Kitty Whately joins Hattie Butterworth to discuss her new album on Chandos with pianist Edwige Herchenroder​ titled Horizons: French Melodies. They also explore the historic erasure of women composers, as well as Kitty's ongoing advocacy and research

The vocal ensemble VOCES8 are marking their 20th anniversay with a new release – out today – celebrating the full breadth of their creativity, and an exciting season of concerts. Editor Martin Cullingford sat down with three of the key figures behind this most innovative of ensembles – the co-founders Barnaby Smith, Artistic Director, and Paul Smith, CEO, and soprano and long-standing member of the group Andrea Haines – to look back over 20 years of creativity and achievement, and forward to the future.

This week’s Gramophone podcast is a special focus on one of the most significant of 20th century composers, Dimitri Shostakovich, the 50th anniversary of whose death we mark this year. As our guide to his music we’re privileged to have conductor Andris Nelsons, who, together with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has just reached the end of a journey through all his symphonies, plus the concertos for cello, piano and violin, all recently released by Deutsch Grammophon.

Across half an hour of fascinating insight, he tells Editor Martin Cullingford about how he responds to Shostakovich’s music and life, and about what makes the composer’s music so distinct, and so remarkable.