BBC
World Service marks its HIV/Aids Season with a special concert of
music, poetry and drama
A
star-studded line-up of musicians and writers join the internationally
renowned actor Sir Ian McKellen for the BBC World Service
HIV/Aids Concert broadcast to a global radio audience this Saturday,
22 November.
The
concert, hosted by Sir Ian McKellen, is from the Mermaid Theatre
in London.
It
features: Oliver Mtukudzi and the Black Spirits from Zimbabwe,
the charismatic Malian singer Rokia Traoré, the poet and
author Veronique Tadjo from South Africa, UK hit singer-songwriter
Daniel Bedingfield, the Russian violinist Vadim Repin, accompanied
on piano by Itamar Golan, the British poet Lemn Sissay, the virtuoso
Chinese musician Liu Fang and actors Debora Weston and Clive Wedderburn
performing an excerpt from Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart.
Sir
Ian McKellen is joined on stage by the African broadcaster Ofeibea
Quist-Arcton who interviews the artists and uncovers some revealing
insights into their personal views of HIV/Aids.
Rokia Traoré believes parents should talk to their children
more openly about sex and sexually transmitted diseases.
She
says she talks to teenagers regularly about HIV/Aids and is told
by many that girls who carry protection are often stigmatised as
bad girls with many boyfriends.
"I
tell them it is better being a bad girl who is changing boyfriends
than have Aids," she says.
Oliver
Mtukudzi, who opens and closes the BBC World Service HIV/Aids Concert,
says his brother and several band members have died as a result
of Aids.
"As
an artist I feel we have a responsibility, we are a mouthpiece for
the nation," he says.
"If
we are to stop the spread of this disease, if we are to conquer
this disease, it has to start with us men because we are the head
of the family."
Daniel
Bedingfield talks about a school teacher of his and a family friend
who died from an Aids-related illness when he was 15 years old.
It had a profound affect.
"I'm
a serial monogamist and I've never had a one night stand and I'm
determined not to," he says.
"I'm
thrust into a lifestyle, into an industry, where that is probably
mostly the only lifestyle there is.
"I'm
determined to have a long-term relationship and I feel that will
protect me, and the people that I have relationships with in the
long term, from HIV.
"Many
of my friends are prepared to take that risk but I am not. I like
the idea of finding an amazing woman and having a fantastic life
with lots of kids."
Vadim
Repin praises the BBC World Service for including classical music
in the concert.
"This
virus and this sickness does not have borders and we are all here
from different genres," he says. "Different
kinds of arts are here to point attention."
Eddie
Vulani Maluleke is just 21-years-old yet has attended countless
funerals.
She
says even though HIV and Aids awareness campaigns are prominent
in South Africa, people are still ashamed to admit that loved ones
have died of the virus.
"When
we go to funerals, we don't say it was HIV, we say that it was something
else like TB or pneumonia," she says.
"So,
even though we know that there is HIV in the country, we're not
really dealing with the problem."
She
also expresses frustration that people are dying unnecessarily.
"People
aren't dying how we used to die, naturally in our time. Now we are
being killed by something that we really have the power in our hands
to stop," she says.
The
BBC World Service HIV/Aids Concert is part of a season of special
programming broadcast in 43 languages around the world on radio
and online in the run up to World Aids Day on Monday 1 December.
Personal
testimonies, interactive debates, picture diaries, audio and vital
facts and figures on HIV/ Aids can be found on a special website:
www.bbcworldservice.com/aids
The BBC World Service HIV/Aids Concert is broadcast across the BBC's
eight English language streams and on its 42 language services.
For
the language schedules visit www.bbcworldservice.com
and click on the appropriate language schedules.
The
International Broadcast Times are expected to be:
Australia
and NZ: | Sat 08.06 – 09.59
East Asia: | Sat 08.06 – 09.59
South Asia: | Sat 13.06 – 14.59
E and S Africa: | Sat 18.06 – 19.59
West Africa: | Sat 18.06 – 19.59
Middle East: | Sat 13.06 – 14.59
Europe: | Sat 08.06 – 09.59
Americas: | Sun 00.06 – 01.59
All the
BBC's digital services are now available on Freeview,
the new free-to-view digital terrestrial television service, as well
as on satellite and cable.
Freeview
offers the BBC's eight television channels, interactive services
from BBCi, as well as 11 national BBC radio networks.
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