus Farnsworth will sing morning songs by Schubert, Wolf and others at The Philharmonic’s Music Room.
Manchester
On 9 June, the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital will host Zest Fest, a festival of music that is supported by LIME Arts and Music in Hospitals and will feature a Samba procession and workshop from Global Grooves, plus music played throughout the day across the hospital. Melody from CBeebies will also be visiting and joining in the fun.
Also on 9 June, a special BBC Music Day Brass Band competition celebrating the power of music will be held at Saddleworth, with highlights broadcast on Radio 2’s Listen to the Band.
On 15 June in Salford local BBC Introducing artist Claire Mooney will perform her MediaCity Tram Track, commissioned by BBC Radio Manchester.
Radio 2 (and BBC Scotland) will be broadcasting Texas and the Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s concert live from Glasgow Barrowlands on Friday 9 June. Listen to the Band will be at the Saddleworth and District Whit Friday Brass Band contests where last year well over a 100 brass bands took part in more than 20 locations. All the action, including the special BBC Music Day award for the band that best illustrates the theme of the power of music will be featured in a special edition of Listen to the Band on Tuesday June 13 June.
In the days leading up to Music Day (Monday 12 - Thursday 15 June) Jeremy Vine’s show will feature four special half-hour documentaries - Songs My Son Loved - as mother’s whose sons have been killed during military service discuss the impact music had on their son’s lives.
BBC Radio 6 Music
Yorkshire
Bradford
Bradford Music and Arts Service will celebrate BBC Music Day on 15 June with a packed programme of events, including a world record attempt involving over 800 children playing the Bamboo Tamboo, music originating from Trinidad and Tobago created by hitting a bamboo shoot on the ground. There will also be musical performances including Bradford The Musical, and Bradley Johnson who was a finalist on BBC One’s Let It Shine last year.
Doncaster
On Friday 9 June, Doncaster Music Hub will look ahead to BBC Music Day at Sir Nigel Gresley Square with a mass Samba Band made up of around 300 children from ten local schools from the Doncaster Borough.
There will also be a concert celebrating BBC Music Day, featuring the Rainbow Connection choir and Doncaster’s premier Youth Orchestra: The Beechfield Youth Orchestra. On Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 June, 1100 primary school children will perform as part of a mass choir at Doncaster Dome, presented by Doncaster Music Hub.
Sheffield
Sheffield has a rich musical heritage, and on Friday 9 June, the second Sheffield Makes Music event will celebrate the upcoming BBC Music Day with 1000 musicians performing over 24 hours at various locations around the city from 8am. A number of the performances will take place in established music venues such as The Leadmill, as well as in unexpected places around the city.
Supported by the University Of Sheffield and Sheffield BID, the day has taken on a significant role in the city’s cultural calendar.
Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie will be broadcasting a special show live from Liverpool, celebrating the city’s musical legacy from the Beatles’ era to present day. As the city celebrates the 50th anniversary of the iconic Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Mark and Stuart will explore the influence of Liverpool’s music over the last five decades.
With special guests and live music, the show will be broadcast from The British Music Experience in the city’s historic Cunard Building, overlooking the Mersey, in front of a live audience. Among the guests will be The Coral’s frontman James Skelly, local singer-songwriter Mick Head of Shack and The Pale Fountains and, fresh from an appearance at Liverpool’s Positive Vibrations Reggae Festival, The Selecter’s Pauline Black. There will be live music from legendary Merseyside electronic pioneers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and local indie psych-pop four-piece She Drew The Gun.
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast programme will be marking the unveiling of BBC Music Day blue plaques recognising the contribution people and organisations have made to music in locations across the country. In Tune will be broadcasting live from Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, celebrating the power of music with an array of BBC Introducing stars including cellist Jamal Aliyev and the recorder ensemble Block4.
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Thomas Sondergard with pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, will feature on Radio 3 In Concert that day, performing Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite, Ravel’s Piano Concerto In G major and Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring.
Six writers celebrate the power of music with monologues on BBC Radio 3 for BBC Music Day.
BBC Radio 4
Radio 4’s Daily Service will celebrate BBC Music Day with soul singer Mica Paris singing gospel favourites in a service led by Chaplain to the Queen, Canon Ann Easter. The service will showcase the amazing and unique power gospel music continues to hold, as well as drawing on its rich history of providing comfort and hope.
This follows on from the previous week (5-9 June) of special services based on the theme Sing To The Lord, looking at the importance and power of music in worship, both in times of struggle and in praise and thanksgiving. There will be different styles of Christian music across the week from artists including the Radio 2 Young Choristers of the Year 2017 and the BBC Daily Service Singers.
Radio 5 live
Will Young and The Courteeners also provide unique collaborations performing with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for BBC Radio 5 live’s Sports Panel, broadcast on Thursday 8 June, 12.30-2pm. Exploring the common ground between music and sport, the programme will also feature Olympic gold medal-winning diver Chris Mears and Team GB long-jumper and The Voice contestant Jazmin Sawyers who have started musical careers alongside their sporting triumphs.
Asian Network
BBC Asian Network will be marking BBC Music Day from 7am when the popular Love Friday Mix from BBC Asian Network’s Breakfast Show becomes the Love Thursday Mix for one day only. Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw and 1Xtra’s A.Dot will feature alongside Breakfast Show host Tommy Sandhu to play some of their favourite tunes. Resident DJ Bobby Friction will also be joined on his show from 5.30pm by British Asian singer and producer and current BBC Ambassador, Zack Knight, who will be performing live and chatting to Bobby about BBC Music Day.
The Asian Network will also be celebrating the first British Asian artists to be honoured with blue plaques: a scheme designed to link notable people of the past with the buildings in which they lived and worked. Asian Network DJs Bobby Friction and Dipps Bhamrah formed part of an advisory panel with external industry specialists to select three artists to be commemorated with a plaque.
BBC World Service
Outlook will bring you extraordinary and inspiring personal stories of the life-changing power of music - from all over the world. There will also be live performances and listeners from around the world will share The Song That Changed My Life.
BBC One - Doctors
BBC One daytime drama Doctors will be airing a special musically infused episode on Friday 9 June to mark BBC Music Day.
CBeebies and CBBC
CBeebies and CBBC will be joining in the fun on BBC Music Day. The Let’s Go Club will be celebrating music with Let’s Goers, William and Harris, telling viewers how music therapy has made them the best of friends. Super saxophonist, YolanDa, has some ideas to inspire children to pick up an instrument and the Club Reporters catch up with young singing sensations, Little Belters.
CBeebies Radio celebrates the power of music, joining a singing club to hear from its young members why music is important to them and how powerful it can be. The group will perform a special version of Justin Timberlake’s song, Can’t Stop The Feeling. The radio show will also encourage other children to sing and think about joining a singing group near them.
On CBBC Horrible Histories present A Music Day Special Monstrous Musicians. From Neanderthal singing to Beethoven’s symphonies, we take a look at some of History’s most prolific musicians and composers, from Franz Liszt to Elvis Presley’s hysterical fans; Mozart’s childish sense of humour; Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph which many didn’t believe, thinking he had hidden musicians somewhere in the room; to Emperor Nero forcing his audiences to sit through his concerts on pain of death!
Further CBeebies and CBBC programming to be announced soon.
