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Peggy Seeger

Singer-songwriter Peggy Seeger tells Michael Berkeley about her love of folk and classical music and the early death of her mother, the modernist composer Ruth Crawford Seeger.

Peggy Seeger’s extraordinary musical career spans six and a half decades. Since the age of 17 she has been writing, performing and recording songs pretty much non-stop. At the age of 80 she won the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 2 Folk Award for Best New Song with her son Calum and earlier this year, at the age of nearly 86, she released her latest album.

Peggy tells Michael Berkeley about her complex 30-year love affair with Ewan McColl, which was at the heart of the British folk revival; together they produced more than 40 albums, the revolutionary Radio Ballads for the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ â€“ and three very musical children.

Peggy describes her surprise and joy at falling in love with a woman 30 years ago; she chooses contemporary a cappella music that reminds her of her wife, Irene. And we hear a piece of extraordinary complexity by Peggy’s mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century, whose early death changed the course of Peggy’s life.

Producer: Jane Greenwood
A Loftus Media production for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 3

Available now

39 minutes

Last on

Sun 5 Sep 2021 12:00

Music Played

  • Peggy Seeger

    The Puzzle

  • Ruth Crawford Seeger

    Piano Study in Mixed Accents

    Performer: Joseph Bloch.
  • Russian Orthodox Chant

    It is meet and right [Znamenny chant]

    Choir: Orthodox Singers Male Choir. Conductor: Valery Petrov.
  • Nassau String Band

    Abaco is a Pretty Place

  • Secret Garden

    Adagio

  • In Acchord

    Istanbul

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622 (2nd mvt: Adagio)

    Performer: Emma Johnson. Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Raymond Leppard.

Broadcast

  • Sun 5 Sep 2021 12:00

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