Making Tracks

Composer, and Radio 3 presenter, Hannah Peel is forging a multi-faceted career while also giving crucial breaks to fellow musicians, as she tells Tom Stewart

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Late at night, who hasn’t found themselves struggling to put aside the stresses of the day? Forget about whale song, falling rain and white noise – sometimes what your tired mind needs is an adventure. That is what Hannah Peel offers as a presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Night  Tracks, broadcast for an hour-and-a-half each night at 11pm. In the first 15 minutes of a recent episode, she led her listeners from a new piece by German composer Sophia Jani, via a sparkling performance on a benju – a kind of zither from Balochistan – to a chant by a ninth-century Byzantine nun. ‘Music to carry you into the darker hours, across the globe and beyond,’ she says in a smiling voice as she introduces the show, a cheerful guide with a Yorkshire accent conveying you from this world to the next.

Just like her Night Tracks playlist, Peel is many things and seems to move effortlessly between them. Her soundtrack for Game of Thrones: The Last Watch was nominated for an Emmy in 2019; she’s recently written the music for a play at London’s National Theatre; and she sits on the board of the Ivors Academy.

It’s February when we meet at London’s Kings Place, where Peel is currently an artistin-residence. She was on stage at the venue the previous evening to give the first live performance of her Mercury Prize-nominated album Fir Wave,