Dr Lucy Walker welcomes a range of fun and interesting guests to explore all things Britten and Pears, music, culture, heritage - as well as anything else that might come up!

Browse Season 1 below, or jump to Season 2 or Season 3

Soprano Elise Caluwaerts has a wide and varied career as a singer, and has been involved in several fascinating creative projects during the recent lockdowns. She is also planning a project based around the songs of Alma Mahler in 2022.

Tune in to the final podcast of Season 3 (recorded in June 2021) to hear about Alma Mahler's work, the potent combination of opera, film and fashion house (a link to the film Elise discusses can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgwmZQVgJE), and the power of song to connect people in isolation. Plus, some beautiful tracks for the podcast playlist.

For the first podcast, Lucy Walker (Director of Public Programming and Learning) and Sarah Bardwell (Chief Executive) introduce Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and what goes on at The Red House.

Topics include: the background to the composer Benjamin Britten, his relationship with the tenor Peter Pears, their lives together at The Red House, and what visitors can experience when they come to the house. Also discussed is how ‘difficult’ some people find Britten’s music, and suggestions of how to get to know it. Plus, what our contributors have been listening to lately.

For episode two, Lucy Walker (Director of Public Programming and Learning) is joined by Steve Boyce, Chair of LGBT+ History Month.

Topics include: the work of LGBT+ History Month and this year’s theme; the context of Britten and Pears’ relationship at a time when homosexuality was illegal, and how we tell their story at The Red House; the 2017 Red House exhibition Queer Talk; how attitudes to LGBT+ lives have changed, but also the challenges that still remain. Plus, what our contributors have been listening to lately.

For our new podcast, Lucy Walker is joined (remotely!) by Oliver Soden, author of the recent 'Michael Tippett: The Biography' (2019).

Tune in for a discussion about the fascinating art of life writing: how you go about beginning a biography, how invested you get in the subject, the changing fashions in life writing, and exciting news about Oliver’s forthcoming publications. Also, find out what Lucy and Oliver have been listening to lately.

Topics include: biography, life writing, classical music, Michael Tippett, Noël Coward and Benjamin Britten.

For episode four, Lucy Walker spoke to Katy Hamilton: writer, reviewer, musicologist and Radio 3 regular!

Tune in for a discussion ranging across all matters musical, including concert-going, how to find a way into classical music, football matches, Disney films, adverts, and our participants’ musical blind spots. Plus, what both have been listening to lately.

Tune in for a discussion ranging across all matters musical, including concert-going, how to find a way into classical music, football matches, Disney films, adverts, and our participants’ musical blind spots. Plus, what both have been listening to lately.

For this episode, drop in on a chat between two Red House colleagues: Drs Lucy Walker (Head, Public Engagement) and Chris Hilton (Head of Archive and Library).

Find out about the fascinating and diverse Red House collections, the human stories they contain, how we talk about them (in person and in lockdown), and what makes archivists' blood pressure rise. Conversational byways lead to Magnus Pyke, roller-skates, the history of shopping, and the Windmill Theatre, as well as unusual places to store archives. Just don't call them 'dusty'. And as usual, find out what music our speakers have been listening to lately in our increasingly eclectic playlist.

For this week’s podcast, Lucy Walker is joined by composer Russell Hepplewhite, who has been commissioned to write the new series of Friday Afternoons songs.

Tune in to hear about the origins of the Friday Afternoons project, its remarkable legacy, setting words to music (in this case, the brilliant poetry of Michael Rosen), how to write for childrens’ voices, and the joys and challenges of unusual commissions! Plus, find out what our podcasters have been listening to this week.

For episode 7, Lucy Walker is joined by singer, actor, writer and director Sarah Gabriel.

Sarah has written, directed and performed in two Aldeburgh Festival Pumphouse shows over the last two years: Middagh Street (2018), a glorious evocation of Britten and Pears' months in a riotously bohemian house-share in 1940s; and Barlines (2019), an account of Michael Tippett's formative time spent in Wormwood Scrubs in 1943. Tune in for a conversation about biography and fiction, where the two crossover, and where they diverge. Plus, what our speakers have been listening to this week.

This week’s podcast, during what would have been the 2020 Aldeburgh Festival, is a conversation between three colleagues in the newly-formed Britten Pears Arts.

Roger Wright (Chief Executive), Sarah Bardwell (Executive Director) and Lucy Walker (Head, Public Programming) discuss the merger of Snape Maltings and Britten-Pears Foundation back in April, the shared aims and vision of this new organisation, and the challenges and experiences of working together during Covid-19. Plus, the listening choices of all our podcasters.

Performers have had a drastically altered life over the last few months, with wholesale cancellations of plans and much uncertainty as to what lies ahead. In this episode, Lucy Walker has a conversation with operatic bass Matthew Rose about ‘lockdown life’, and what that means to a him as an international performer.

Tune in for a fascinating discussion (recorded down the line from a café in Antwerp!), and hear about what Matthew has been listening to during lockdown. Please note, the sound quality is a little patchy, due to a somewhat intermittent connection.

For the second podcast on the subject of lockdown life, among many other subjects, Lucy Walker is in conversation with soprano Juliet Fraser.

Tune in for a wide-ranging conversation about the challenges of the lockdown, the thrill of live performance, getting back to vocal fitness, and the fascinating process of commissioning and co-creating new pieces. Plus, the eclectic range of pieces are contributors have been listening to recently.