Sonnet Machine – premiere 23 April & Broadcasts

Sonnet Machine is receiving its public premiere at the weekend courtesy of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, alongside a couple of radio broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.

In chronological order, then: on Friday 22nd at 9.30pm and as a part of their Shakespeare 400 celebrations, Radio 3 will broadcast ‘Baba Ganoush’, a newly commissioned radio play from Tom Wells, which features extracts from Sonnet Machine as incidental music. Similar radio plays with new music will be broadcast over the weekend, each introduced by Maxine Peake reading the Shakespeare sonnet that inspired each play.

The next day, on Saturday 23rd, the BBC Philharmonic will perform Sonnet Machine at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Andrew Gourlay. The concert also features four pieces commissioned for the Shakespeare project – Chiu-yu Chou’s The Tongue, Daniel Kidane’s Sirens, Aaron Parker’s Serisu and Nina Whiteman’s The Map of Days Outworn – and extracts from Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet. Tickets here.

Lastly, that concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 In Concert at 7.30pm on Wednesday 27th April. It can be listened to around the world on BBC iPlayer for 30 days, so I’ll put a link up here.