Classic FM

In July 2022, Zeb was invited to join Classic FM, the UK’s biggest classical music station to present his own programme of relaxing music, weeknights from 7-10pm. His show regularly attracts 1.3 million listeners each week.

He has taken his show on the road to Liverpool, Manchester and, on Christmas Day, introduced The Kings Foundation Carol Concert. Classic FM also gave the broadcast premiere of his orchestral adventure for children, Gaspard’s Christmas, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, which he wrote with the composer Jonathan Dove.

In January 2024, Zeb secured a special interview with Dame Judi Dench at her home, in which she shared her favourite pieces of classical music in Dame Judi Dench’s Classical Favourites, broadcast over the Easter weekend.

He followed this with Sir Simon Russell Beale’s Life in Music in which the celebrated Shakespearian actor talked to Zeb about how music has marked the special moments of his life and career, with his selection of music performed live by the Choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Hear a preview of Zeb’s interview with Dame Judi Dench

BBC Career

Zeb discusses his 25 year career at the BBC

“I, like millions of the audience will miss you! Your voice has been a lyrical, clear and reassuring presence — the very heart of Radio 4.”
— Tim Davie, BBC Director General

The Shipping Forecast

Watch Zeb read the Shipping Forecast on BBC FOUR

“I, like many others, occasionally go to sleep or wake up to the smooth tones of Zeb Soanes reading the shipping forecast. He hovers, in other words, around my subconscious.”
— Elizabeth David, BBC Music Magazine
“He is someone who can turn reading the shipping forecast into poetry.”
— BBC Wildlife Magazine

BBC Radio Highlights

Newsreader

“The voice we trust.”
— Daily Telegraph
“It’s no accident that both [Peter] Donaldson and Zeb Soanes trained as actors, achieving the vocal skills and power to deliver serious news seriously.”
— Nicholas de Jongh, Theatre Critic and Playwright, Radio Times

Radio Drama

“Zeb Soanes makes an ace Derek Nimmo”
— Gillian Reynolds, Sunday Telegraph
““Zeb Soanes did a brilliant job of convincing us he was Derek Nimmo and not about to break into reading the news (his more usual role on Radio 4)””
— Kate Chisholm, The Spectator
“Zeb Soanes is terrific as its star, Derek Nimmo.”
— Paul Donovan, Sunday Times
 
“A nice turn from Radio 4 announcer, Zeb Soanes as the Librarian”
— Richard Brinck-Johnsen, Doctor Who News
“That God wasn’t depicted in the usual, booming way of an Old Testament grandee but as a gentle, smooth-voiced radio announcer whose first warning of the flood came in a shipping forecast was a happy innovation — all the better for being entrusted to Zeb Soanes, a genuine radio announcer known in Britain for the shipping forecast.”
— Michael White, New York Times

Poetry Reading