In 2016 for BBC’s Dangerous Visions Sci-Fi season, Val McDermid has adapted John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes. Val, widely known for her crime novels, had been a fan of Wyndham since her teens and together we pitched to produce what Val initially thought would be ‘a quiet little radio drama’.

The Kraken Wakes is an apocalyptical tale of alien arrivals who inhabit the sea and, when humans fight back, flood the world. There’s nothing quiet about it. When Val decided to create a contemporary retelling of this prophetic allegory for global warming, the production became epic.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get

Of course, for an epic story on radio you need an epic sound world. So I approached composer Alan Edward Williams to discuss the music having previously worked together on Maxine Peake’s drama Queens of the Coal Age. Alan felt the drama needed an orchestra to cope with something on the scale of The Kraken Wakes. Hmm. Tricky. He pointed out the logistics for the whole of the Philharmonic orchestra to perform a scored two hours of Radio Drama was surely beyond our means. So suggested we instead have just a couple of players. Proving if you don’t ask, you don’t get. 

Simon Webb, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra General Manager, has a history of taking on exciting projects that reach the parts other orchestras don’t reach. Mutual appreciation of the novel, Val’s writing and Alan’s previous work allowed us to shape a project together. “If we were going to do it,” said Simon to me, “wouldn't it be exciting to do it live?”  For the orchestra maybe, but for radio drama? As it turned out, radio drama commissioner Jeremy Howe was game.

A different kind of production

The process was different too. Before even embarking on the script Alan, Val and I met. The music was to be such a big part of the storytelling, it even took on some of the characters. For Alan the unseen Kraken was the subtext in an unspoken alien world. The band was also the catastrophic global devastation depicted in big set pieces: Sea Tanks grinding up the beach, tentacles grabbing people into balls of humanity; flooding.

With little time, Alan composed the score to the drama between 4.30am and 7am for 4 months around his work and family and Val wrote the script in just a few weeks. Meanwhile, I was also working with BBC R&D on object-based explorations of storytelling in drama and comedy.

Kraken was an opportunity to work with the BBC’s Research and Development to promote the drama using different technologies. Connected Studios and BBC R&D worked with my indie company Savvy, filming the event to create an interactive trailer. We also worked together to create a 360 short presenting viewers in VR headsets or on Youtube 360 with scientific data of global flooding by polar ice caps melting. In these VR experiences we posed the question: ‘What would you do?’

The Live event

While the devastating Christmas floods made the drama ever more prescient, in early January we brought the actors together for two days to block and rehearse to the music. Having the orchestra to rehearse with was not practical, so we timed their words to a Sibelius MIDI track.

Our ‘tech week’ with the orchestra was a 90-minute slot that meant we’d never rehearsed the whole thing with actors and orchestra together. But don’t underestimate the power of orchestral players to bring some electricity into proceedings.

We watched the audience’s faces in the Philharmonic Studio at Media City as Episode 1 climaxed with the sci-fi inspired music Alan had composed. My 8 year old described it excitedly as ‘too scary’. A totally exhilarating experience - I hope audiences at home have a similarly dramatic reaction.

Justine Potter is Producer/Director of the adaptation of The Kraken Wakes.

• Episode 1 of The Kraken Wakes will be broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 28 May at 2.30pm, with Episode 2 airing at the same time the following Saturday (4 Jun).
• Watch a trailer for Episode 1 featuring the cast and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Find out more about the 2016 Dangerous Visions season on the BBC.

I loved our concert with Sona Mohapatra for the Asian Network. She brought a taste of Bollywood to Salford in an eclectic mix of Indian folk and pop, with a fabulous energetic audience.

John Grant / BBC 6Music

John Grant's moving and soulful voice brought to life his wonderfully autobiographical songs for 6Music and was an incredible concert to be part of.

Boy George / BBC Radio 2

Little did I know that back in 1983 when I was 5, watching Culture Club on Top of the Pops (when mum and dad let me) that 31 years later I would be sitting on stage, just feet away from Boy George singing Karma Chameleon. Time has passed quickly.

Clean Bandit / BBC Radio 1

Our collaboration with Clean Bandit for Radio 1 was without doubt my favourite. Their album New Eyes would be one of my Desert Island Discs, so having them in the studio, performing from within the orchestra was incredible.

BBC Radio 5 live The Symphony of Medinah LIVE on BBC Radio 5 live

The BBC Philharmonic performed a live soundtrack with narration, clips and poetry to tell the dramatic story of the stunning European victory in the 2012 Ryder Cup, days before the 2014 tournament opened.

I learned about golf and its dramas in the 'Symphony of Medinah' for 5 live, something which on paper I questioned but in reality was a hole in one!

Jarvis Cocker / Radio 4

In our moonlit studio, Radio 4's Wireless Nights with Jarvis Cocker took us on an inspiring nocturnal journey, with music lighting the way.

BBC Radio 3 and Blue Peter - Ten Pieces

The BBC Radio 3 In Tune Special with Blue Peter was a collaboration close to my heart. I am a mum to 2 primary school aged children, which the Ten Pieces music project is aimed at. It was amazing to know that my children, and others just like them, were learning about classical music from something I was part of.

• The final BBC Philharmonic Presents… is called Services No Longer Required. It is at Imperial War Museum North and will be live on BBC Radio Manchester on Friday 17 October at 8pm. The powerful story of a soldier from Salford who fought in the First World War, tickets cost £15 and are available from Quaytickets.com.
• Read how one BBC employee got a shock when he saw his late relative had become the poster boy for the BBC Philharmonic's final event of 2014.
• Find out more about the BBC Philharmonic.
• Follow @BBCPhilharmonic on Twitter.

Orchestras have always collaborated and experimented with musical genres and styles. Most of the great composers incorporated the popular music of their day in compositions and developed the sound of the orchestra to suit the society they were living in. The very best, of course, created the sound world of their age and generally upset a few people along the way.

When I arrived in the BBC as General Manager of the BBC Philharmonic in March this year the biggest challenge that I set myself was to define the role of a great classical orchestra in four contexts: The modern orchestral sector; the North of the UK; within the BBC; and within our local community in Salford. The atmosphere of collaboration and adventurous exploration that I found at BBC North has allowed me to pursue this challenge with enthusiasm and the open minds and ears of the BBC Philharmonic have only encouraged me to seek new partnerships both within and outside the BBC.

Philharmonic Presents…. had been a conspicuously successful series of concerts in 2011 and 2012, seeing the Philharmonic collaborating with a wide range of artists and playing live across all seven of the BBC’s national radio networks. We decided to revive Philharmonic Presents…  this year, as a way of exploring musical collaborations and demonstrating the versatility of the modern orchestra as well as the free thinking that characterises BBC North.

The team and I bounced a bewildering array of ideas, names, concepts and collaborators between us and then began to pursue the artists across the networks who would make the most challenging and creative collaborators with the Philharmonic. At the same time, I started juggling the orchestra schedule and working with colleagues to ensure that the whole Philharmonic family could be bought in to the series; the contract with our musicians allows us to do almost anything (no really...) with them within the schedule parameters, but an orchestra is only at its best when they really pull together in rehearsals, broadcasts and concerts.

One important aspect of the planning this year was to loosen up the concept a little; most of the performances will be live, but not all, allowing us to work creatively with Jarvis Cocker to develop a fully orchestral Wireless Nights with Radio 4 and to give Boy George the flexibility to develop his orchestral performance of Colour by Numbers in exactly the way he wishes. Our Radio 3 performance is also not a concert but a two-hour live In Tune broadcast incorporating music, conversation and live inserts in to Blue Peter on BBC One.

Working creatively is essential to Philharmonic Presents… and we do everything we can to allow that to permeate all aspects of our operation. Radio 5 live are working with our conductor and Learning Manager to engage local golf clubs in to our 5 live Symphony of Medinah show; and Clean Bandit and their orchestrator Joe Duddell spent a morning with the Philharmonic in our MediaCityUK studio in August to develop the sounds and style of their work for Radio 1. It’s been a busy time but the results will be well worth it.

Music is at the heart of the BBC – it is in the organisation’s DNA and this series really demonstrates what the BBC can do when it works together in creating fantastic moments for music fans everywhere. With Philharmonic Presents…we are able to showcase our own world-leading musicians across all the national BBC radio networks - and in doing so we will demonstrate the versatility of the modern orchestra and point the world’s eyes and ears to the remarkable work that goes on in Salford. And if the Philharmonic Presents…. series doesn’t prove this on its own, during the course of the series (10 Sept-17 Oct) we will also be opening both our Manchester concert series and the Victoria Hall Hanley’s orchestral series with Beethoven’s fourth and ninth symphonies and broadcasting a studio concert to celebrate the 80th birthday of Peter Maxwell Davis, one of the UK’s finest living composers who was born and grew up in Salford.

I believe that exploration and experimentation via series like Philharmonic Presents… will be the way that we find the sound and role of the modern orchestra. In a season that sees world premieres by British symphonists, and celebrations of Nielsen and Beethoven, plus major romantic and modern orchestral masterworks, collaborations with the most prominent popular artists of our age sit very comfortably and help us in our tireless mission to define the role of a great broadcast orchestra in the 21st century and bring it to audiences like only the BBC can.

Simon Webb, General Manager, BBC Philharmonic

 

• A press release detailing the new series of BBCPhilharmonic Presents...including a video interview with Clean Bandit is available on the BBC Media Centre website.
• Find out more about the orchestra at the BBC Philharmonic website.

We’ve already held an open day, made a time capsule movie, got more than a thousand voices in for a "Big Sing", done 24 auditions for new presenters and run a boot-camp, put together a community orchestra with the BBC Philharmonic (pictured) - culminating in an amazing concert, produced a staggering programme of 40 outside broadcasts and found Cumbria's 40 favourite places.

Now we've just got a big carol concert, 1973 Day, new presenter day, a business breakfast and a staff dinner to squeeze into the next fortnight. No pressure then. I’ve bought a new work mug that holds a whole pint. Can you actually buy espresso in pints? I feel the need for caffeine this morning. Anyway, hold tight and join me as I blog my way through the birthday weekend. I've decided that blogging is the new jogging; only you don't have to leave the office at lunchtime, only to return soaked through to the lycra.

 

Ian Timms is Head of Programmes, BBC Radio Cumbria

What was the BBC Philharmonic doing in Japan anyway? Doesn’t Japan have their own orchestras?

Well, yes, they do; and very good ones too. But touring is an integral part of orchestral life; as a herd of unlikely diplomats we perform our peculiarly feisty British take on music across the world, saying 'hello' in the one true international language. Music is an intimate connection, and we like to say hello; audiences across the world like to say it back. The system works well.

That's what the BBC Philharmonic were up to on the 11th of March 2011, heading across Yokohama suspension bridge for the rehearsal to the evening show of Mendelsshon, Rachmaninov and Berlioz, in three coaches, when the earth moved, and the world stopped. Yokohama performed an enthusiastic parody of the Tacoma Narrows bridge, with us on it, and left the team of over one hundred musicians and organisers in no doubt that something profound had just happened. It had.

This is where the edit happens- we rehearsed for the concert, fearful, dazed and baffled, as the news rolled in of the disaster further North in Sendai and Fukushima. The concert was off, and, it slowly dawned, so was the tour, and the BBC's high risk unit rushed us home in one breath.

Two years passed, with a promise that we'd return and finish the job. Cue the edit … and suddenly here we were, rehearsing the same programme, with the same conductor and soloist, for the same concert. 'Hey, we're puttin' the band back together!' The edit was seamless.

And so, with Yutaka Sado, inspiringly positive and smiliest of conductors, and Nobuyuki Tsuji, the most exquisite and beautiful of piano players, we were off, making our way across Japan, town by city; 12 concerts, 11 venues, 25 coach journeys, bullet trains at 165mph, queues at 0mph, and a total audience of thousands. There was something significant to the Japanese people about our return; we had a reason to do this tour and they understood that. The tickets for each concert sold out a year ago, in 40 minutes or less. Is it possible to feel more welcome?

Every concert began with a piece that wasn't printed in the programme, and each time Yutaka spoke to the audience about the reason for it; that we were about to say something to them, in memory of the tsunami victims. From the silence that followed his words, we began Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma variations, and it wasn't so easy and straightforward as it is at the Proms. Why? Because, finally, we had a way to speak directly to the heart of the people, having experienced the unfolding disaster of 2011 and having retreated helplessly to the safety of home. The emotions felt on both sides were deep and lasting, and no-one escaped. Nimrod is noble and unsentimental, yet profound and personal, written by a friend for a friend. It was the right piece to play, and it set up the feel of the concerts; we were friends.

Japanese audiences are, as you might expect, technically the best in the world. Either they cough in the loud bits with great precision, or they are healthy beyond belief. They are perfectly quiet and focused- they don't drop programmes and their phones don't go off; they stay afterwards to applaud the stage hands as they de-rig, and they line up in the car park to wave the orchestra off in their coaches. They gasp in appreciation when the orchestra stands to take their applause, and they moisten up around the eyes at the appropriate moments in the music. Add to this the unspoken understanding of the reason for our visit, and you have no ordinary tour. The concerts were magic.

Our tour managers, Crystal Arts in Japan, ran the logistics with breathtaking efficiency. Despite the damage done by the earthquake, Japan still runs at a powerful and dynamic pace. But our hosts were not only efficient, they were generous, on one occasion unloading an entire symphony orchestra from three coaches into the bar featured in that famous fight sequence from Tarantino's Kill Bill, for a surreal experience involving seafood and Taittinger, but without the fighting.

This tour was business, with pleasure.

Every concert was a special event for us, and that's the glue that helps to keep an orchestra what it is; a unit of many different people pursuing a unified end. We don't produce anything you can use or even shake a stick at; our CDs and recordings are permanent, but what we really do is something you have to be there for. We can say 'hello' in any language you care to name, and we say it with one voice; in this visit to Japan we had something important to say, and I think we said it well. We were all touched in some way by the experience; one hardened pro observed that this tour had made him feel like a student again, and he wasn't alone. The connection between one island and another was bridged, like Yokohama and the world before the earthquake, by music, and the connection feels permanent. 

 

Julian Gregory is a violinist in the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

• He also documented the orchestra’s tour to Japan on Tumblr.
• Listen to performances recorded in Japan on Radio 3’s Afternoon on 3 all this week and via BBC iPlayer.
• Find out more about the BBC Philharmonic’s concert programme including appearances at the 2013 BBC Proms.
• The BBC Philharmonic is also on Twitter - @BBCPhilharmonic  - and Facebook.

Of course, the complexity then begins as the teams at the Philharmonic and Radio 2 dovetail to connect the spiderweb of detail that builds the concept into a concert.

BBC Philharmonic Presents… is a radio festival that places the orchestra on all the national BBC networks where we deliver the full power and emotion of the 90 orchestra musicians for the full gamut of audiences.  So far we’ve collaborated with Richard Hawley, The xx, Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review (for a James Bond Special), the Guy Barker Big Band playing Miles Davis, QB for the Asian Network and, later this month, The Listening Project for Radio 4. From Bridlington to Blackpool with Bradford in between, and in Sheffield and Salford, we’ve cut a swathe across the north of England with thrilling live and unique shows.

The usual ‘day’ job for the BBC Philharmonic comprises 75 broadcast concerts and recordings for Radio 3.  The orchestra creates the broadcasts from a full schedule including its annual concert season in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall; international tours twice a year (including a return to Japan in 2013 to complete our 2011 tour that was cut short by the earthquake); concerts across the north of England, in our studio and at regular BBC Proms appearances. 

The eight BBC Philharmonic Presents… shows provide a welcome change of style for the musicians, with the expectation of plenty of flexibility, as well as new ways of working for the orchestra’s team as a whole. And meeting Pet Shop Boys to put the finishing touches on the show provided me with a delightful moment; Neil Tennant offering to make a cup of tea. 

With nearly 25,000 applications for tickets there is the highest of expectations; no problems, we’ll meet it.

Richard Wigley is General Manager, BBC Philharmonic

The Pet Shop Boys concert with the BBC Philharmonic was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Thursday 6 December 2012. It's now available via the BBC iPlayer.

More pictures of the event can be found on the BBC Philharmonic Facebook page.