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Jamila Gavin

Michael Berkeley’s guest is writer Jamila Gavin. With Schubert, Handel, Tippett, Brahms and Stockhausen.

Jamila Gavin was born in the foothills of the Himalayas; her Indian father and English mother met as teachers in Iran and married in Mumbai. By the age of 12, she’d lived in an Indian palace in the Punjab, a bungalow in Poona - and a terraced house in Ealing, west London. Ealing was where the family settled in 1953; Jamila went on to study at London’s Trinity College of Music, and to become a sound engineer and then a director in television. She didn’t start to write until her late thirties, beginning a career distinguished by many awards for her novels, plays and short stories – around 50 books in all. It’s a rich world of myths and fairy-tales, orphans and adventures, ranging from 15th-century Venice to the mountains of India. She’s best known for Coram Boy, her prize-winning novel, later staged at the National Theatre, about the Foundling Hospital – to which Handel gave the royalties from his Messiah.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Jamila Gavin reveals the shocking story, which inspired her to write her first book for children. Her books deal with serious themes: particularly slavery, both historic slavery and people-trafficking now. Reading them, you can forget that these are children’s books; but, she says, any experiences which children suffer should also be experiences they can read about.

Jamila Gavin’s playlist includes Handel’s Messiah, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, Schubert, Brahms, Stockhausen - and her favourite Night Raga.

A Loftus Media production for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 3
Produced by Elizabeth Burke

Available now

33 minutes

Last on

Sun 14 Nov 2021 12:00

Music Played

  • George Frideric Handel

    Surely He hath borne our griefs (Messiah)

    Choir: Ambrosian Singers. Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Charles Mackerras.
  • Franz Schubert

    Sonata in A major D.664 (1st mvt: Allegro)

    Performer: Alfred Brendel.
  • Johannes Brahms

    Piano Concerto no.2 in B flat major (1st mvt: Allegro non troppo)

    Performer: Arthur Rubinstein. Orchestra: RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Josef Krips.
  • Krishnamurti Sridhar

    Raga Darbari

  • Michael Tippett

    Go Down, Moses (A Child of our Time)

    Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Richard Hickox.
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen

    Gruppen

    Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker. Conductor: Claudio Abbado.
  • Frédéric Chopin

    Etude in C major, Op.10 no.7

    Performer: Maurizio Pollini.

Broadcast

  • Sun 14 Nov 2021 12:00

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