Welcome to Rob Cowan’s website
This is the official web site for
Rob Cowan, British classical music broadcaster and critic, based in London.
Biography
Rob Cowan was born in London in
April 1948. He first discovered great music as a child convalescing after a
long illness. Nightly trips to the local library and sporadic evening classes
in violin and cello kept his interest on a busy front burner. The beloved Robert
Maxwell
gave him his first musical break, sending him round the country promoting
Qualiton (the Hungarian national record label), and Bartók in particular.
Before that, he worked for now sadly defunct Society of Snuff Grinders Blenders and
Purveyors (organising ‘snuff months’—I kid you not) and did PR for a
modelling school and a cake-mix company.
He later joined the BBC Music Department and launched his own
‘historic’ record label (Melos) in 1969. He spent nineteen years burrowing in
the bowels of a major music publishing company (Boosey & Hawkes), first in
the education department, then as advertising manager and, for eleven years, as
the company’s music archivist.
Rob published his first record
reviews in 1967. His first editing job was on the Boosey & Hawkes Music
Diary, which he re-vamped and edited for seven years. In 1985, Rob joined the
team of the magazine CD Review, which he edited some four years later. He then
edited Gramophone’s budget CD review magazine Classics before joining Keith Shadwick
as co-presenter of Classic FM’s Classic Verdict, a weekly CD review programme
which ran for over three years. From May 1999 to March 2001, Rob devised and
presented Classic FM’s Sunday night review show CD Choice. Since May 2001 he has
presented Radio 3’s CD Masters, alongside Jonathan Swain (see below).
Rob has long been a contributor to
BBC Radio 3. He presented the first run of the weekly record industry magazine Off
the Record
and was a regular live guest on Record Review (precursor to the current CD
Review).
He now contributes to CD Review, In Tune and BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, and is often quoted
on other programmes. Rob currently works as a music critic for The Independent (for a list of
available articles, click here)
and, as Contributing Editor and contributor, for Gramophone magazine. He is
author of the Guinness
“Classical 1000” (a thousand chosen masterpieces with a CD recommendation
for each one, also available in Chinese),
shares a passion for the Arts with his wife Georgie (herself an artist) and
enjoys the company of his two daughters, Francesca and Victoria. Reading and
walking are long-term hobbies.
Recent and Current Radio Projects
In CD Masters (2001–2007), Rob Cowan and
Jonathan Swain presented great performances of key classical repertoire drawn
from the world’s recording vaults, many of which are now hard to find, and some
of which, ironically given the title of the show, have never been released on
CD. They also threw in a few surprises. You can visit the show’s website here, where you can see the playlist,
read artist and composer biographies, and buy the available featured
recordings. Rob hosts the programme for two weeks then hands over to Jonathan
Swain for the next two, and so forth. Originally lasting for one and a half
hours, in September 2003 the show’s popularity led to an extended two hour
slot. The CD Masters website
is still available, providing playlists.
Rob’s next project was BBC Radio
3’s The Cowan Collection (2003–2006). This went out on Sunday
mornings between 0900 and 1200, one of Radio 3’s key slots. The show included
Innocent Ear, where selected pieces were played with minimal introductions to
eliminate preconceptions, Bargain Hunter, Vintage Artist of the Week and other
innovative feature items. The web site remains here, where
you can find playlist information.
Since February 2007, on weekdays
from 0700–1000, Rob has been a regular presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast, alongside Sara
Mohr-Pietsch. The brief here is simple: good music, usually performed by
top-ranking artists; plenty of varied repertoire (including the odd shot of
jazz); news, arts news and an overall tempo that suits the time of day—easing
slightly as the morning settles and listeners settle with it. The musical
principles that applied to CD Masters and The Cowan Collection have been broadly
adopted for Breakfast, even extending to the odd challenge for your ‘innocent
ear’. As ever Rob welcomes your reactions and suggestions.
Available on the BBC
website is a Breakfast Message Board. If you have comments about the
programme, or any of your own suggestions, please do post them there.
In a full week, Rob occupies Radio 3’s airwaves for 15 hours. His significance in the schedules was acknowledged in June 2005 when the Radio Times listed him as the 12th most powerful person in UK radio. That’s above Steve Wright!
This site is maintained by Steve Day. Started 2000-11-30. Content last
updated 2007-07-07.