A Christmas treat from the FRDH archive. A musical feature about the boy choristers of King’s College Choir at Cambridge University. The piece is a backstage look at the boys’ daily schedule of academics and rehearsal in the great Chapel of King’s College. The King in question was Henry VI. Built in phases between 1446 and 1515, the chapel is one of the monuments of late Gothic architecture and possesses unique acoustics. There has been a choir associated with the building since its founding. Director Stephen Cleobury explains the history of the choir and the practical demands of the chorister’s life.


FRDH Special: How America Got This Way

2016 was by any measure an historic year. A different America revealed itself to its own people and to the rest of the world. Donald Trump was unlike any Presidential candidate in history and now is set to be President. This FRDH podcast special explores How America Got This Way. FRDH stands for First Rough Draft of History, which is what journalists like to say they are writing and in this FRDH special four London-based journalists with a cumulative century of reporting on America and the way America effects the world talk about their own rough drafts of American history.
Robin Lustig, former presenter of Newshour on the BBC World Service, Mina al-Oraibi of pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, and Ned Temko, former political editor of The Observer, join Michael Goldfarb to talk about America, isolationism, Iraq, Syria and Putin. They ask can American institutions – especially Congress – stand up to the surprising changes in American society and is 2016 as historic in comparison with other years when modern history changed: 1968 and 1989.