  Details of Radio 3's Arts & Ideas podcasts from March to July 2007.
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 Duration 33 mins.
Highlights from the last week's editions of Night Waves on BBC Radio 3.
Topics this week include a neglected Victorian comedy, a new biography of Rudolf Steiner by a founder member of Blondie, a short history of World War One and a collaboration between Alain Resnais and Alan Ayckbourn.
For more details
Night Waves, Thu 12 July
Night Waves, Wed 11 July
Night Waves, Mon 9 July
 Duration 43 mins.
Introduced by Tom Service
Highlights from the last week's editions of Night Waves and Music Matters on Radio 3.
Ken Russell talks about his early career as a photojournalist in 1950s London.
Tom Stoppard's play 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' was the subject of Night Waves Landmark ahead of its first production on Radio 3.
Lavinia Greenlaw reveals her personal thoughts on the inextricable connection between music and memory.
German composer Detlev Glanert talks to Tom ahead of the UK premiere of his new opera 'Three Water Plays'.
 Duration 28 mins.
Introduced by Matthew Sweet
The acclaimed Nigerian author Chinua Achebe receives the International Booker Prize this week in recognition of his writing achievements.
Tour de France - Exploring the cultural world surrounding European cycling on the eve of the arrival of the Tour de France on British shores.
Poet Dannie Abse talks about his new book, The Presence, a memoir of his wife Joan who died tragically in a car accident in 2005.
 Duration 38 mins.
Introduced by Tom Service
Katie Mitchell's staging of Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the opera house at Glyndebourne. Originally composed as a liturgical work 250 years ago, this production brings the sacred work to a secular setting.
Philip Dodd talks to Christopher Hitchens about his new book God is not Great in which he argues against religion and for a more secular life.
Andrew Keen explains why he thinks - as the subtitle of his new book The Cult of the Amateur makes clear - today's internet culture is killing our culture and damaging our economy.
Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata was premiered in Vienna in 1803 by the black violinist George Bridgetower with Beethoven at the piano. Bridgetower’s story is the subject of a new opera composed by the jazz pianist Julian Joseph.
Duration 35 mins.
Introduced by Tom Service
The Culture of the Workplace
From the candidates hoping to become Alan Sugar's new apprentice on BBC1 to David Brent's staff in 'The Office' the workplace is central to our culture.
Englishness: city vs countryside
Matthew Sweet hosts a public debate in front of an audience in Kendal, Cumbria, exploring the question 'Is the countryside more English than the city'?
The Blair Legacy
Former Culture Secretary Chris Smith, The Times' journalist Richard Morrison, and lecturer at Goldsmiths University of London Richard Witts discuss 'What have the Blair years done for classical music?'
 Duration 38 mins.
Introduced by Petroc Trelawny
Royal Festival Hall re-opening
The Royal Festival Hall first opened its doors to the public in 1951. For the past two years, the hall has been closed for refurbishment. The improvements include a complete overhaul of the auditorium's acoustics as well as restoration of all the original lighting and furnishings.
Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou
Philip Dodd and guests discuss the origins, history and legacy behind Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou, a building that can truly claim to be a modern landmark. First opened in 1977, its external casing of brightly coloured pipes and escalators is today regarded as a classic of contemporary architecture and a major Paris tourist attraction.
Eden Project
Night Waves get's a sneak preview of the heaviest stone sculpture ever made in this country - Peter Randall-Page's seventy-tonne Seed.
Duration 40 mins.
Introduced by Tom Service
How well do we understand China?
Isabel Hilton introduces a special edition of Night Waves dedicated to the plethora of new books being published about contemporary China.
Ten Canoes
A new film out this week Ten Canoes explores another form of storytelling, reflecting the oral traditions of the Aboriginal community in Australia's Northern Territory.
King Lear
Susannah Clapp reports on the long-delayed press night of Trevor Nunn's production of King Lear for the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring Ian McKellen and Frances Barber.
IRCAM
Tom Service travels to Paris to visit the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique, or IRCAM. Founded in 1977 by Pierre Boulez at the behest of President Georges Pompidou, IRCAM is a research centre for new music and associated technologies.
With contributions from Pierre Boulez, Georgina Born, Roger Nichols and Jonathan Harvey.
 Duration 35 mins.
Introduced by Kenan Malik.
Clive James
Philip Dodd talks to Clive James about his new book 'Cultural Amnesia'.
Inspired by notes he has made in the margins of books over his lifetime, James describes it as his intellectual autobiography.
The myth of Garibaldi
Garibaldi is one of Italy's most cherished heroes. His most famous contribution came in 1860 when he helped provoke the downfall of papal power and the Bourbon monarchy and hasten the formation of the Italian Nation State.
Isabel Hilton discusses the continuing charisma of Garibaldi but also explores the enduring myth of Garibaldi around the world.
Laurence Oliver and John Wayne turn 100
John Wayne and Laurence Olivier would both be one hundred this month - what would they be like and what possible connections might the two actors share?
 Duration 32 mins.
Introduced by Tom Service
Joe Strummer and the legacy of The Clash.
Music critic Robert Sandall reviews a new documentary about former Clash frontman Joe Strummer and evaluates the cultural impact of the band then and now.
In a special extended interview, Philip Dodd talks to Paddy Ashdown, the former Leader of the Liberal Democrats - and until recently the United Nations High Representative in Bosnia.
Composer and conductor Oliver Knussen has been a champion of new British music not only through his own compositions, but also during his time as artistic director of London Sinfonietta and through his programming for the Aldeburgh music festival.
Duration 41 mins.
Introduced by Tom Service
Philip Dodd meets the theatre director Peter Brook.
He looks back on one of the most consistently innovative careers in European theatre, and talks about his current work.
Tim Carter: Oklahoma! The Making of an American Musical.
In 1943, the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration received its Broadway premiere and was an instant success. Oklahoma! has entranced audiences all over the world ever since and there are still more than 600 productions of the show every year. In hindsight, Oklahoma! has come to represent a kind of musical hybrid, fusing together the story, costumes, choreography and music to create a consummate production.
Tim Carter's new book on the genesis of Oklahoma! charts the collaborations, discussions, and arguments that led up to the show's opening - the author talks to Tom about its remarkable history. Musical theatre critic, Edward Seckerson, and Head of the Southbank Centre's new Voicelab, Mary King, review the book.
 Introduced by Night Waves' Matthew Sweet.
Duration 32 mins.
This week – a look at what makes philosophers fashionable – with Julian Baggini and Andy Martin.
There’s an interview with Molly Dineen about her new film and we hear what happens when you put some of the biggest and best informed Vonnegut fans in a room, with nothing but a microphone to discuss his novel Slaughterhouse 5
Molly Dineen
Fashionable intellectuals
Slaughterhouse 5
 Petroc Trelawny introduces highlights from last week's Night Waves and Music Matters.
Duration 38 mins
The Orwell Prize:
Philip Dodd talks to the winner of the Orwell Prize, awarded tonight to the writer who has best achieved Orwell's aim to make political writing into an art.
Magnum:
The Magnum photographic agency is 60 this year. Night Waves examines the source of our images of conflict today.
Proms Conference:
In his last year as Director of the BBC Proms, Nicholas Kenyon announced his final Proms season on 25th April as the climax to a 3-day conference on the Proms and British Music Life.
 Petroc Trelawny introduces highlights from last week's Night Waves and Music Matters.
Duration 41 mins
On Tuesday’s Night Waves writer and broadcaster Michael Goldfarb reflects on the mythical hold Ellis Island has on the American imagination. On 17th April 100 years ago, more immigrants to America were processed at Ellis Island in New York than on any other day in its 60 plus years of operation.
On Sunday's Music Matters Petroc Trelawny talks about Britten's opera 'Owen Wingrave' with David Matthews, who has prepared a new chamber version of the score for the Royal Opera House, the co-director of the original 1971 tv production, Brian Large, and the author of a study of television opera, Jennifer Barnes.
On Thursday’s Night Waves Matthew Sweet welcomes social psychologist Philip Zimbardo and evolutionary psychologist Oliver Curry to discuss the significance of the most notorious and influential psychological experiment ever conducted - The Stamford Experiment – which took place on a Californian campus in 1971.
Ellis Island Letter
Owen Wingrave
Zimbardo
 Duration 33 mins.
On Wedneday’s Night Waves Isabel Hilton talks to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, director of the widely praised The Lives of Others, winner of this year's Oscar for best foreign language film.
As the comic novels of Flann O'Brien are re-issued, Isabel examines whether his work was unique in the English language as some claim.
And in Saturday's Music Matters Norman Lebrecht discusses his latest book, The Life and Death of Classical Music, with Tom Service, record producer Michael Haas and New York journalist John Rockwell.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Flann O'Brien
Norman Lebrecht
 Duration 44 mins
On Tuesday’s Night Waves Philip Dodd welcomed legendary Russian Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov to the studio to discuss his new book ‘How Life Imitates Chess’ - and how since retiring from the game in 2005 he has moved into the world of Russian politics.
On Thursday’s Night Waves, Matthew Sweet talked to satirist and impersonator Rory Bremner about his new version of one of Brecht's earliest plays - a broad farce called A Respectable Wedding.
The podcast concludes with Tom Service's interview with Roberto Alagna, the star tenor who walked off stage late last year after being booed during a performance at Milan's La Scala.
Garry Kasparov
Rory Bremner
Roberto Alagna
 On this week's Arts and Ideas podcast we hear from sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, a review of the recently published diaries of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and an interview with one of India’s most successful film makers – Mira Nair.
Andy Goldsworthy
Anna Politkovskaya
Mira Nair
 1. Night Waves
Philip Dodd talks to British painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling, who currently has two exhibitions of her work on show in Cambridge and London.
2. Night Waves
Matthew Sweet is joined by classicist Edith Hall to review the film '300', a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae when three hundred Spartans blocked the path of the vastly superior Persian Army.
3. Music Matters
Petroc speaks to composer Philip Glass about his inspiration for the opera 'Satyagraha', which opens next week at English National Opera.
Published 19 March 2007
1. Night Waves Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter talks to Philip Dodd about his play, The Homecoming, on the eve of a new Radio 3 production, in which he himself plays the role of Max alongside Michael Gambon and Gina McKee. Pinter last acted in the play in 1969, so how have his feelings about it changed?
2. Music Matters Tom Service takes a musical journey through Finland and discovers the state of Finnish classical music as the country celebrates not only its 90th year of independence but also marks the 50th anniversary of Sibelius's death.
Published 12 March 2007
1. Music Matters
Michael Tilson Thomas on what drives his work with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and his passion for education
2. Night Waves
Independence and freedom are notions that often go together and the latter's the theme of the new television series by Adam Curtis, the director of the much lauded Power of Nightmares. He'll be explaining why he believes the West's current notion of individual freedom, born of Cold War paranoia, can be a trap.
3. Night Waves
Last week saw the death of French thinker and inspiration behind the Matrix trilogy, Jean Baudrillard. Thursday’s Night Waves asked Andy Martin from the department of French at Cambridge University to talk with Matthew Sweet about the man and his controversial ideas.
4. Music Matters
Through the Opera Genesis project, Philanthropist John Studzinski aims to create a fertile ground for the creation of new operas. Tom asks what motivates him as both philanthropist and opera lover.
Published Monday 5 March 2007
Night Waves Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise Geneticist Steve Jones talks to Philip Dodd about his new book - 'Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise' which tells the story of coral through the lenses of various sciences including geology, medicine, biochemistry and ecology. It is a tribute to Charles Darwin, for whom the study of coral was a stepping stone towards the theory of evolution by natural selection, and a cry of help for a threatened species that is both vital to life on earth and profoundly fragile.
Nightwaves Women in Iraq The war in Iraq has put the condition of Iraqi women firmly on the global agenda. It seems that for decades the lives of women in Iraq has been framed by war and by oppression and the role of women in the future looks uncertain. The Iraqi anthropologist Nadje Al-Ali has now written a book that charts the history of Iraq as seen through women's eyes and describes the story of her own family. Nadje Al-Ali talks to Isabel Hilton on Night Waves.
Nightwaves Don Quixote In the latest in the Night Waves series discussing classic works of art in detail, Philip Dodd and guests tackle one of the greatest stories ever told - Don Quixote. Albe Sachs, South African judge and apartheid activist explains to Philip Dood how the book kept him sane in prison.
Music Matters The Future of Classical Music The ongoing debate about the future of classical music has been championed in America by composer and writer Greg Sandow. His blog on the subject suggests that classical music as we know it is over, and he is writing a book to back up his gloomy thesis. However, Sandow also has a vision of how things could and should be different. Tom questions Sandow's theories and puts them in the context of what's happening in the UK with thoughts from the Managing Director of the Association of British Orchestras, Russell Jones, as well as the experiences of children in an East London primary school who are currently involved in a project on Verdi's Il Trovatore. To find out more about Greg Sandow's views on the future of classical music, visit his website, gregsandow.com.
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