Welcome to Friends of Radio 3's website
FoR3 is a listeners' group independent of Radio 3 and the BBC.Campaigning for the maintenance of Radio 3’s high artistic and intellectual standards. Support us here.
Looking ahead ~
Live in Concert from the Barbican, Thursday 24 May, 7.30pm, presents the BBCSO, conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek, in Brahms's violin concerto, soloist Isabelle Faust. In the interval talk at 8.10pm Paul Allen, with musicologist Geoffrey Chew, examines Antonín Sova's poem The Ripening as inspiration for the second half work: Josef Suk's tone poem of the same name. Featuring also the BBCSO Chorus. Details.
Now iPlaying ~
The vocal chamber ensemble Stile Antico, in Merton College, Oxford, perform a programme of Tudor and Jacobean sacred music composed for domestic performance. Morley, Tallis, Byrd, Tomkins, Dowland and Campion are represented, along with interesting contemporaries Browne, Causton, Sheppard, Ramsey, Milton, Peerson, Croce and Amner, some of whom were studied recently on Composer of the Week. Available on Listen Again until 10pm, Monday 21 May. ListenThe circus in town
The latest RAJAR listening figures have been published today and there’s a sharp division of opinion. The media seem to think that Radio 3’s figures stood out as being more than averagely bad, indeed awful. The BBC is sanguine: somewhere buried in the statistics there must be a hopeful sign if only one knows where to look. Surely? More…Announcements
Radio 3 listings: You can download a printable file of Radio 3's programmes each week, in two columns, or three to reduce the number of pages. Bookmark this page - it's usually updated on Friday evenings. Andrew Slater's blog also has direct links to the iPlayer which function once the programme has been broadcast.Blogging: Do 'up' and 'down' matter?: The Controller of Radio 3 asked whether it mattered if Radio 3's listening figures went up or down. A great deal of time is spent poring over the figures each quarter, so does it matter?