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MusicPart of Humanities

David Owen Norris presents new series on Radio 4

Published: 17 November 2011

Southampton's Head of Keyboard Studies and Professor of Musical Performance, David Owen Norris, presents the new BBC Radio 4 iPod series on Saturday mornings at 10:30am, starting on 19 November.

Norris launched the first series last year with Jane Austen's iPod, building on Southampton research on the Austen family's music books and featuring music included on his recent recording.

Subsequent broadcasts explored the musical tastes of figures such as Samuel Pepys and Charles Dickens. Norris investigates the musical world of his subjects, arranges and performs the music, and hosts the shows. The new iPod series includes Queen Victoria's iPod, recorded in Buckingham Palace and performed on the Queen's gilded 1856 Erard grand piano. The broadcast on Robert Burns was recorded in Tarbolton in the room where Burns learned to dance, and features the home-made fiddle he danced to. Less happy memories are associated with the Cadogan Hotel, where Oscar Wilde was arrested and Oscar Wilde's iPod was recorded. The final programme, on Thomas Hardy, includes extracts from d'Erlanger's opera Tess, last broadcast in 1929.

When the iPod series concludes, David Owen Norris rounds out the year with a New Year's Eve special on Radio 4, also at 10:30am: Cheers! A History of Toasting, presented by John Sergeant and with music selected, arranged and explained by Norris and performed by the choir of Clare College, Cambridge, directed by Graham Ross.

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