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Born into an artistic family in impoverished circumstances, Dame Fanny Waterman’s prodigious musical talent and sheer determination was her passport out of hardship, leading to recognition as one of the most talented young pianists of her generation. Her emergence as a visionary teacher, (being encouraged to write tutorial books by Benjamin Britten) lead to the founding of the Leeds International Piano Competition. Petroc Trelawny travels to Leeds to meet Dame Fanny, now ninety five and talks to her about her early career, teaching and the Leeds International Piano Competition which she co-launched in 1963.

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Roger Vignoles is internationally recognised as one of the world’s most distinguished piano accompanists and musicians of today. He regularly partners the finest singers around the word and is a leading authority on the song repertoire. Originally inspired to pursue a career as a piano accompanist by the playing of Gerald Moore, he joined the Royal Opera House as a repetiteur. In the course of his distinguished career he has collaborated with such leading singers as Elisabeth Söderström, Kiri Te Kanawa, Thomas Allen, Barbara Bonney, Brigitte Fassbaender and Felicity Lott. On the eve of Vignoles’s seventieth birthday, Petroc talks to him at the piano and discusses the origins of the role of accompanist, coaching vocalists, and how song traditions across Europe vary – or not.

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Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan, a child from a Palestinian refugee camp, got an education abroad, mastered an instrument and dreamt of something much bigger than himself. The dream was to build a music school to transform the lives of thousands of children, as Ramzi's life was transformed, through music. During this journey Daniel Barenboim, the eminent Israeli conductor, invited Ramzi to join his West Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he then left due to the tensions sweeping the region, to continue following his dream. ,Petroc talks to the Middle East journalist Sandy Tolan who has documented this remarkable story in his new book Children of the Stone – The Power of Music in a Hard Land.

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