Debbie Wiseman hosts new Classic FM series, Music For Monarchy

10 April 2021, 19:00 | Updated: 22 April 2021, 14:41

Debbie Wiseman to host new Classic FM series. Picture: PA / Matt Crossick

Classic FM’s Composer in Residence Debbie Wiseman will present ‘Music For Monarchy’, a six-part series airing in April to mark Her Majesty The Queen’s 95th birthday.

As part of our celebrations for Her Majesty The Queen’s upcoming birthday, Debbie Wiseman will present a special new series on Classic FM.

Music For Monarchy is a six-part series exploring the history and development of music composed for British kings and queens through the ages.

Wiseman will explore the post of Master of the Royal Music from its earliest days as the Brotherhood of the King’s Minstrels right through to the present. It will feature music composed by former Masters, including Elgar, Bax, Bliss; as well as by their famous contemporaries, such as Purcell, Handel and Haydn, whose stories interweave with theirs.

The six-part series will be broadcast from 11 April to 16 May.

Listen to Debbie Wiseman's 'Together'

The series will also include new musical themes composed by Wiseman to depict former monarchs, and indeed our current monarch.

Her Majesty will celebrate her 95th birthday on 21 April, 2021.

She is the longest reigning monarch in history, having reigned for 68 years.

Debbie Wiseman introduces her piece 'Together'

Debbie Wiseman’s new album The Music of Kings & Queens

Alongside the new series comes a soundtrack to the royal birthday, composed for the occasion by Debbie Wiseman.

The Music of Kings & Queens, which tells the history of the United Kingdom through 12 of the nation’s previous monarchs, will feature narrations by Dame Helen Mirren and Damian Lewis OBE.

Mirren and Lewis will introduce each famous monarch, before their theme plays.

Click here to pre-order The Music of Kings & Queens >

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