BBC Radio 3 Feed

Discovering Composers on Radio 3

2015-01-21T15:06:37+00:00

Roger Philbrick

The number of Composer Collections on the Radio 3 website has reached a milestone of 40. Roger Philbrick is the senior content producer behind this long-running piece of in-depth curation, which has led to some 2000 archive composer programmes being made permanently available to listeners. As he prepares to leave the BBC after nearly 30 years’ service, Roger opens the composer jewel-box to show off the treasures inside ….

In 2002 I was working as Science producer for the Radio 4 website when it occurred to me that it might be possible to keep recordings of radio programmes online beyond the normal 7 day limit. This was fairly radical in the days before iPlayer or podcasts, but our audience approved and the idea quickly caught on with Arts and History programmes. Music broadcasts were trickier because we were only allowed to archive musical excerpts, rather than full performances. But this still allowed us to offer music documentaries and features with short musical illustrations.

A few years later, I moved to the Radio 3 online team and revelled in the wealth of music analysis programmes, presented with passion and in-depth knowledge by some of the best communicators in the business. The benefits of preserving these programmes were obvious: they had timeless value and provided encyclopaedic audio guides to the most popular composers and their works, perfectly complementing our concert broadcasts. So we started archiving Composer of the Week and Discovering Music on a weekly basis; later additions included editions of Music Matters, Proms Plus and finally CD Review’s Building a Library, which broadened the core composer/works menu to include comparisons of performance styles.

As I write, we are now able to offer almost 2000 programmes via the comprehensive Composers A to Z, plus less intimidating individual collections celebrating the 40 composers for whom we have most content. The formats range from short, bite-sized reviews of favourite works from Tom Service and Howard Goodall, through to complete biographical guides, delivered by Donald Macleod in his inimitable style. Among my personal favourites are the older, long-format editions of Discovering Music, in which Charles Hazlewood and Stephen Johnson take the audience on guided tours of the crown jewels of classical music, with extracts performed live by the BBC orchestras.

Assembling and curating this unique archive has been a privilege and pleasure, and I hope you find the contents as fascinating and entertaining as I have.

Composers A-Z
Discovering the Great Composers
The Story of Music in 50 Pieces - with Howard Goodall and Suzy Klein
Building a Library
Opera Guides
Roger Philbrick Music (personal website)

Essential Choices on BBC Playlister

2014-05-07T12:31:34+00:00

Essential Choices on BBC Playlister

Twitter, podcasts, Facebook, blogs, iplayer, Soundcloud…. it can all seem a bit much can’t it? It is true that in this digital age there are many demands for our attention, but when these tools are used in a focused way, they can undoubtedly offer lots of benefits. With this in mind we’ve recently added another feature into the digital mix too - Essential Choices on BBC Playlister So what’s this all about and why should you give it any attention?

Firstly, if you aren’t familiar with BBC Playlister, there is a very comprehensive page here that explains all. In a nutshell however, BBC Playlister allows you to keep track of the music you enjoy listening to on the BBC. It also allows programmes on the BBC to create handcrafted playlists of music for people to follow. And this is what we have done with our Essential Choices playlist.

As you may know, at 11am from Tuesday to Friday, Rob and Sarah choose an ‘Essential Choice’. These pieces are often themed in some way, for instance this week Rob has chosen four romantic piano concertos. If you miss them live then of course you can always catch up via the iplayer, but only for a limited time. However, via Playlister you can now listen to these pieces at any time you want. It’s pretty straightforward, and the only thing you need to do is to make sure you have a Spotify account. It’s completely free and very quick to register. Once you’ve done that, you just ‘follow’ the Essential Choices playlist and each week you will be notified as we add new works to the playlist. You can then listen back at your leisure, days, weeks or even months after broadcast. What’s to lose?!

If you have any comments please do leave them below, or you can get in touch via email or Twitter:

Email: essentialclassics@bbc.co.uk

Twitter: #essentialclassics

Changes to Radio 3 online and on your mobile

2012-10-08T09:25:59+00:00

We've made some big changes to Radio 3 online today - there's a new web site for PC, mobile and tablet and a new mobile app - (free from the Apple app store at launch, other mobile platforms to follow).

The new site is part of an effort to bring new consistency to BBC Radio online. All the BBC stations (including BBC nations and local radio) now have a common structure and navigation. This should make it easier to find the information you need and to play the content you like.

It's new but we think you'll find it pretty easy to use. Here's a quick guide to how to use the new homepage:

Click the image for a printable version.

And here's a bit more detail about the three main ways to find things online:

The grey navigation bar just below the top of the screen:

If you're looking for a particular show, click 'Programmes' and type its name. Browse programmes by genre from the 'Categories' menu or use the schedule to locate a programme directly.

Just below the grey navigation bar, the meat of the new web site:

Here you'll see details of the programme that's on-air now plus the next one and the one after that. Click the big grey arrows at left and right to flick through panels of information about the station's output: highlights selected by us, the top programmes for online listening and other content we're featuring. This is regularly-changing content where you can get a sense of what's going on at Radio 3 right now and this week.

Further down the page you'll find a panel of boxes:

This is where you'll find links to all the important Radio 3 stuff - our newsletter, the blog and social media and to the A-Z index of composers, for instance. We'll also put links here to big seasons and to the BBC Orchestras.

Click the 'What's New?' link in the grey navigation bar for a visual guide to the new Radio web sites. Use the hashtag #bbciplayerradio if you're discussing the new web sites and the app on Twitter and follow @BBCiPlayerRadio for news and information.

Mark Friend, Controller of BBC Radio's interactive department, has written a post for the BBC Radio blog about the changes. Let us know what you think of the new design by leaving a comment on his blog post.

Steve Bowbrick, Interactive Editor, BBC Radio 3

There's a press release about iPlayer Radio on the BBC Media Centre web site and Andrew Scott, head of the team that has built the new sites and apps, has written a detailed post about them for the BBC Internet blog.

Help us test the new Radio 3 homepage

2012-06-12T07:06:56+00:00

We're testing a new homepage for Radio 3. For the next couple of months you'll see a link at the top of every Radio 3 web page. Click it and you'll see a test version of the new homepage (a 'beta' version, as the engineers call it) which will replace the current one later in the year. Try it out and tell us what you think by clicking the 'Feedback' tab on the right-hand side of the beta homepage or by leaving a comment here on the blog. If you're talking about the new design on Twitter, use the hashtag #bbcradiobeta so we can find your comments.

Radio 3's new homepage is part of a larger redesign for all of the BBC Radio web sites so you'll see links to beta homepages at the top of most sites from today (about 60 stations). Each has a different look and a different choice of links but there's a common design. It should be easier to find the content you're after and to talk to the stations you listen to.

You'll find a link at the top of the beta homepage to a useful introduction to the new radio homepages. Chris Kimber, who's the manager from the BBC's technology department leading the redesign, has written a detailed post for the BBC Internet blog and Mark Friend, Controller of BBC Audio & Music Interactive, the digital arm of BBC Radio, has also blogged.

The point of testing the homepage publicly in this way is to try different options and to get your reactions to them. We'll change the test page several times during the beta period and I'll blog here whenever we make a large change.

Some notes on the new look:

There's an improved 'Radio' navigation toolbar just below the top set of BBC-wide links which should make it easier for you to find specific programmes. Try clicking 'Programme Finder' and typing the name of a Radio 3 programme. This will be the best way, for instance, to find your favourite programme's playlist.
To begin with, the primary view of the new Radio 3 homepage is all about what's on-air right now and what's coming up (we call this the 'live tab') - you'll see a large image for the current programme and, next to it, two smaller ones for the next two programmes.
Just below these images, alongside the name of the programme you're listening to, you'll see links (or 'tabs') labelled 'Featured', 'Popular programmes' and 'Performance'. Each link loads a new panel on the homepage. This is where you'll find the regularly-changing content on the new homepage, updated daily. Try out these tabs (or click the big 'left' and 'right' arrows) and tell us what you think. They're the backbone of the new page.
Further down you'll see a group of red boxes with links to lots of other Radio 3 content and to our Twitter and Facebook accounts. These links are flexible and during the test period we'll try different options here. Let us know if you think we should be linking to something specific from one of the red boxes.

If you're able to help us test the new homepage, thank you. Your feedback is important.

Steve Bowbrick, Interactive Editor, BBC Radio 3

Try the beta version of the new Radio 3 homepage. Fill in a short feedback survey.
Read blog posts by Chris Kimber and by Mark Friend.
Visit the Radio 3 Facebook page and follow us on Twitter The hashtag is #bbcradiobeta.