´óÏó´«Ã½

Presented by Kate Molleson

Kate's in Northern Ireland this week for the latest in a continuing series about music and language around the British Isles. In Belfast and the surrounding countryside of Co Antrim and Co Down she meets the composers Deirdre McKay, Brian Irvine and Una Monaghan, the Ulster Scots poet and singer Willie Drennan, and the Irish language teacher Linda Ervine.

Kate also talks to the mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter about the sense of the Scandinavian north she finds both in the music she sings and in her own voice, and how she's embracing the physical changes to her voice as she grows older.

Plus a new book which takes stock of classical music in 2018, with a series of essays which tackle some of the problems and challenges around issues of finance, access to music education and making a career in music. Kate talks to the editors of The Classical Music Industry, Chris Dromey and Julia Haferkorn.