UK Disability History Month, Maria Callas

Available for over a year

Tom Service talks to the designers of the Clarion – a new instrument designed to open-up music-making to disabled performers – at the National Open Youth Orchestra, and is joined by the musician Alessandro Vazzana to hear how the instrument behaves during performance. Tom speaks, too, from the NOYO’s Chief Executive, Barry Farrimond-Chuong, as well as composer, Michael Betteridge, and Access Lead at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, James Risdon, to learn how they’re harnessing the instrument’s creative and performative potential, and how they’re leading the charge to increase access to adaptive instruments. Tom travels to the workshop of the designer and creator of one-handed woodwind instruments, Peter Worrell, to learn about the manufacturing innovations he’s introducing to make instruments increasingly accessible to disabled musicians. He also speaks to teacher and Chair of the One-Handed Musical Instrument Trust, Clare Salters, about what it takes to design and make adaptive instruments for disabled music students, and her student Maria describes performing on the one-handed clarinet. OHMI’s general manager, Rachel Wolffsohn, joins the conversation too. And on the centenary of the birth of legendary soprano Maria Callas, Music Matters visits a new museum in the centre of Athens dedicated to her phenomenal artistry, and learns what the collections can tell us about her life from the musicologist and Director of the Friends of Music Society, Alexandros Charkiolakis. We hear too from Greek National Opera’s Associate Musicologist, Sophia Kompotiati, about a new exhibition which opened its doors to the public at National Library of Greece last week. Plus Olivier Descotes, Artistic Director of the Olympia Theatre (the venue where Callas made her professional debut), tells Music Matters about the Greek opera singer’s early career and formative relationship with her teachers.