Charles Hazlewood

Hazlewood is music director of the music ensemble "Army of Generals", formed to record with him all the music he has written for BBC films. [n 1] He is also a founder of the British Paraorchestra, which performed together with the band Coldplay at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.[3] The "Army of Generals" supports many of his West Country projects. Appearances include St George's Bristol (partnering the Unthanks in a bespoke orchestral/folk project) in 2017[4] and at the Park Stage at the 2016 Glastonbury Festival (Philip Glass's Heroes Symphony), where they were also joined by members of the British Paraorchestra.[5]

Hazlewood has conducted over 100 world premieres.[6] He has also initiated several projects that explore common ground between different musical disciplines, such as "Urban Classic" (2006), which drew together together five grime emcees and the BBC Concert Orchestra.[7] His "Orchestra in a Field" festival took place at Glastonbury in 2012.[8] In 2017, Hazlewood's "Thunderbirds are Go" project, featuring music by Barry Gray and involving members of the Paraorchestra and of the groups Goldfrapp and Portishead, was performed in Bristol.[9]

Hazlewood has conducted many orchestras, including the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, and the Philharmonia Orchestra,[1] as well as the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Many of his activities seek to increase the popularity of classical music among contemporary audiences by combining it with other styles of music.[10]

Hazlewood is Artistic Director of Paraorchestra, the world's first fully integrated ensemble of professional musicians with and without disabilities, which he founded together with television director Claire Whalley in November 2011. The orchestra was the subject of a documentary by Channel Four,[11] screened in the hours between the end of the final sporting event at London 2012 Paralympics and the Closing Ceremony where they made their world debut alongside Coldplay.

Paraorchestra exists to recognise and showcase disabled musicians with extraordinary abilities, and to demonstrate their full integration into orchestral music. Just as the Paralympics have achieved in sport, Paraorchestra aims to shift perceptions of disability in creating a visible platform for gifted disabled musicians to perform and excel at the highest level, integrating talented players with disabilities into mainstream performances. In 2016 Paraorchestra performed the first ever classical headliner[12] at Glastonbury Festival with Philip Glass’ "Heroes" Symphony. They returned to the same stage with their Love Unlimited Synth Orchestra in 2019,[13] celebrating the genius of Barry White. The orchestra has toured to Russia, the Middle East, Greece and Australia, as well as playing throughout the UK.

In 1995 Hazlewood and British theatre director Mark Dornford-May began working on a venture called Broomhill Opera in Kent, England. In 1999 they moved their operation to the largely derelict Wilton's Music Hall in East London, restoring it back into a living performance venue. [14] [15] As Music Director for Wilton’s Music Hall Hazlewood conducted The Beggars Opera [16] (director Jonathan Miller) Britten's The Turn of the Screw [17] (director Elijah Moshinsky), Puccini's Il Trittico [18] (director Simon Callow) and Kurt Weill's The Silverlake [19] with translation by Rory Bremner.

In 1999, Hazlewood and theatre director Mark Dornford-May created a new opera company in Cape Town from the townships and villages of South Africa; the mostly black lyric-theatre company DDK (Dimpho di Kopane, Sotho for "combined talents") was formed. Of the 40 members, only three had professional training. In January 2001, the company's debut of Bizet's Carmen opened to damning South African reviews, with one newspaper saying it was preposterous for black South Africans to perform Western opera. The Mysteries, for which Hazlewood devised the score, sold out in London's West End in 2003, inciting the first editorial on music in The Times newspaper in 40 years.[20]

Hazlewood was music director of DDK from 2000 to 2007. With the company he also conceived the music for the shows Ibali Loo Tsotsi (The Beggar's Opera);[21] and The Snow Queen, which premiered in New York in 2004.[22]

In 2009, Hazlewood conducted Kurt Weill's musical drama Lost in the Stars, reset in apartheid South Africa, at the South Bank Centre.[23]

In 2014, Hazlewood scored a reworking of John Gay's The Beggars Opera, Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) written by Carl Grose and directed by Mike Shepherd for Kneehigh Theatre. The show toured the UK and internationally in 2015/16 and was listed in the top ten shows of 2014 by the Guardian newspaper. [24]

In 2016 Hazlewood wrote the score for an operatic version of The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. The show featured a libretto by Carl Grose and was performed and produced by Kneehigh Theatre. [25]

Hazlewood integrated mass karaoke into a show in August 2018 with Kneehigh’s Ubu!

Hazlewood created the 2009 BBC Two documentary series The Birth of British Music.[26] He has authored and conducted the music in BBC films on Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky as well as a series exploring the birth of British music. He also appeared on the judging panel for the reality show Classical Star (BBC2 2007)[27] and anchored the BBC Proms TV coverage in 2008.[28]

He authored and presented How Pop Songs Work (BBC Four, 2008); a film with Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) entitled Stripping Pop (BBC Three, 2003);[29] and a two part documentary Tones, Drones and Arpeggios: The Magic of Minimalism (BBC Four, 2018), on the history of minimalist music.[30]

Hazlewood has filmed a documentary for Sky Arts, Beethoven and Me during which he explores Beethoven through a detailed look at his famous 5th Symphony. Beethoven and Me features members of Paraorchestra and is due to air in winter 2020.[31]

Hazlewood's radio show, The Charles Hazlewood Show on BBC Radio 2, won three Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2006. The musical selections are "linked together in surprising and productive new ways, with Mozart, for example, followed by Ivor Cutler, then The Streets, then Handel".[32]

On 24 May 2020 Hazlewood was the guest in the BBC Radio 4 series Desert Island Discs. During the programme he revealed that he had been a victim of sexual abuse throughout his childhood.[33]

In 2009 Hazlewood was a judge of the popular music industry's creativity awards, the Mercury Music prize.[34] In 2011 Hazlewood presented a TED talk, "Trusting the ensemble".[35]

• Charles Hazlewood official website
• The British Paraorchestra official website
• Hazlewood, Charles (8 April 2009). "Charles Hazlewood on the flourishing of British classical music". The Guardian.
• Brown, Maggie (1 September 2012). "Coldplay join the paraorchestra of disabled musicians for closing ceremony". The Guardian.
• Hazlewood, Charles (27 June 2012). "One from the heart: Charles Hazlewood's Paraorchestra". The Guardian.
• Hazlewood, Charles (3 August 2009). "Why classical concerts need a breath of fresh air". The Guardian.
• Charles Hazlewood at TED