BBC - Concert Orchestra

In BBC Radio 3’s Discovering Music, conductor and presenter Charles Hazlewood takes pieces of music apart in order to reveal how the music is constructed, illustrating both compositional and performance techniques.

On 6 May 2008 at The Colosseum, Watford, Charles Hazlewood conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra in a performance of a new BBC Radio 3 commission from composer Fung Lam called Unlocking. Fung’s piece was inspired by an exhibition of locks at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, in particular a puzzle lock (a lock which has unusual or hidden mechanics).
In a parallel project, pupils from St Clement Danes School in Hertfordshire explored their own musical ideas in response to Fung's piece and artefacts at the V&A with composer and animateur Fraser Trainer and BBC CO players. The students’ music, entitled Encryption was presented at the concert on 6 May alongside the new Fung Lam work.

Encryption was performed again to great acclaim at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Saturday 21 June in the V&A Lecture Theatre as part of the Exhibition Road Music Day.

Read Fung Lam's composition diary

Click here to see a video of the Wilkes Detector Lock at the V&A.

Past programmes with the BBC Concert Orchestra have included music by Britten, Joe Cutler, Grieg, Stravinsky, Piazzolla, Dvorak, Bernstein, Haydn, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Wagner. Visit Discovering Music to listen again.