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Caroline Shaw: The Listeners

The 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Dalia Stasevska perform Caroline Shaw's The Listeners, and with soloist Randall Goosby, Barber's haunting Violin Concerto.

The 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Dalia Stasevska perform Caroline Shaw's The Listeners, and with soloist Randall Goosby, Barber's haunting Violin Concerto.

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes鈥� a space probe hurtles outwards from our solar system; its cargo, a golden record. That鈥檚 the starting point for Caroline Shaw鈥檚 The Listeners: a new oratorio in which Shaw鈥檚 intensely communicative music carries the words of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Carl Sagan into a future bounded only by our imagination and our courage.

This is sure to be a high point of this Pulitzer prize-winning composer鈥檚 Barbican residency. But when it comes to our shared humanity, the music of the last century has endless stories to tell, and the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra鈥檚 Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska has paired 'The Listeners' with Grazhyna a song of defiance from Ukraine, before Randall Goosby soars free in the tenderness and rapture of Barber鈥檚 evergreen Violin Concerto.

Recorded last month at the Barbican in London, and presented by Martin Handley.

Boris Lyatoshinsky: Grazhyna Op 58
Samuel Barber: Violin Concerto
Caroline Shaw: The Listeners (London Premiere)

Randall Goosby (violin)
Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano)
Florian St枚rtz (bass-baritone)
麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra
麻豆社 Symphony Chorus
Dalia Stasevska (conductor)

To listen on most smart speakers, just say "ask 麻豆社 Sounds to play Radio 3 in Concert."

Release date:

2 hours, 14 minutes

Broadcast

  • Thu 5 Nov 2026 19:30