Serial

Have you heard Serial? If not, you should. It's an American podcast created by the people who made This American Life. (Note to self: listen to This American Life.) I discovered it last weekend, thanks to a lot of excited Tweets. The series is eight episodes in; I've caught up with them all. There's even a podcast about the podcast. I've caught up with that too. I'm hooked.

In Serial, a journalist is investigating a real-life murder case from the 1990s. She's interviewing people, picking through mobile-phone records, replaying the court case that ended up with a conviction and a life-sentence – and asking if they got the right man. The storytelling is superb; almost to the point that it feels uncomfortable to be so interested in something so horrible that really happened. Writer Linda Grant has described Serial as 'essential listening for writers' and a 'cultural phenomenon.' I'm trying to think if I've heard anything else like it, and I can't. Journalist David Hepworth reckons there is nothing else like it and that this podcast is doing something that radio just couldn't.

Reviews for BBC Music Magazine

I've been a bit quiet on my blog of late, but that's because I've been chattering away over at classical-music.com – and also learning how to bell-ring. More of this later.

Here's what I've been covering:

• Cape Town Opera's Showboat
• Lisa Batiashvili plays Bach at the Bristol Proms
• Britten's War Requiem at the BBC Proms
• Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at the BBC Proms
• Last Night of the Proms 2014
• Reflections from Cremona
• Daniil Trifonov at the Royal Festival Hall
• Poet Andrew Motion on his favourite composers
• Christian Blackshaw plays Schubert at St George's Bristol

Become Ocean

 

Become Ocean is one of the most overwhelming pieces of new music I've heard in the last few months. I had the pleasure of interviewing its composer John Luther Adams for BBC Music Magazine. You can read what he had to say about his Pulitzer-Prize-winning piece here. And there's also a short clip you can have a listen to. Even 40 seconds gives a bit of a sense of this 42-minute seascape.