Programme Information

Chris Evans kicks off a series of live BBC Radio 2 shows from Blackpool to celebrate the switching on of the world-famous Illuminations on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 September.

Chris, who presents his show live from the top of the Blackpool Tower, says: "Radio 2 and Blackpool – how can that not be fun? Bring on the candy floss and the jam-covered waffles and book me in to see Gypsy Rose Lee at her next available window."

Presenter/Chris Evans, Producer/Helen Thomas

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Anton Du Beke presents live from Blackpool's Opera House

As part of BBC Radio 2's programming from Blackpool celebrating the switching on of the world-famous Illuminations, Anton Du Beke, of Strictly Come Dancing fame, presents a Friday Night Is Music Night swing special, live from Blackpool's Opera House.

Featuring the BBC Big Band, conducted by Barry Forgie, special guests include Tony Christie, Claire Sweeney and Paloma Faith. Anton says: "I am completely thrilled to be presenting Friday Night Is Music Night in Blackpool, the home of ballroom dance.

"I've been a fan of the show for many years and love the wide range of artists who perform on the programme, and I think that we have got a really fabulous Friday Night lined up for Blackpool."

Presenter/Anton Du Beke, Producer/Jodie Keane

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Madness will perform in concert in Blackpool

BBC Radio 2 celebrates the launch of the 2009 Blackpool Illuminations with a live concert starring JLS, Madness, Tony Christie, Paloma Faith and Pixie Lott.

The Illuminations began in 1879 with a display of just eight lamps bathing the Promenade in "artificial sunshine". More than 100 years later, the annual tourist attraction has grown significantly in scale and ambition with the "Switch On" now illuminating a six-mile display of lights.

Kate Thornton hosts proceedings, while one-time Blackpool resident and Radio 2 presenter Alan Carr flicks the famous switch.

Presenter/Kate Thornton, Producer/Sarah Gaston

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Brass Concerto performances are not overly commonplace in the brass band world and were, for a long time, considered the preserve of classical musicians. Nowadays, there are many original works by distinguished composers, as well as arrangements of concert hall classics, which provide a moment in the spotlight for the best players.

Tonight, Frank Renton introduces tuba virtuoso James Gourlay; euphonium star Steven Mead; and The Black Dyke Band's principal trombonist Brett Baker; along with the talents of trumpeter Martin Winter, who has held top positions both here and in Europe. The selection of composers featured includes Vaughan Williams, Ernest Tomlinson, Tommy Dorsey, Philip Sparke and Max Bruch.

Presenter/Frank Renton, Producer/Terry Carter

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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Food writer Tom Parker Bowles joins Claudia Winkleman on her Arts Show this week to chat about his new book, The Full English, which takes readers on a culinary quest across the country to learn about the English and their food.

Classical Brit winner Alison Balsom, who produces magical sounds from her brass instrument, also joins Claudia and will, literally, blow her own trumpet in the studio.

Presenter/Claudia Winkleman, Producer/Carmela DiClemente

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

The Scottish Ensemble teams up with the British chamber choir Tenebrae to perform James McMillan's masterpiece, The Seven Last Words From The Cross, which was originally commissioned by the BBC for Holy Week and written specially for the Scottish Ensemble.

Today's Lunchtime Concert also features an arrangement for string ensemble by Soviet viola player Rudolf Barshai of Ravel's String Quartet.

Presenter/Ian Skelly, Producer/Keith Loxam

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 65 – Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester

Friday 4 September

7.00-9.30pm BBC RADIO 3

• www.bbc.co.uk/proms
• Press pack

Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra was inspired by the philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche but, for many people, its stunning opening fanfare is indelibly associated with images of space in Stanley Kubrick's famous film 2001 – A Space Odyssey.

Strauss's tone poem ends today's first BBC Prom, live from London's Royal Albert Hall, with rising star conductor Jonathan Nott and one of the world's top youth orchestras, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. They begin with more music made famous by Kubrick's film, György Ligeti's haunting Atmosphères. In between, baritone Matthias Goerne joins the orchestra for Mahler's poignant Kindertotenlieder, Songs On The Death Of Children. And Arnold Schoenberg explores new galaxies of his own in his ground-breaking Five Orchestral Pieces, premièred at the Proms almost a century ago by Sir Henry Wood.

Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/David Gallagher

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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The Austrian capital was a place of challenge and iconoclasm and the boundaries between concert hall and study were blurred as thinkers and musicians re-evaluated the nature of human experience.

Tonight's Twenty Minutes questions what Mahler owed to his study of Nietzsche; how many musicians knew and were inspired by Freud's Interpretation Of Dreams when it appeared in 1899; and how Wittgenstein responded to the music of fin de siècle Vienna.

Susan Hitch invites philosophers Roger Scruton and AC Grayling to consider how iconoclastic thought found an echo in ground-breaking music in the Viennese capital and how it resonates even today.

Presenter/Susan Hitch, Producer/Zahid Warley

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

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BBC PROMS 2009
Prom 66 – George Crumb

Friday 4 September

10.15-11.30pm BBC RADIO 3

• www.bbc.co.uk/proms
• Press pack

The Nash Ensemble and Diego Masson celebrate the 80th birthday of American composer George Crumb in tonight's BBC Prom, live from London's Royal Albert Hall, with three hauntingly beautiful pieces.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the first manned mission to the moon, mezzo-soprano Hilary Summers sings Night Of The Four Moons, a work composed by Crumb during the Apollo 11 flight. Crumb often incorporates theatre into his work and Vox balaenae (voice of the whale) draws inspiration from the songs of humpback whales, for which the three performers on stage are required to wear masks to efface their human presence.

Finally, soprano Claire Booth leads a septet of performers in Ancient Voices Of Children, a highly expressive cycle set to verses by Federico García Lorca.

Presenter/Verity Sharp, Producer/Tom Nelson

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Young journalist Dan Box is the latest winner in the BBC/Royal Geographical Society's annual competition for a dream journey project.

Dan decided to explore one of the hot-button subjects of the moment – global warming – through perhaps the most dramatic current illustration of the perils the globe is about to experience.

He travelled to the remote and low-lying Carteret Islands, Papua New Guinea, whose population is currently being evacuated to a nearby, higher island. Dan risked life and limb this spring to travel through stormy seas to witness the first men and women to leave their home, after the Carterets were inundated last Christmas by sea water in a massive storm that overwhelmed the island. Most of the fertile land was rendered unusable by the salt water and evacuation became inevitable in the months that followed.

Listeners can hear Dan's Journey Of A Lifetime to the heart of global warming, as it affects people at the centre of the crisis right now.

Presenter/Dan Box, Producer/Simon Elmes

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Sons, by Nell Leyshon, stars Lorraine Ashborne and Noreen Kershaw and forms today's Afternoon Play offering.

Elizabeth and Jane have just one thing in common – loving relationships with their sons.

Elizabeth, a former teacher, leads a fairly Bohemian middle-class life. She is financially comfortable and her son is her only child. Jane, meanwhile, lives on the edge of a village in an ex-local authority house and has five children by three different men.

Their sons, Ryan and Gabriel, meet at the local school – they're both in year 11. While taking their GCSEs, and finding their way through the difficulties of a public teenagehood, they fall in love and begin a relationship.

The play explores the reactions of the two women – the deep shock of Elizabeth and the more mature, calm, reaction of Jane. Neither finds the journey they are beginning an easy one, for different reasons. Even though Gabriel spent a lot of time in Jane's house, the mothers have never spoken – apart from a formal meeting at the school. Something then happens which forces Elizabeth to find Jane and talk to her.

Producer/Susan Roberts

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

In Kicking Off With Colin Murray, Colin is joined by Pat Nevin and Perry Groves as they preview the weekend's sporting action, including the Premier League games between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal and Birmingham and Aston Villa.

At 9.30pm, Colin is joined by Tim Lovejoy for Murray And Lovejoy's Sports Express as the duo take a quick-fire look at the past week in sport and preview what's coming up. Murray And Lovejoy's Sports Express is also available as a podcast to download at bbc.co.uk/fivelive.

Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Francesca Bent

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Cricket

Friday 4 September

12.45-9.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary of the first One Day International between England and Australia comes live from the Oval, with the Test Match Special commentary team.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

London Folk band Mumford & Sons play live for Cerys Matthews in the BBC 6 Music Hub this afternoon.

The band formed in late 2007, rising out of London's folk scene with other artists such as Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn, Jay Jay Pistolet and Noah And The Whale. They often support Laura at concerts, while their association with Noah And The Whale can be traced back to King's College School, Wimbledon, attended by Mumford and Lovett, of Mumford & Sons, and Noah And The Whale bass-player Matt Owens. The band recently signed to Island records and their new album, The Cave And The Open Sea, is due out later this year.

Presenter/Cerys Matthews, Producer/Jax Coombes

BBC 6 Music Publicity

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Welsh rockers Funeral For A Friend join Bruce Dickinson on his Rock Show this week.

It's a busy time for the quintet with a greatest hits album, Your History Is Mine – 2002-2009, due for release at the end of September. This new compilation reflects their career as a new band in South Wales and also features material with musical and vocal input from new bassist Gavin Burrough.

The guys are preparing to perform around the UK this October but still find the time to catch up with old touring partner Bruce. They chat about how they selected the tracks for the new record, reflect on how far they've come in such a short time and reveal their plans for the future.

Presenter/Bruce Dickinson, Producer/Ian Callaghan

BBC 6 Music Publicity

"You get verbal and violent abuse. Some people have relatives in the countries where we go and fight. It's difficult; no one understands how hard it is." Maher is Muslim and was a soldier with the Israeli army for three years. He says he needed an income, and working for the Israeli Defense Force would, he hoped, be a steady job and give him opportunities for the future.

However, this choice came at a price and he was branded a traitor. He's since left the army and now tends to his family's goats. It's not compulsory for Muslims to do army service in Israel but, according to the IDF, hundreds of Muslims sign up every year. Rachid Sekkai from the BBC's Arabic Service talks to Muslims currently serving in the IDF and also to former soldiers and hears about the conflicts they face, at home and on duty, and the pride that military service sometimes brings them.

Presenter and Producer/Rachid Sekkai

BBC World Service Publicity