BBC Radio 4 is looking for people who have had significant experiences in their life in which Mozart’s Requiem has played a central part, for a radio documentary. It’s part of a series called ‘Soul Music’ which features people’s emotional or personal stories to do with a piece of music. It could be to do with recalling a particularly important time in their life, or major events, even deeply personal things like marriage, birth and death. Or to recount a remarkable time when this music was played, in concert or radio or CD, and the impact it had on their life. Previous editions of the programme are here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lpfww
 
The producer Melvin Rickarby would be very happy to have a chat with people who might have a story to tell. People are welcome to forward this on to friends and family, if they know of someone who might have a story.
 
They can contact Melvin on 07715 038 511 or email melvin.rickarby@bbc.co.uk

Dave Todd from the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra recently sent me a link to a review of the orchestra's last concert by the Bard of Tysoe - this local band really impressed him; he begins his piece "last night’s (again) dazzling performance by the ever-sublime and -sensational Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the deeply thoughtful and passionate David Curtis. (I know, after their barnstorming – or, more accurately, Town Hall-storming – rendition of the Fifth, I should not really have been so taken aback: but they are so cohesive, subtle, technically and emotionally gifted, that it is impossible to think of them in any way as “not a full-time professional ensemble”.)

Their next concert is on 12 March, with a fiery Russian programme:
Stravinsky: Firebird Suite, 1919 version
Prokofiev: Piano concerto no. 2 in G minor Op. 16 (soloist Anna Shelest)
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Little Russian) Op.18

Tewkesbury was featured on BBC Gloucesteshire this week, as research into the descendants of members of William Shakespeare's family, buried in the graveyard behind the Old Baptist Chapel, has discovered relatives living not far away in the Forest of Dean.  Exciting stuff!