Meet The BBC’s Next Kenneth Clark

James Fox: “Some of my students apparently wrote to the BBC, asking it to employ me as a new arts presenter. I knew nothing of this note, but a year later I received an email out of the blue from the BBC arts commissioner inviting me to go in for a meeting. I went, clueless, of course. A few months later I was out filming my first programme.”

The Story Of The Scrapheap Orchestra

“Driven by the idea that we take the highly evolved sound of an orchestra for granted, [the BBC] challenged skilled instrument-makers to recreate the sections of the orchestra with nothing but freely available junk. They then challenged the BBC Concert Orchestra to get a beautiful sound from this wreckage, and asked Charles Hazlewood to conduct them in a Prom.”

Turn Central Park Into A Giant Musical Landscape? Now There’s An App For That

“Clamp on headphones, start up the iPhone app by the musical duo Bluebrain and walk into Central Park. The music does not begin until you pass through an entrance and head into the trees. Then it sounds like an orchestra tuning up, a chaotic jumble of wind chimes, electronic moans and discordant strings. Push farther into the park, and a sweet violin melody emerges over languid piano chords.”