Charles Parker Day 2022
This year the Charles Parker Day returned to Birmingham – to the city where the pioneering radio producer lived and worked for most of his life. It took place from 1pm to 4pm on Friday 8 April at Birmingham City University
This year's Charles Parker Day was a live event for an invited audience, and a video is still available
Kellie While
The Day was hosted by Kellie While the Head of 7Digital Creative, one of the major independent production companies based in the UK. 7Digital Creative are the producers of BBC Radio 2's Folk Show and music programmes on Radio 1 and 6Music and features on BBC Radios 2, 3 and 4. Kellie is also a folk singer in her own right.
After a video welcome from Sir Lenny Henry, Chancellor of Birmingham City University, Kellie explored the craft of making audio features – talking to producers about their work including Monica Whitlock - producer of The Ballad of the Blade and The Ballad of the Fix for BBC Radio 4. Sean Cooney, the main songwriter from the The Young 'Uns', spoke about his feature A Life in Song which explores the way in which interviews can be turned into song.
Steven Rajam introduced his Indian Rave features on Radio 4, and Sam Coley from Birmingham City University, paid tribute to Brian Vaughton who passed away in Sept 2020. In the early 60s Vaughton compiled and wrote two radio programmes, produced by Parker, which came to be known as “The Birmingham Ballads”. Simon Elmes, chair of the judging panel, introduced the nominees for the Charles Parker Prize 2022, and Sara Parker interviewed recent Gold Charles Parker Prize Winners Sian Medford (2019), Alex Morgan (2020) and Magdalena Moursy (2021).
Finally Hannah Sander from BBC Radio 4 announced the five winners of the Charles Parker Prize 2022 for the Best Student Audio Feature and this year's Gold Winner Talia Augustidis – their features will be broadcast in BBC Radio 4's New Storytellers series
At the end of the day there was a masterclass for all students attending with a variety of producers exploring the use of music in radio and podcast features.
This year's host, Birmingham City University, is home to a collection of Charles Parker artefacts, including one of Parker's editing desks and recording equipment used by his colleague Brian Vaughton. These items were on display during the day and there were also tours of the Birmingham School of Media's state-of-the-art radio studios.
Note that clicking on this link will take you to Google Drive