Main content
This programme will be available shortly after broadcast

Composer: Roxanna Panufnik, Westminster Abbey

The EssayTowards Evensong

Celebrating a hundred years of the BBC’s broadcasting of Choral Evensong. Matthew Bannister, a former head chorister and a verger, meets the people that make this service happen.

October 2026 marks a hundred years of the BBC’s broadcasting of Choral Evensong. Matthew Bannister is a former head chorister and a verger who loves Evensong. He talks to the people that make this much-loved service happen. In this episode, he meets the composer Roxanna Panufnik.

Produced by Natalie Steed for Rhubarb Rhubarb.

14 minutes

On radio

Next Wednesday21:45
BBC Radio 3

More episodes

Previous

Lay Clerk: Timothy Popple, Bristol CathedralTowards Evensong

Next

Dean's Verger: David Maw, Sheffield CathedralTowards Evensong

See all episodes from The Essay

Broadcast

  • Next Wednesday21:45
    BBC Radio 3

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Podcast

  • The Essay

    Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.