Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast

In this episode, listen to singer Jessica Walker introduce the story of Barbara — the singer, composer and lyricist whose output equals Jacques Brel's, someone who sold over a million copies of a single song in a day, but who remains little known in the UK.
Walker has spent years translating these songs, many of which are released in English for the first time on her new album La Solitude.
We talk about the translation process … eventually. After we've tackled our view on the industry and the systemic barriers now in place limiting a new generation of composers and performers. None of it planned. A conversation that although bleak is, strangely for me at least, self-affirming.
We start with new music, funding, and who gets to be trusted with a commission.

A scrapbook in sound: voices, reflections and field recordings from Three Choirs Festival 2026 in Gloucester — a postcard from two life-enhancing days.

Days before his BBC Proms appearance marking 50 years since the death of Benjamin Britten, cellist Guy Johnston talks candidly about his career, his influences, and his preparation for performance.

Beatrice Nicholas is a British concert pianist and composer. She performs the traditional classical canon, and she composes and arranges, fusing classical and jazz together. She's also a member of the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble, drawn from principal players of the Chineke! Orchestra.
On the seventeenth of August, she makes her debut Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's — a set that runs from a straight Beethoven sonata through to jazz-trio reworkings of Chopin and Liszt, alongside Hazel Scott, Lil Hardin Armstrong, Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.

Composer Laura Bowler on leading the Cheltenham Music Festival's Composer Academy, recorded on-site during the week of workshops in Gloucestershire. She talks about what conservatoire didn't teach her — pitching, funding applications, resilience — plus a look back at Houses Slide, her 2021 piece for London Sinfonietta and seventeen cyclists.