THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL: Roderic Dunnett previews the 2024 edition of the UK's oldest music festival, 27 July until 4 August.
VIDEO PODCAST: Slava Ukraini! - recorded on the day Europe woke up to the news that Vladimir Putin's Russian forces had invaded Ukraine. Also features Caitríona O'Leary and Eric Fraad discussing their new film Island of Saints, and pays tribute to Joseph Horovitz, Malcolm Troup and Maria Nockin.
English opera singer Derek Hammond-Stroud was born in London on 10 January 1926. He studied with Elena Gerhardt and Gerhard Husch.
His career included appearances at New York Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Munich State Opera, ten years as a principal baritone with English National Opera and recitals with Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons. He sang in the BBC television premiere of William Walton's Façade, appeared regularly at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in London and recorded many Gilbert and Sullivan roles, including an almost complete series of 'patter' songs.
Hospitalised in 2009, he moved to a care home at Roden in Shropshire, where he died on 14 May 2012, aged eighty-six.