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In this bonus episode of TIAB we speak to the new artistic director of Cheltenham Music Festival, Jack Bazalgette.
Jack is an inspired choice for Cheltenham - as cofounder and director of Through The Noise he has programmed more than 130 concerts with innovative ensembles and repertoire in an eclectic mix of venues. He brings this visionary approach to the festival whilst still appealing to it’s loyal audience.
We chatted to Jack about Cheltenham festival highlights, balancing the new with what has already been established and potential future plans. He tells us about some of the less conventional venues and performances he’s helped bring together over the years - nowhere is too much of a challenge to stage a concert if you put your mind to it!
Jack is an inspirational person and his can-do attitude will make for exciting seasons ahead at the Cheltenham Festival.
Thanks to Dan Hartland for setting up this thoroughly enjoyable chat!
Check out what’s going on at the festival here; https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/festivals/music-festival
And to find out more about Jack’s work at Through The Noise click here; https://www.throughthenoise.co.uk/
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This week, Seb and Verity welcome the brilliant and utterly charming Baroness Thangam Debbonaire - cellist, former MP, and now fully-fledged member of the House of Lords.
With such a huge understanding and love of the arts - Thangam was shadow secretary for culture, media and sport, this was a throughly enjoyable and insightful chat including;
Thangam brings a rare and beautiful mix of musical soul and political nous to this episode and we loved having her. She is an incredibly positive person with a clear vision on ways to support and maintain/grow the arts - what a huge asset she is to the House of Lords!
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Aaron is back already! And this time Verity is nowhere to be seen. That's right, it's Seb's first solo interview. Well, it's not an interview really, more a chat, digging further into many aspects of being a trumpet player.
They discuss the following!
How important is equipment? They chat about trying out trumpets, mouthpieces, becoming (or not becoming) obsessed with gear. Or maybe it's better to actually work on own playing instead of just buying a new trumpet. Do some hard work or just buy a shiny new instrument?
Then a discussion on tonguing, articulation, and the POO ATTACK - which Seb can’t do, and it brings up some trauma for him from his time at RAM. Seb describes double tonguing everything he can rather than single tonguing because he’s lazy.
Playing the most difficult piece in the world AKA Brandenburg 2.
The first time they met on a gig in Poland where Aaron realised he knew Seb from watching a particular YouTube video.
Playing in symphony orchestras with minimal rehearsal.
Auditioning and doing trials.
The solitude of a soloist, and Seb gets a new gig as Aaron’s coach and mentor.
To get tickets for Aaron’s concert at the Cheltenham Festival 2025 click here; https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/aaron-akugbo-and-zeynep-%C3%B6zsuca
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Your eyes do not deceive you - it’s two episodes in two days!
Fresh off of zencastr we wanted to whip out this chat with trumpeter Jack Jones as he has a HUGE gig this Friday (13 June ‘25) at EartH Hackney entitled The Listening Project Presents Acid Brass…if you haven’t got your ticket yet, what are you waiting for?! It’s going to be epic and we’ve stuck a link below so you can snap up the few remaining spots.
We chatted to Jack all about the origins of Acid Brass - originally performed in the 1990s it consists of a full brass band playing acid house music.
This project was originally the brainchild of artist Jeremy Deller and Jack has been collaborating with him on this latest incarnation. He discusses what it was like to work with this creative icon, sartorial choices and what Friday night will offer for the lucky audience members.
To get more info and bag a ticket click this link;
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This week, Seb and Verity are joined by trumpet sensation Aaron Akugbo. From unwittingly making it to the finals of a trumpet competition to playing the Haydn Concerto from memory and then smashing out Jolivet’s Second Concerto with basically zero prep, Aaron embodies an entirely admirable cool, can do attitude!
We also chat about:
✈️ Touring the US with Chineke! (hello, business class)
🧠 Performing from memory and tactical programming to save the chops.
🥴 Time zones and why the International Date Line is chaos
🏴 From Edinburgh to London – compare and contrast.
🥂 Going sober and feeling good
Plus, keeping in shape on the road and what it’s like to start at the Royal Academy of Music at just 17.
Hilarious, humble, and full of trumpet gold – you’ll love this one.
To get tickets for Aaron’s concert at the Cheltenham Festival 2025 click here; https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/aaron-akugbo-and-zeynep-%C3%B6zsuca
You can find us on the socials here;
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Anything you’d like to share with us? Any guests you’d love to hear or anything you’d like us to do better? Drop us a line at hello@threeinabar.com
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Sound the klaxon - it’s a national treasure alert!
This week we are honoured to be joined by internationally celebrated Mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly.
Dame Sarah has had an incredible career to date with standout performances including Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne , multiple roles at the Met, the Royal Opera House, La Scala, Paris Opera and, of course Admiral Nelson in full naval regalia at the Last Night of the Proms.
Dame Sarah’s 24/25 season includes playing Auntie in WNO’s new production of Peter Grimes and Dido in Dido and Aeneas at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
We are hugely grateful to Dan Hartland at the Cheltenham Festival for setting up this chat - Sarah will be performing Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody at the festival on 5 July (ticket link below)
With such a stellar career and a vast list of honours to her name, Dame Sarah remains incredibly warm and down-to-earth. We chat about controlling performance anxiety, how to avoid being pigeon holed, dealing with colds, auditioning, the power of positive thinking and how to wear a fatsuit…Enjoy!
To buy tickets for Dame Sarah’s performance at the Cheltenham festival on Saturday 5 July click here; https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/berlioz-te-deum
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Anything you’d like to share with us? Any guests you’d love to hear or anything you’d like us to do better? Drop us a line at hello@threeinabar.com
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This week’s guest is Viola player, Negroni specialist and potential pilot of the future, James Flannery.
You may well recognise James’ dulcet tones as he has previously guest hosted the podcast for an Ivor Novello Awards special. This was a baptism of fire due to some speed guerilla reporting and Verity’s technical inabilities. It felt only right that we get James back for a full episode to banish the memories of his chaotic first appearance and restore his faith in podcasting!
We chat to James about some of the extraordinary, weird and wonderful gigs he has experienced already in his career - think wedding on a runway, tours with a questionable vocalist, a BBC Christmas special and countless other scrapes along the way.
James also reveals a childhood passion for planes which got him into hot water with his family and airport security. And to think James was concerned he wouldn’t have enough to talk about!
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It’s round two of our new feature where we throw extra questions at our poor, unsuspecting guests!
This week it’s our guest from the main episode, cellist Stephanie Cummins sitting in the hot seat.
If you would like to send over any questions for future guests either DM us on Instagram (@threeinabarpod) or email us at hello@threeinabar.com. Thanks!
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In this week’s episode we chat to cellist Stephanie Cummins.
Having spent many years working as a freelance cellist in New York Stephanie relocated to London and has since been working in the West End on shows including Aspects of Love and Hello Dolly as well as various solo and chamber projects.
We spent a lovely morning with Stephanie discussing growing up in a musical family, highs and lows in her cello studies and how things don’t always work out the way we expect them to.
Stephanie talks about working on Broadway and the similarities/contrasts with the West End. We discuss audiences in 2025, shows that have been particularly special to her and what drew her back to theatre after swearing off it!
We also chat about exciting future projects and falling back in love with music.
You can find us on the socials here;
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Anything you’d like to share with us? Any guests you’d love to hear or anything you’d like us to do better? Drop us a line at hello@threeinabar.com
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Road testing our ‘Petit Trois’ bonus feature is our guest from this week’s main episode, Ian Wilson.
We throw some quick fire questions at Ian and he responds appropriately…
If you would like to send over any questions for future guests either DM us on Instagram (@threeinabarpod) or email us at hello@threeinabar.com. Thanks!
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We are joined for episode 132 by recorder player supremo Ian Wilson.
Ian is the principal recorder professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the Head of Woodwind at Eton College and is the visiting recorder specialist at the North East of Scotland Music School in his hometown of Aberdeen.
We were so pleased Ian agreed to come back to chat to us again having originally joined us last April. Due to various Three In A Bar style holdups we never managed to release that episode so have a brand shiny new chat with Ian for you!
We talk to Ian about his extensive recorder selection, how the sound of a great recorder ensemble is definitely not what you remember from Primary School days but also a harrowing experience involving hundreds of renditions of the Mexican Hat dance - something surely no one should ever have to experience?
Ian demonstrates his quite astounding knowledge of bird song with a starting resemblance to a British countryside stalwart.
We chat about the use of recorders in various film and TV scores and its renewed popularity.
Anyone preparing for auditions listen up! Ian gives some excellent advice on preparations for scholarship or Music college auditions. He gives insightful information from a panelist’s point of view - what they are looking for might not be what you’d think…
To find out more about Ian take a look here; https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/staff/professor-ian-wilson-bmus-pgdipmus-lgsm-fhea
You can find us on the socials here;
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What, another one?! Yep…it’s mid week bonus time!
In the first of our new bonus episodes we are basically road testing quickfire/emergency questions on each other to see if this hastily planned format will work.
Over the coming weeks the guests from our main podcast with feature in the bonus episode answering some intellectual and insightful questions such as ‘what is your karaoke song of choice’ and ‘what’s in yer bag’.
Hard.Hitting.Journalism.
Warning: there is some excruciating singing at the end of this episode for which Verity would like to offer a full apology.
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Our guest for episode 131 is composer, arranger and musical director Jordan Li-Smith. On a music theatre bingo card we are looking at an impressive full house for Jordan - as a child he performed in West End productions of Oliver and Les Miserables, He's MD'd a huge number of shows including an international tour of Titanic and he's written a couple of shows to boot! Oh, and the crowning glory...Jordan was a finalist on the Andrew Lloyd-Webber/BBC talent show, I'd Do Anything. What a blinkin' legend.
We chatted to Jordan back in 2024 as he was about to embark on a national tour of Here We Come Again, a show crammed with Dolly Parton hits. We talk about the wonders of Dolly and the resurgence in popularity of Country music. We also cover touring in China, click issues, meeting Angela Lansbury and the mammoth role of an MD.
Jordan talks about his (brilliant) first full length musical The Boy Who Sailed an Ocean in an Armchair and the many stages he's been through to get to a fully staged production. He has some excellent advice for budding young musical composers and very kindly recorded a little catch up segment to make up for our tardiness in releasing this wonderful episode!
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We’re back again with a string of great guests to get in yer lugholes! Kicking off this season it’s trombone titan, singing sensation and all round good egg Emma Bassett.
Emma has performed and toured with a vast number of orchestras including LSO, LPO, RPO and Aurora. She can currently be found performing on MJ the Musical in the West End - in the depths of the theatre in a bijoux brass box!
We were so delighted to finally get Emma round for a chat as she’s a joyous person with many a tale to tell…amongst other things we covered ultimate stress situations, the pitfalls of holding up a bass trumpet for an unreasonable amount of time, becoming Norma Desmond every night on Sunset Boulevard and some serious musical theatre appreciation.
As a proud Cornish woman, Emma talks about her roots in brass banding, the prestige involved in the Helston Floral dance and teaching her English husband how to carol Kernow style!
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Hello dear listener! Welcome to our first episode of 2025, in which you find us having a much needed catch up in the foyer of the National Theatre. We really had not chatted for ages, so before we get going with interviews again, we had a lot to get through. And we basically covered every topic, from Verity's current job playing in Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 at the Donmar Warehouse, to Seb's Christmas gig with Rob Brydon, to New Year's resolutions, both of their marathon journeys, and plans for the podcast this year.
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Welcome to a special episode recorded guerilla style at the Ivors Classical Awards 2024! You may have heard our previous two pods with Ivors Special Award winners, Roxanna Panufnik and Gavin Bryars - this is a very different beast…
Featuring special guest presenter James Flannery who steps into Seb’s shoes and makes his podcasting debut, this is a rampage around the BFI with odd snippets of chat and composers a plenty.
You might catch journalist Stephen Pritchard, composers Duncan McLeod and Roxanna Panufnik, violinist Tasmin Little and friends of the pod Lizzie Ball and Hattie Butterworth amongst others. Brace yourselves, buckle up and enjoy this weird and wonderful evening at the Ivors!
Stephen Pritchard’s excellent article for Bachtrack featuring Seb & Verity; https://bachtrack.com/feature-freelance-life-orchestra-pit-seb-philpott-verity-simmons-november-2024
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In the second of our Ivors classical awards special episodes we chat to world renowned and celebrated composer Roxanna Panufnik.
As we air this interview, Roxanna has just been presented with the Ivors special award for ‘outstanding works collection’…And outstanding it truly is! She is particularly recognized for her choral works, including Faithful Journey - A Mass for Poland, Four Choral Seasons, and Coronation Sanctus for the coronation of King Charles the Third.
Roxanna has a great passion for world music and her Four World Seasons was written for violinist Tasmin Little - who also happened to present her with her award this week.
Roxanna has done much groundbreaking work in writing music that builds bridges between faiths. Her violin concerto Abraham incorporates Christian, Islamic and Jewish chant.
We chatted to Roxanna about collecting her first Ivor (unbelievably!), composing for the King, the emotions of reworking some of her father‘s Polish folk songs, and the sensitivity required in composing interfaith music.
Roxanna also talks about how she accidentally discovered Catholicism and gives us an insight into her compositional process.
We are hugely grateful to Roxanna for sparing some time on an extremely busy week and for being such a joyous guest!
To read more about Roxanna, visit https://roxannapanufnik.com/
Listen to her Coronation Sanctus here; https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ap54z0xsms0
For more on the Ivors Classical Awards 2024 visit https://ivorsacademy.com/awards/the-ivors-classical-awards/
Big thanks to Premier for setting up the interview.
You can find us on the socials here;
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Anything you’d like to share with us? Any
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In the first of two special episodes with esteemed and newly decorated composers, we sit down with Gavin Bryars, a composer who has led the way in innovation over a long and distinguished career. On Tuesday 12th November he received the Innovation Award in association with the Musicians Union at the Ivors Composers Awards, and we were lucky to get a chance to talk to him about this just a few days before.
We discuss his early days of art college, double bass and free jazz, his early iconic pieces The Sinking Of The Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet and his creative relationship with Brian Eno. Over his career he has written five operas, twenty ballets and a long list of instrumental, orchestral and vocal works.
He has collaborated with many non-classical musicians over the years, including Tom Waits, Father John Misty, Charlie Haden, Bill Frisell, Natalie Merchant, Iarla O'Lionaird, Gavin Friday, Bertrand Belin and Mocke, and with many visual artists such as Bruce McLean, David Ward, Tim Head, James Hugonin, Bill Woodrow, Will Alsop, the Quay brothers, Juan Muñoz and Massimo Bartolini.
He divides his time between a Leicestershire village and Vancouver Island, and we discuss his approach to writing in various locations, and in particular the importance of just the right pencil for the job. There really is a lot of time spent talking about this particular pencil.
Gavin talks about the formative time he had working as the house bassist as Greasbrough Working Men's Club, performing in the backing band for Bob Monkhouse, Dusty Springfield and many others. The documentary he mentions is available to watch here: MEMORIES OF GREASBROUGH WORKING MEN'S CLUB
For more on Gavin Bryars, visit www.gavinbryars.com
For more on the Ivors Classical Awards 2024 visit https://ivorsacademy.com/awards/the-ivors-classical-awards/
Big thanks to Premier for setting up the interview.
You can find us on the socials here;
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Anything you’d like to share with us? Any guests you’d love to hear or anything you’d like us to do better? Drop us a line at hello@threeinabar.com
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