[music sound effect]

 

TERRANCE MCKNIGHT: This is the Open Ears Project.

 

MARTHA LANE FOX: I sing two songs badly.

 

Predominantly, the first one is Love Cats because it is extremely difficult to sing off key because it is off key.

 

[MUSIC PLAYING: Prisoner’s Chorus from Beethoven’s Fidelio]

 

And the second is Elton John’s “I'm Still Standing” because I had an extremely serious car accident and I'm still standing.

 

I'm Martha Lane Fox. I co-founded a business back in the dawn of time called Last Minute dot com. But also, I started a chain of karaoke bars called Lucky Boy.

 

I've chosen a piece you're very unlikely to hear in a karaoke bar. It's the Prisoners' Chorus from Fidelio, Beethoven's opera.

 

I have a very personal reason for loving Fidelio. I left my business and then had six months off and was traveling in Morocco.

 

And I’d just met my now husband Chris, and, not doing anything by halves, fell out of a car, didn't have my seat belt on and landed on my right side.

 

So smashed that completely. Got a totally metal arm and pelvis and broke 28 bones and spent two years in hospital rebuilding my entire body and life.

 

I had just survived the dot com crash of the early two thousands. And so now I had to survive a real world crash and, you know, everything changed forever.

 

It was a strange thing that, when I was in hospital I couldn't listen to any music. There was something that was just too deep and too awful.

 

So, I watched movies. I had people read to me and all those things but I couldn't listen to any music and then when I knew I was becoming stronger after I was home, I could start listening to music again. It was quite a moment to be able to have it back in my life.

 

I think taking my first steps was one of the most hideous bits of the long journey. It was a very, very long process to be able to take that first step.

 

First of all, you have to sit up, that's probably three months and then you have to stand up. That's probably another three months and then you have to move and it's extreme pain when you finally achieve it. So while it's an achievement, it's also a bittersweet achievement.

 

Those kinds of moments when people say, oh, you are so brave or you generously kind about how I did it.

 

But I don't think it's a choice. I think you either do it or you don't in those moments of extremis and if you don't, you die and if you do, you don't.

 

So at this point in the story, prisoners are quite literally being let out into the light for the first time and the music reflects the build up of their awareness of coming from the dark, the basement where they've been kept, into the open air.

 

So it's extremely beautiful and it gathers momentum and the singing, they find their voices through the course of the music, as I would imagine, they find their voices being released into the open world.

 

I've chosen the prisoners chorus for a number of different reasons.

 

But I think that, thing to do with the prison system and criminal justice has always been something that I have tried to include in my working life.

 

I started my life in technology, but in parallel, I was a founding trustee of a charity called Reprieve which fights for people who are facing the death penalty around the world. 

 

And I don't know why, you know, it's hard to put apart your own soul, but I've always just felt as though the way we treat people who've been in the most complex situations and committed often the worst crimes you can imagine is kind of a measure of us as human beings.

 

And generally, I don't think we do a very good job of it.

 

So I think that this piece of music particularly matched with a personal interest in the criminal justice and the subsequent bits of people's lives that prisons touch.

 

I think that why perhaps this piece does really deeply move me, especially now is that there is to me still a continual building.

 

Just the gaining crescendo of confidence, which is what I personally felt about being able to survive and what the future might look like and how it would be.

 

But then also just finding your voice. And I think that for obvious reasons is partly why that piece of Fidelio was so profound for me because I was sort of emerging back into a world again as well, but a world that was forever altered. 

 

I've started in one place and I hope every day I try to learn to be better with coping with what's happened, but also feeling more robust and stronger and confident.

 

So while not necessarily grateful, I am happy I'm alive. I feel lucky to have had the resources and the networks to have survived. And I want to continue to use my small voice to try and make an impact.

 

[OPEN EARS THEME MUSIC: Philip Glass’s Piano Etude No. 2]

 

TERRANCE MCKNIGHT: That was Martha Lane Fox, talking about the Prisoner’s Chorus from Beethoven’s one and only opera, “Fidelio.” 

 

It’s coming right up. 

 

[MUSIC PLAYING: Prisoner’s Chorus from Beethoven’s Fidelio]

 

TERRANCE MCKNIGHT: This is The Open Ears Project. 

 

To all our listeners: we’re a little more than halfway through this season of The Open Ears Project, and I want to take a moment to thank you for listening. If you’ve been following us through the season, we want you to know how much that means to us. And thanks to the folks that have written in to share their stories about the pieces of classical music that have meant a lot to them. We’ve gotten a lot of listener emails and we love reading every single one of them. If you don’t already, be sure to follow WQXR on Facebook and Instagram – we’ll be compiling some of those listener stories and sharing them in the coming weeks. And if you’ve been thinking about reaching out with your own story, please do! You can email us at openears@WQXR.org.

 

Join us next week. We’ve got some piano music by Chopin as heard by actress Lucy Boynton. 

 

LUCY BOYNTON: I don't know what it does but it just changes the feeling within you... It's not an effort to try and feel different. It's just kind of seeping into you and happening. And I kind of love that.

 

TERRANCE MCKNIGHT: The Open Ears Project was conceived and created by Clemency Burton-Hill. I’m Terrance McKnight. I’m so pleased to present season two of this podcast to you. 

 

If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you’ve got a story about a piece of classical music, we want to know. Email us at openears@WQXR.org. 

 

You can also head to our website, WQXR.org, to check out our other podcasts about classical music and playlists for this and past seasons.

 

Season two of The Open Ears Project was produced by Clemency Burton-Hill and Rosa Gollan. Our technical director is Sapir Rosenblatt, and our project manager is Natalia Ramirez. Elizabeth Nonemaker is the executive producer of podcasts at WQXR, and Ed Yim is our chief content officer. 

 

I’m Terrance McKnight. Thanks for listening.

 

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