ANCIENT LYRE MUSIC WAFTING ACROSS 21ST CENTURY AIRWAVES!
One of the most awesomely exciting happenings for any 'independent artist' like myself, is those blissful occasions when out of the blue, I have been randomly contacted by both radio and television producers who want to feature my music in their forthcoming productions!
RADIO AIRPLAY OF MY ANCIENT-THEMED LYRE MUSIC
Since 2012, I have had the rare honour of having my 'micro-niche' music featured on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, BBC Radio Wales, a full length interview about my arrangements of the Bronze Age Hurrian Hymn on the Paul Franks Show, BBC Radio WM and a forthcoming interview with live lyre performances, on a BBC Radio 3 'Sunday Feature' programme on the subject of the ancient cosmological concept of the Music of the Celestial Spheres illustrated with my live lyre performances, produced by Simon Hollis, presented by the author Jerry Brotton and to be broadcast in the spring of 2019 - the best things in life are worth waiting for!
This airplay was just in the UK! Internationally, my arrangement of the Hurrian Hymn has featured on Beirut National Public Radio, my album, "The Ancient Egyptian Harp" featured on the German Radio Station WDR3 in a broadcast about the arched harp from Myanmar, I have had a full length interview about my music on the German Radio Station "Freies Radio Wüste Welle" and a 3-part series of in depth interviews about the purpose of his ongoing musical mission, in a podcast series presented by the New York radio producer, Zach Martin
A freely downloadable compilation album of excerpts of some of these radio shows and podcasts which have featured both my lyre music and the interviews about my musical mission to reintroduce the lyre of antiquity into the modern world, is available from Bandcamp:
To download this compilation album of excerpts of my radio airplay for free, simply type '0.00' in the 'name your price' field on the Bandcamp album page (although any voluntary donations would certainly be like a 'libation to Apollo' and greatly appreciated!)
In addition to radio stations which have included my music in their programmes, an excerpt of one of my ancient Greek-themed tracks, "Music of the Celestial Spheres" actually featured in a radio advertisement in the USA - for noodles! Here is the world's first radio advert to feature the recreated ancient lyre, for "Noodles & Company":
TELEVISION PROGRAMMES FEATURING MY ANCIENT-THEMED LYRE MUSIC
In April 2017, I briefly appeared on the national Greek TV channel, EPT3, in an episode of the Greek language documentary series, "Beyond Borders" , which was on the reconstruction of ancient instruments. Click on the image below for the link to the show:
In 2013, a clip of my composition "Ode To Ancient Rome" was featured in episode 3, series 21 of the ITV prime-time comedy series "Through the Key Hole" as background music to a scene featuring the Roman-themed swimming pool in the home of Kerry Katona:
As further fortuitous coincidence, on the celebrity panel on this particular episode of the show, happened to be the late, great Cilla Black - at least I can say another Liverpool music legend from the city of my birth got to hear one of my own tunes!
In November 2012, a brief snippet of my live lyre music featured in episode 2 of the 4-part BBC television documentary series "The Dark Ages: An Age of Light" by ZCZ Fims, directed & presented by the Sunday Times art critic, Waldemar Januszczak
Unfortunately, after a rather uncomfortable five hour train journey to the film shoot at Cranborne Ancient Technology Centre to the film shoot in the amazingly evocative replica Iron Age roundhouse, followed by almost 2 hours of nerve-wracking takes, another 5 hour journey on the train back home, then waiting 9 months for the date of the documentary series to be broadcast, followed by my grand social media announcement of my impending debut live television performance, in the final shoot of episode 2 which featured my music, they only used a brief snippet of 'audio only', barely noticeable background music from my film shoot...
However, all was not lost - the producer very kindly requested that the series editor put together for me one of the many outtakes of my live film shoots. This, frustratingly, is what my live, televised lyre performance would have looked like, if it had actually been broadcast:
THE WORLD'S FIRST TV ADVERT TO FEATURE MY ANCIENT ROMAN-THEMED LYRE MUSIC!
In the spring of 2018, my track "Ode to Ancient Rome" was selected by the media company, BBDO New York, to feature in the quick and quirky ancient Roman-themed TV advert for Mars M&M's, which went out countless times, across the entire continent of the USA and Canada:
The ironic fact resulting from this viral TV ad, is that the sound of my recreated lyre probably got heard by more masses of people, than the lyre was originally heard in the entire history of ancient Rome - roll over, Nero!
