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| BBC RADIO 2 Saturday 5 January 2008 |
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Jack Johnson, the Hawaiian-based singer-songwriter, performs a very special exclusive set for BBC Radio 2 listeners. Highlights from the session are also available to digital television viewers via the Red button from 5-12 January 2008.
Jeremy Vine introduces the session and, in between songs, chats to Jack about his music, life in Hawaii and his passion for environmental issues.
The session, which was recorded in the intimate setting of the BBC Radio Theatre in London, also features singer-songwriter Matt Costa.
Jack performs numbers from his new album, Sleep Through The Static, which is released in February, including the title track, plus some of his older classics including Gone and Times Like These.
Jack's In Between Dreams album has now sold over 1.36 million copies in the UK and his total worldwide sales are over 15 million.
With his unique, acoustic sound, Jack's music is a distillation of his character – he is described as modest, warm-hearted and serene. Jack's big passions in his life are music, surfing and his family. His first UK appearances in 2005 were instant sell-outs. When he returned in 2006 he played sold-out arena shows and made his TV debut at the Brit Awards, where he won the Award for International Breakthrough Act.
Jack spent his formative years on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii, which remains his home. Like his two elder brothers, his father and most of his friends, Jack was a surfing fan, riding the waves whenever he had the chance. When he wasn't in the water he was playing in local punk bands. Inspired by Fugazi and Minor Threat (one of the few acts who would regularly travel to Hawaii to play) Jack and his friends made a hardcore racket that was a world away from Johnson's true voice.
Presenter/Jeremy Vine, Producer/Sarah Gaston
BBC Radio 2 Publicity
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| BBC RADIO 3 Saturday 5 January 2008 |
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CD Review – Building
A Library: Wagner's Ring Ep 1/4
Saturday 5 January
9.00am-12.15pm BBC RADIO 3 |
CD Review has lined up a quartet of Wagnerians – each of whom brings a different perspective – to find the best recordings of this monumental work.
Some time ago, BBC Radio 3 listeners voted Sir Georg Solti's first-ever stereo studio recording of the Cycle as their Disc of the Century. Since then, a number of new recordings have appeared, including a Cycle from Australia and the release of an important live stereo recording from Bayreuth, which has taken nearly half a century to appear.
For many record lovers, the thrill of a live recording is all that matters, especially one from the golden age of Wagner singing at Bayreuth. Others prefer first-rate sound quality and a less overtly emotional approach. Over the next four weeks in CD Review, Solti is compared with Keilberth, Karajan with Furtwangler and, more recently, Barenboim with Boulez, Haitink, Levine and Sawallisch.
In the first programme, Hilary Finch examines versions of Das Rheingold.
Presenter/Hilary Finch, Producer/TBC
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
The Early Music Show – Baroque Dance
Saturday 5 January
1.00-2.00pm BBC RADIO 3
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Baroque dance specialist Philippa Waite – a teacher, performer and choreographer – is the guest presenter for this edition of The Early Music Show.
Philippa explains what the dances would have looked like and talks about who would have danced them. She recounts how a person's dancing skills were considered a mark of one's breeding and suggests that it could have been quite a daunting experience. She explores the style and different characters and the effects specific to some dance rhythms, and illustrates her descriptions of various baroque dances, such as the minuet, courante, gavotte and sarabande, with musical examples by such masters as Lully (an excellent dancer himself), JS Bach, Handel, Weiss, Rebel and Rameau.
Presenter/Philippa Waite, Producer/Rebecca Bean
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Jazz Line-Up
Saturday 5 January
4.00-5.30pm BBC RADIO 3
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Claire Martin welcomes in the jazz New Year with performances from BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist jazz pianist Gwilym Simcock and Scottish saxophonist Laura McDonald. Journalists Keith Bruce from the Herald Newspaper and Tony Augard from Jazz UK will also be joining Claire for a discussion about jazz in the UK today.
Gwilym talks about his first year as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and what the scheme has done for him. Saxophonist Laura McDonald talks about the vibrant Scottish jazz scene and performs with her trio.
Presenter/Claire Martin, Producer/Keith Loxam
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Opera On 3 – Live From The Met:
Un Ballo In Maschera
Saturday 5 January
6.30-10.00pm BBC RADIO 3
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Gianandrea Noseda conducts this Piero Faggioni production of Verdi's Un Ballo In Maschera, live from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. It is a cautionary tale about the perils of mixing love and politics, and the story, based on the assassination of the Swedish King Gustavus III, unfolds with gripping dramatic intensity. The cast is led by Michèle Crider as Amelia, Stephanie Blythe as Ulrica, Salvatore Licitra as Gustavo and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Anckarström.
The opera was first performed in 1859, when Verdi and librettist Antonio Somma begrudgingly changed the story's setting from the original Scandinavian to North America in order to appease the censors. Many modern performances restore the plot to its Swedish roots, and this production is very firmly based in late 18th-century Stockholm.
Against the morbid advice of Ulrica, his fortune teller, King Gustavo is having an affair with Amelia, the wife of his loyal advisor Anckarström. One evening, while trying to protect the King from those conspiring against him, Anckarström follows the King into the night and discovers his shocking secret. Anckarström's loyalties are turned. As the opera concludes in the grand climax of a masked ball, it looks as if the fortune teller's advice may well come true after all.
This evening's broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York includes the legendary Met Opera Quiz and backstage interviews with some of the artists.
Presenter/Margaret Juntwait, Producer/Peter Meanwell
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Between The Ears – Dream Astronomy
Saturday 5 January
10.00-10.30pm BBC RADIO 3
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Between The Ears – Dream Astronomy presents a wonderful account of public perception of astrology in early
20th-century California and reports what people imagined or knew the astronomers would see through their telescopes.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles (a house filled with failed inventions, false thoughts, and misreadings of the world) includes a collection of letters sent to Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena in California between 1915 and 1935. In 1908, a 60-inch reflector telescope, at that time the largest telescope in existence, was set up at the Observatory.
The popular press began to report the Observatory's findings, and people from all walks of life across the US began to write to the Observatory. Many of these letters were straightforward expressions of appreciation and awe for the work of the astronomers, but others were communications by individuals who felt, often with a great degree of earnestness, that they were in possession of understandings or information that should be shared with the astronomers. Observation, experimentation and, most commonly, intuition lay behind these communications. Together, they make a wonderful account of a kind of popular dream astronomy.
The letters are read by Barbara Barnes, Jennifer Lee Jellicorse, Kerry Shale and John Moraitis. Music of the spheres – imagined and real – weaves it all together.
Producer/Tim Dee
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
Hear And Now – Huddersfield
Contemporary Music Festival 2007 Ep
1/5
Saturday 5 January
10.30pm-12.00midnight BBC RADIO 3 |
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Highlights from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2007, which had a distinctly Dutch feel to it, can be heard in the first of a new series of Hear And Now.
The series features music from cutting-edge contemporary Dutch ensembles, the music of three British composers brought home by Musikfabrik, highlights of concerts dedicated to composers Yannis Kyriakides, Fred Frith and Robert Ashley and a host of less concert hall-based events dotted around the town, including a look at the opening event, The Night Of The Unexpected.
Tonight's programme includes music from the established Dutch group the Nieuw Ensemble and their up-and-coming compatriots Insomnio.
Presenters/Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Robert Worby, Producer/Sam Phillips
BBC Radio 3 Publicity
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| BBC RADIO 4 Saturday 5 January 2008 |
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Underneath The Lintel
Saturday 5 January
2.30-3.30pm BBC RADIO 4
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Emmy Award-winning actor Richard Schiff stars in Underneath The Lintel, the one-man play he performed in London's West End earlier this year.
Written by Glen Berger, the play tells the story of a lonely and wry Dutch librarian and his quest to find meaning in his life. His journey begins when a book is returned to his library 113 years overdue. His search to find the offending borrower takes him on a journey around the world and also, unwittingly, on a search to find the significance of his own life.
Producer/Elizabeth Allard
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Profile Ep 1/16
Saturday 5 January
7.00-7.15pm BBC RADIO 4
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Profile returns, offering a fresh insight into one of the movers and shakers of the week.
They may be from politics, arts, sports, science, business, international affairs or other areas, but the one thing they all share is that they are making an impact on life today. By talking to a range of people, Profile gets under the skin of who they are and what makes them tick.
The series is presented by a pool of journalists – authorities in their own field – who have been chosen for their ability to reveal something original about the person under the spotlight and to tell their story in an engaging way.
Presenters and Producers/Various
BBC News Publicity
God,
Pirates And Ovaltinies
Saturday 5 January
8.00-9.00pm BBC RADIO 4
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God, Pirates And Ovaltinies, presented by Sean Street, Professor of Radio at Bournemouth University, explores the tension between the BBC and commercial radio stations, and the cultural and technical revolution in sound broadcasting in the Thirties.
From 1920 to the late Thirties, the battle for UK radio audiences was primarily a contest between the BBC and the commercial European radio stations, such as Radio Normandy, Radio Toulouse and Poste Parisien, all broadcasting populist sponsored English language programming.
Radio audiences were huge, especially among the working-class population of Britain, and particularly on Sundays, which for the BBC remained "The Lord's Day". The Radio Times listing for Sunday 5 March 1939 includes five religious programmes broadcast between 9.30am and 10.30pm.
The eventual birth of the famous children's show The League Of Ovaltinies, broadcast on Sunday afternoons, was the commercial answer to a public longing for entertainment, drawing vast audiences.
Presenter/Sean Street, Producer/Julian May
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
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| BBC WORLD SERVICE Saturday 5 January 2008 |
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BBC World Drama – Dracula Ep 2/2
Saturday 5 January
8.00-9.00pm BBC WORLD SERVICE
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Acclaimed Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead's adaptation of Dracula, starring David Suchet in the title role, concludes tonight.
It tells the story of the hapless Jonathan Harker, an about-to-be-married solicitor who goes to Transylvania to sell the mysterious Count Dracula a Gothic house in London.
Producer/Marion Nancarrow
BBC World Service Publicity
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