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Between The Ears

First broadcast from 19961000 to 20100130.

The home of innovative feature-making.

Communicating Underwater was due to be broadcast on 20070728, but due to the concert before it overrunning there was no time for it.

164 episodes

Title	First Broadcast	Repeated	Description
A Glass Case	19961000		by Jane Draycott and Elizabeth James
Beethoven's Fifth	19970720	19991225, Radio Three 20050609	Mark Russell introduces a specially mixed performance of the symphony, reflecting its impact on the aural landscape of the late 20th century. With contributions from Dai-Chi and Valentin (pianos), the training orchestra of the Central Music School, Oxford, Professor Peter Schickele, Walter Murphy's `A Fifth of Beethoven', Les Quatre Barbus, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Roaring Jelly, singing dogs, Leonard Bernstein and many, many more. Technical presentation Marvin Ware. Devised and produced by Alan Hall.
Heartsong	19980110	19990809	In a drama documentary by Sarah Woods, three men tell their real-life stories of love. When they meet three fictional women, obsession, betrayal and true love follow. With Victoria Worsley, Haydn Gwynne and Adjoa Andoh. Music by Anders Sodergren. Director Claire Grove
Gilde	19980117	19990816	In a major new work by playwright Meredith Oakes and composer Gerald Barry, Janet Suzman and Sally Dexter struggle with identity and opposition in a bold exposition of a body under pressure. Clarinettists Anthony Lamb, Victoria Medcalf, Robert Ault and Andrew Webster.
Gould, Tobacco, Bach	19980124	19990823	To boldly go where no pianist has gone before was the lifelong mission of the eccentric Canadian, Glenn Gould. Since his death 15 years ago, his recording of a Bach Prelude and Fugue continues its mission aboard the Voyager spacecraft. This programme recreates a 17th-century experiment for calculating the weight of tobacco smoke in an attempt to calibrate Gould's genius. Meanwhile, old Bach weighs up the statistical risk of his own pipe-smoking.
Out Of The Blue	19980131	19990830	The scene is an office. Two people are sitting facing each other. An event is about to happen which will propel one of them into a drama which is unexpected, short and shocking. It is the moment when a relationship ends. People remember the dramatic turn of events which signifies redundancy.
Anniversary	19980207	19990906	The fifth of six experimental radiophonic features is a song cycle, `Anniversary', conceived as a celebration of the unremarkable events of a perfectly imperfect day and compiled with recordings made on Friday, 7 February 1997, and today, a year on. The composers are Laurence Crane, Errollyn Wallen and Andrew Toovey. The performers are Melanie Pappenheim, Margaret Cameron, Daniel Hale, Robert Chevara, Jacqueline Parker and Errollyn Wallen. With contributions from the people of LONDON going about their business on 7 February, and reference to the day's news.
The Human Voice	19980214	19990913	by Jean Cocteau. As an antidote to Valentine's Day, an updated version of Cocteau's classic monologue, translated by Anthony Wood. Harriet Walter stars as the abandoned woman speaking to her ex-lover on the phone, with electronic sound composition by Robin Rimbaud (scanner).
The Devil Writes To Hildegard Of Bingen	19980509	20011222	The first of six newly commissioned experiments in creative radio marks the nine hundredth anniversary of the birth of composer and mystic Hildegard of Bingen. The Devil - fabricated by writer Richard Gaskell and impersonated by Bob Peck - fires off seven deadly letters to distract the visionary abbess from her mission of harmony and heavenly revelation. Meanwhile, another anniversary celebration heads calmly toward an iceberg of unfathomable proportions, as Robin Guenier, executive director of Taskforce 2000, and David Atkinson MP explain.
Please Believe Me	19980516	20011229	The second of six experiments in creative radio. A voyage through the history of the BBC voice and its close cousin, received pronunciation; a pilgrimage back to the days when announcers had to pass a stringent audition, including ten verses of the Bible and reading in Italian and German. Discover which chancellor of the Exchequer declared that that mispronouncing `Thetis' deserved a whipping, why fears that Cockney was the future of ENGLISH surfaced in 1949, and how redbrick voices infiltrated the airwaves.
The Night Stairs	19980523	20020105	The third of six experiments in creative radio. `The Night Stairs'. So many feet have passed up and down the flight of stairs that runs from the monks' dormitory to the transept of BRISTOL Cathedral that the stone looks like the waves of the sea. Joining the monks on parallel night journeys on all kinds of staircases are an astronomer, a stairmaker, a political prisoner, a nightwatchman, an old soldier, a police night squad, a tower block chorus, a historian, and the Cistercian monks of Caldey Abbey.
A S D F G	19980530	20020112	When novelist Charlotte Cory's grandmother died, she inherited a typing course on scratched 78rpm records and a set of chipped willow pattern Chima which inspire this exploration of the connections between how we think and how we write. With Kathryn Stott and Vincent Duggleby
I'll Be Watching You	19980606	20020119	The third of six experiments in creative radio. The unblinking eye of the surveillance camera now keeps a perpetual watch over high streets, shopping centres and road junctions. This is an an audio journey through the world of hidden cameras, webcams, surveillance shops and beyond, with guidance from novelist Iain Sinclair
Procession To The Private Sector	19980613	20020126	The last of six experiments in creative radio. `Procession to the Private Sector'. The first production of a surrealist film scenario written in 1936 by the poet David Gascoyne, the most prominent ENGLISH writer of that movement, and rewritten by him in the 1980s after the manuscript was found in the British Library. Adapted as a `film for radio' by Sean Street, with new music by John Surman, it features Simon Callow as the Camera. The story - of the vicissitudes of a pair of lovers - springs from a dream of Gascoyne's and is dramatised through symbol, myth and startling imagery. NB for the repeat - In commemoration of poet David Gascoyne, who died late last year, another chance to hear his surrealist `Procession to the Private Sector' in a radio adaptation by Sean Street
Virtual Spires	19990213		The first of six newly commissioned experiments in creative radio. Richard Coles trawls the World Wide Web in search of its new empires. Virtual communities the size of California, with no gravity, few laws, and no restrictions on how you look. What sort of society develops when reality and imagination collide? And who rules the new city-states of cyberspace?
Eating At Coopers	19990220		The second of six newly commissioned experiments in creative radio. `Eating at Coopers'. By Rod Tinson. With mango sauce on the wall, a partner allergic to food, and a mysterious commis chef, will Cooper ever get his two stars in Hershel's restaurant guide? With Anton Lesser, Belinda Sinclair, Cathy Sara and Simon Carter. Music by Rod Tinson. Director Sue Wilson
At The Window	19990227		The third of six newly commissioned experiments in creative radio. `At the Window'. Glimpses of the Chicago pianist Jimmy Yancey through one of his greatest blues, the voices of his family and friends, the magic of baseball, and the sounds and music of his city.
The Church Of Lanza	19990306		The fourth of six newly commissioned experiments in creative radio. `The Church of Lanza'. Mario Lanza had a singing career that lasted ten years, and he cancelled almost as many concerts as he gave. He was a boxer and a gargantuan eater who only ever sang one complete opera in public. Lanza died 40 years ago this year, an obese, bloated and exhausted young man, yet he remains one of the most celebrated and execrated tenor voices of the century, idolised across the world. In an original sound piece for Radio 3, Jakko Jakszyk weaves the voices of Lanza's family, friends and acolytes into a contempltation of the man and the myth.
Brick Lane	19990313		The fifth of six newly commissioned experiments in creative radio. `Brick Lane'. A journey through the heart of one of the oldest parts of LONDON. Voices of people who live and work on Brick Lane are woven into Bryony Lavery's story, with music by Graeme Miller. With Dillie Keane and Shamsa Omar.
Grosse Fuge	19990320		A special double bill to conclude the series of newly commissioned experiments in creative radio. `Grosse Fuge'. A tapestry woven from public speeches given by speakers including Winston Churchill, JFK, Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Jesse Jackson and Brian Keenan.
The Patchwork Planet	19991120		The first in a new six-part series of experiments in creative radio. Today, seven producers from around the world respond in different ways to the passing of time in a patchwork of sound pieces, which interweave fleeting human encounters with the music of ancient landscapes. Contributing producers: Siri Kathrine Rude (Norway), Cathy Peters (Australia), Sushmita Sen Gupta (INDIA), Helen Thorington (USA), Veroniker Brvar (Slovenia), Mai Nishiyama (Japan) and Alan Hall (UK).
Gone Fishing	19991127		A remix of the 1960 classic radio documentary `Singing the Fishing', which was about the romance of the sea. Now a less romantic view of the sea emerges, reflecting the fact that British trawlermen now fight for their livelihoods in the European courts, that the fish have gone and the fishing communities have been bulldozed by well-meaning town planners.
Three Women	20000108		One of the first poems in the language to explore PREGNANCY and childbirth, Sylvia Plath's powerful, long poem for three voices describes three different experiences, using characteristically strong, stark language. Lindsey Duncan (The wife), Harriet Walter (Secy), Amanda Root (The girl). With a specially composed electronic soundtrack written and performed by Robin Rimbaud, better known in the electronic music world as Scanner.
Underground	20000115		South Crofty Mine in Cornwall closed in 1999. Tin had been extracted here since Tudor times. This is not only the last tin mine to close in Cornwall but the last working tin mine in Europe. Voice of miners and the families are woven into a text by Nick Darke and music by Jim Carey. Charles Barnecut (Charlie), Eddy (Carl Grose). Director: Claire Grove
Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird	20000701	20010520	An aural kaleidoscope in 13 parts evoking the blackbird - one of the most familiar and best-loved birds with one of the most beautiful songs in the world.
Three Places In New England	20000708	20020330	A meditation on the music, ideas and character of Charles Ives - insurance salesman and godfather of modern American music - focusing on his orchestral triptych about New ENGLAND which portrays Boston Common, Putnam's Camp in Connecticut, and the Housatonic River at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. With conductor James Sinclair, Danbury tour guide Nancy Sudik, playwright John Grissmer and and composer Richard Boulanger.
A Parisian In Paradise	20000715	20020316	It is Paris 1943, and two parallel worlds collide - the inner musical visions of Olivier Messiaen and the public noise of war, collaboration, resistance and impossible love. From the debris of this encounter, a cycle of seven movements is born - `Creation', `Stars', `Agony', `Desire', `Angels', `Judgement' and `Consummation'. With additional music performed by Bing Crosby, George Formby and Dooley Wilson, and the voices of Winston Churchill, C S Lewis, Kathryn Oswald, Peter Ustinov and many others.
My Month With Carmen	20010127	20020323	Against the Kafkaesque background of a busy hospital ward, Lou Stein combines drama, music and documentary in a sound diary drawing on his experience of a month spent with his dying mother, interweaved with extracts from C S Lewis's `A Grief Observed', read by Julian Glover. With Lou Stein (son), Mirian Colon (Carmen), Ed Bishop (Dr Williamson), Andrew Sear (Dr Veetash), Prof Stanley Dische (as himself), Stuart Milligan (Dr Lang) and Barbara Rosenblat (Nurse/Trixie). Music by Deirdre Gribbin
Everything Will Be Alright	20010203	20020330	A selection of asylum seekers' stories. With Sara Barr (interviewer), Sofia Buchuk (Elvira) and Vladimir Vega (Juan). Music from Sofia Buchuk, Murat Kaya and Salah Dawson Miller. Written by Rib Davis, and directed by Jeremy Mortimer
Monogamy	20010210	20020406	An investigation into the hypothesis that `for some of us - perhaps the fortunate, or at least the affluent - monogamy is the only serious question'. With Adam Phillips, who throws down a challenge to society's traditional values in his book `Monogamy', and Russell Davies, who responds with an exploration of infidelity and commitment `in the animal kingdom, in marriage and in music'.
An Insular Motet	20010217	20020413	By David Pownall. In the year 1213, Pope Innocent issues an edict proscribing any form of music in the churches of England, and a beleaguered King John commissions a young composer to write a form of music without music. With Gerard Murphy (King John), Lizzie Mcinnerny (Madge), Hugh Ross (Frank), Tim Mcinnerny (Dawson) and Ben Crowe (Hedley). Directed by Eoin O'callaghan
Protest Song And The Exeter Riddles	20010224	20020420	1: `Protest Song' by the Fratelli Brothers. A musical celebration of the tradition of British protest, including readings by Suzannah Hirst, Ian Kelly and Malcolm Ridley, and music by Ted Barnes, Ewan MacColl and Andrew Lovett. 2: `The Exeter Riddles' by Jeremy Arden. Four aural riddles inspired by the linguistic games of Anglo-Saxon kennings. Featuring Lore Lixenberg (alto), Jozik Kok (baritone), Liz Cowdrey (violin), G B Arden (speaker) and Tom Hollander (speaker).
I Send You This Cadmium Red	20020119		A collaboration between artist John Christie and writer John Berger, with music composed and performed by Gavin Bryars and his quartet.
Berlin Project	20020202	20030518	A sound work by artist Tacita Dean about herself and a city in which she now lives.
Three Shorts	20020209	20030525	: `Listening to Lists', `The Colour of Sound' and `In a Child's Ear'.
Extraneous Noises Off	20020216	20030601	Winner of a Sony Silver Award in the Feature category. Forensic phoneticians are called in by the police when it's too late. They analyse idiosyncrasies and accents of unknown villains captured unwittingly on tape recordings. They perform acoustic wizardry removing noise and echoes. They spend days listening to a single word. Dr Peter French takes us for a tour of his extensive sound arcHIVe and we drift into other worlds with music specially composed by Philip Pinsky.
The Silent Key	20020223	20030608	A feature about short-wave radio hams following the trail of an enthusiast who as a teenager in 1957 contacted other buffs throughout the world.
The Maze	20020302	20030615	A soundscape tour of the infamous H-Block of HMP Maze, the jail in Northern IRELAND that housed paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles and now stands deserted.
Homecoming	20020309	20030622	A journey across the sonic landscape from the heart of the city to a place called home.
The Peggy Carstairs Report	20020407	20021201	New York theatre company the Wooster Group present a radio feature that strips bare the group's real-life characters, interweaving personal confessions, banal chatter and music.
The Watchers	20020421	20030323	Joby Talbot's work for radio sets a documentary look at CCTV within a musical landscape which evokes the creeping paranoia which this `fifth utility' can generate / Radio 3's showcase for adventurous radio offers another opportunity to hear Joby Talbot's specially commissioned piece for radio. The Watchers takes documentary material about CCTV and the culture of surveillance in which we live and presents them within a musical landscape that evokes something of the creeping paranoia that this fifth utility can generate. With contributions from security consultants, civil liberties activists and voices from the BBC Sound ArcHIVe. Performed by Billiardman With additional programming by Jon Gardner Mixed by Mark Wylie ".
Down Red Lane	20020505		Timothy West and Roy Hudd star in the radio premiere of B S Johnson's innovative play about a man and his stomach.
The Rise And Fall Of The English Cadence	20020519		Jeremy Summerly exposes the ENGLISH Cadence for what it is - neither ENGLISH, nor a cadence.
Beckham Crosses, Nyman Scores	20020630	20030504	A musical recreation of ENGLAND's World Cup football match against ARGENTINA at last year's World Cup. Seaman saves, Campbell tackles, Scholes passes, Owen is fouled and Beckham takes the penalty. Michael Nyman composes the action into a musical drama, interweaving leitmotifs for the individual players whilst reflecting back at the agony of the meeting between the teams in the previous competition - focusing on the 'five who figured four years ago'. With the voice of commentator John Motson and original music by Michael Nyman played by the Duke Quartet.
My Father Fading Out A Lake Of Shadows	20020804	20030420	"A man who said nothing of himself" Ken Smith listens for evidence of his father. Born Donegal 1904, died 1971; John Patrick Smith was not a happy man: "No hobbies. No jokes. No small talk. No stories. Couldn't dance. Didn't read. Easily given to anger. Rather than go to the dentist, he once took out his aching tooth with pliers" "Ah, John. Requiescat in pace." Music by Geoff Nichols.
The Singing Postcard	20020818		: Alan Dein explores the days of the sound postcard, when holiday memories were put on the gramophone, and he recreates an audio mailbag from these cards.
Transfigured Night	20020825		An exploration of how Arnold Schoenberg led the way in into a new music world with Verklarte Night.
Jellyfish	20020908		Irish artist Dorothy Cross and her zoologist brother Tom discuss jellyfish and the achievement of amateur zoologist Maude Delap, who bred them 100 years ago on Valentia Island.
Palio Accelerando	20020915		A feature on the horse race known as the Palio, held twice a year - in July and August - in the Italian city of Siena.
Dark Sounds For Dark Nights	20021013		American sound artist Gregory Whitehead introduces imaginative material from broadcasters around the world.
Soundings	20021020		American sound artist Gregory Whitehead introduces imaginative material from broadcasters around the world.
Learning The Lines	20021103		Glenn Paterson follows the streets of Belfast to offer his impressions of a city crossed with lines of demarcation, of configuration and of division.
Voices From The Flames	20021117		A feature exposing the suffering of young Chinese women workers based on letters discovered in the wake of a terrible fire at a toy factory.
Angel Horn	20021215		Philip Nanton explores the life and work of Shake Keane - the jazz trumpeter and poet from St Vincent. Reader Bert Caesar
It Was A Very Good Year	20021229		Composer and lyricist Ervin Drake, now 83, looks back on his life, while saxophonist Iain Ballamy improvises on the Drake song It Was a Very Good Year.
Tramuntana	20030112		Neil Mccarthy sets out from Salvador Dali's hometown of Cadaques to find out more about the force of the legendary wind that blows across the Catalan landscape.
The Book Of Disquiet	20030126		A feature on Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), who wrote under a series of pseudonyms as well as under his own name.
New Ways To Mountains	20030209		Colleen Campbell, Barry Blanchard and Craig Richards explain how mountains have come to dominate their beliefs, relationships and lives.
Identifications	20030223		A featuring exploring the development of human personality over using the sounds of young voices and music by Anders Sodergren.
Shorts	20030406		A special Between The Ears showcase for three linked features which evoke different worlds of language, sound, colour and hearing. 1. Listening To Lists Whispering chains of lists rise and fall from the surface of a feature which investigates how writers, artists and film-makers have used lists in their work. With Peter Greenaway, Don Paterson and Emma Kay. 2. The Colour Of Sound The composer Jonathan Harvey paints with sound, the painter George Dannatt depicts sound with colour. Peter White, blind since birth, considers his own perception of colour based on sound and music. Woven through their music, sounds and words, a poem by Sean Street moves through darkness and shades of colour towards light and silence. 3. In A Child's Ear At twenty weeks in the womb, the foetus' ears have formed, and so begins the journey to aural consciousness. In the company of audiologists and poets, In A Child's Ear examines the process by which we learn to make sense of the barrage of sound that greets our ears when we leave the womb.
Those From Below	20030608		A soundscape of interwoven voices, songs and stories recorded by activist Katharine Ainger, documenting the experiences of marginalised people affected by economic globalisation.
A Britain Of The Mind	20030615		A composition by veteran radio producer Marjorie Van Halteren invoking the imaginary Britain of a group of French students who share a dream of this country.
The Lord's My Shepherd	20030622		Written by committee in 17th century Edinburgh, the metrical Psalm 23 has been sung at weddings, funerals, rugby matches, and as the political response to a military coup. Those who still sing it in many places, and to many tunes, tell its story of God, sheep and cultural repression.
Killing Time	20031129	20050312	British artist Cornelia Parker explores the indeterminate nature of waiting.
A House Is Not A Home	20031206		From within it's an oasis, a refuge, a place for family, friends, arguing, loving. From without it's an estate agent's fantastic opportunity, a financial adviser's risk, a first-time buyer's dream, a lender's asset. For those caught on the knife edge of debt it's a nightmare. With singer/songwriter Lorraine Bowen as the new homeowner, and the experiences of advisers, estate agents and the repossessed.
The Museum Of Lost Keyboards	20031213		Prepare yourself for a musical mystery tour - an audio guide to a museum of keyboard instruments which exist only in the imagination. Armando Iannucci is the museum curator, and has written the official guide, with original music composed and performed by Django Bates
The Last Of The Blind Piano Tuners	20031220		Blind piano tuners are now dwindling in number, and composer Adrian Lee and poet Sean O'brien reflect on the passing of a great tradition.
The Long Time Ago Story	20031227		By Rose English and David Sawer. Filtered through the reverie of a modern-day child, fragments of romantic ballet stories are distilled into a musical fabric of toy sounds and toy musical instruments to make an imaginary radio ballet.
Radio Tarifa Calling	20040103	20040807	For half an hour Radio 3's frequencies are borrowed by another station - Radio Tarifa. Tarifa is the southernmost village in Spain and clearly visible from its shores are the mountains of Morocco. For 15 years three musicians Faín S.Dueñas, Vincent Molino and Benjamin Escoriza have been exploring the origins of Spanish culture - the music of the medieval Moors, the chansons of French troubadours and the poetry of Sephardic Jews, as well as Flamenco. They took their name from a radio station which would, if only it existed, broadcast this music. In Radio Tarifa Calling that station comes on the air. Tuning in to concert and studio recordings, interviews and readings, from anonymous romances about the Moors to Lorca, these musicians build a radio montage exploring their identity.
The Cocktail Party Effect	20040110		By Liz Webb and Sheila Goff Our ears receive all the sounds reaching them, but our brains decide which to register and which to disregard. This psychoacoustic phenomenon is called The Cocktail Party Effect. In this experimental play, PhD student Jennifer Rigby is trying to explain this phenomenon at a university cocktail party, when she starts to experience the effect first hand. Jennifer....Debra Stephenson Patrick....Kim Wall All other parts - Sue Elliott Nicolls, Simon Greenall, Debra Stephenson and Kim Wall Composition and Sound Design by Nina Perry Studio Management by Colin Guthrie Directed by Liz Webb
Kindertotenlied Song On The Death Of Children	20040117		Nothing touches us quite like the death of a child. For a parent, it's the worst thing that can happen, almost too painful to contemplate. But artists have nevertheless been drawn to reflect on the loss. The son of violinist David Harrington died suddenly on Easter Day 1995. Terry Riley composed a 'Requiem for Adam' for David's group, the Kronos Quartet to perform in his memory. Evie Clarke began writing poems after being diagnosed with a tumour in the spring of 2003. Her father Nigel now treasures his 8 year old daughter's poetic legacy. Inspired by Mahler's settings of poems on the deaths of two of the poet Rückert's children, Kindertotenlied reflects on how art can help confront the inexpressible.
King's Cross To Connemara	20040207		On location in LONDON and IRELAND, the artists Richard Wentworth and Dorothy Cross explore each other's territories and collaborate on a work that highlights their experience of beauty, of intense looking and of being an artist.
Funeral Of A Bell-ringer	20040214		An audio portrait of the bell-ringing life and legacy of bell-ringer Bernard Mann interspersed with an account of the casting of a new bell.
Brainwaves	20040221		Up close and personal with the creative process, BRAINWAVES follows a group of would-be writers on two sweltering Saturdays in Sydney, Australia as - under the direction of novelist Sue Woolfe - their brains are stretched, scrambled and jogged into producing a short story.
Music Tastes Like Roast Beef	20040228		In his music workshops for deaf-blind people at the Royal National Institute for Deaf People at Polmead near Bath, Tony Heyes works in a world where sound becomes texture, where physical contact replaces the easy distance of speech and where music can be experienced as vibration and even taste. Tony invites listeners to experience the joy and subtle communication of his work.
Brahms's Beard	20040306		Think of Johannes Brahms and it's impossible to disentangle the image from the beard. He wears a full Olympian (or Patriarchal) facial growth - a Marx-ist beard with a Jimmy Edwards moustache. But does the beard obscure also our view of the composer's music? Until his mid-40s, Brahms was a handsome clean-shaven 'progressive', looking to extend the tradition of Bach, Beethoven and Schumann. Soon after growing the beard, the academic conservative image took over. The composer Hugh Wood, sculptor Manfred Sihle-Wissel, Wolfgang Sandberger and Cord Garben of the north German Brahms scene, author Michael Musgrave, image consultant Pat Henshaw, Frank Dobson MP, Phil Olsen of the World Beard Championship and Keith Flett of the Beard Liberation Front review our sense of Brahms, his music and his beard. With extracts from Brahms's Clarinet Quintet and musical decoration by Steven Faux.
Notes From The Rainforest	20040313		From the po-po-po of a passing riverboat to the complex song of a tiny bird, the Uirapuru. With sounds like these, Brazilian musician Albery Albuquerque Junior has created an exploration of the richness of the Amazon rainforest. Includes a specially commissioned piece for BBC Radio 3.
Speaking In Tongues	20040320		Turner prize winning artist Steve McQueen explores the boundaries of vocal expression with actor Billie Whitelaw, sound poet Cris Cheek and linguistics professor William Samarin.
A Pebble In The Pond	20040327	20041113	A radiophonic meditation on memory and winner at this year's Prix Italia. The philosopher would say that there is some danger of confusion as to the nature of memory: the image is in the present, whereas what is remembered is known to be in the past. With words by Eva Hoffman and music by Michael Zev Gordon, performed by The Composers' Ensemble conducted by Richard Baker. Featuring Michael Mears and the voices of Ruth Posner, Christopher Phillips and Michael Simpson
Walking Against The Wind	20040612	20050702	A radio poem written by Bonnie Greer and mixed by Antony Pitts. What is it that a stranger knows? Walking through grey days, grimy streets, wandering, wondering - playwright and critic Bonnie Greer keeps moving through the streets of London and across the geographical unconscious to the beat of broken language, foreign voices, and untold stories.
Zooms	20040626		The man who mislaid his wife, a medieval leper girl and an actress falling apart in an interview do not intersect as we zoom from story to story in a vertiginous manner. With David Holt, John Rowe and Fiona Henderson. Music effects by Joe Acheson
Trimming Pablo	20040703	20050122	SHEFFIELD, 13th November 1950 - What was left behind? Memory, history and imagination. The Second World Peace Conference was a disaster - condemned by the government and reduced to a single night of speeches. The only communist from abroad allowed to attend was Picasso. In Trimming Pablo, Dave Sheasby has written and compiled a cubist entertainment using arcHIVe, drama and music which recalls the artist's one night in SHEFFIELD.
No Ball Games	20040710		Collaboration between Canadian author Douglas Coupland, Scottish visual artist Martin Boyce and the Burt Raymond MacDonald Quartet in search of the modernist revival.
Words Per Minute	20040717	20050219	A portrait of a British call shop - a place of phone booths and cut price calls, where people from all over the world gather to make long distance phone calls, cramming in the maximum 'words per minute' to family and friends back home. Conversations overheard give a fleeting and poignant insight into immigrant life in Britain today, in turns both touching and disturbing. Told through the spoken word with new works 'overheard' from Kapka Kassabova, Imtiaz Dharker, Choman Hardi, Yang Lian, Malika Booker and Dorothea Smartt, and the personal emotions of recent asylum seekers.
Hearing Voices	20040724	20050625	A 'composed documentary' by sound artist John Wynne which features recordings of several click languages from the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. The sounds of these amazing languages provide material for subtle electro-acoustic manipulations as the piece moves seamlessly between documentary and abstraction, language and music. Hearing Voices weaves together interviews, field recordings and music in a compelling and adventurous exploration of languages on the verge of extinction.
I Made Pizza For Kim Jong Il	20040814	20050226	Come on a journey to the corridors and kitchens of power of the world's most secretive state. Italian chef Ermanno Furlanis was recruited to work in a seaside pleasure palace, making and baking pizza for the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong il. His story is contrasted with the harrowing tale of North Korean student Kang Hyeok, as he searches for food amidst the country's continuing famine. He meets starving children, grain thieves and degraded beggars who know nothing of their leader's magnificent banquets.
The Way The Truth	20040828		Israeli artist Keren Amiran maps the city of Jerusalem as a physical place and a spiritual construction.
Connecting	20040904		Go where only your ears can take you. This is the story behind the first computer hackers, told in their own words, and featuring the voices of such legendary figures as Captain Crunch, Joy Bubbles, Mark Bernay and cofounder of Apple computers Steve Wozniak. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, big changes were taking place in the US phone network: armed only with a telephone, a little technical knowledge and a lot of curiosity, kids across America were exploring the phone system, discovering how it worked and what else it could be made to do. The first and original hackers, these 'phone phreaks' now talk candidly about the early days of hacking: the highs and lows, the clashes with the law, and how their early experiments contributed directly to the phenomenal rise of the home computer during the 1980s. Connecting makes extensive use of arcHIVe recordings made by the actual phreaks themselves to document party lines, long distance conversations and prank calls. Hear what it was like to be one of the original phone phreaks, working your way around the telephone system back in the early 1970s - hear intercept messages and system noises from the time. Written and presented by Ken Hollings, with music by Simon James.
Project Jericho	20041106	20060225	Dramatist Gregory Whitehead uncovers the latest attempts to harness sound as a weapon as Between the Ears decodes the sonic meaning of Jericho. Dramatist Gregory Whitehead uncovers the latest attempts to harness sound as a weapon.
Egil's Last Days	20041120		As a prelude to tonight's Hear and Now concert, Gavin Bryars has devised a binaural fantasy exploring the Icelandic saga of Egil: Viking warrior, poet, philosopher, drinker. Recorded entirely on location in the sea caves of the Faroe Islands and featuring the voice of Faroese bass Rúni Brattaberg.
The Abandoned Road	20041127	20050820	Near the French home of the writer Adam Thorpe lies a three-kilometre vestige of the former main road to the nearest village. Abandoned a hundred years ago, this old Languedoc road is now the haunt only of badgers, shepherdess and her brother and the memories of former times. Adam Thorpe's walk along the abandoned road is the starting point for a meditation in words and sound on the significance of roads and what it means when they fall into disuse.
Don't Wear A Hat	20041204		The residents of two care homes in Glasgow - David Cargill House and New Cleveden Lodge - give their opinions on the world as it is now: space travel, electricity, hair, manners, how they feel when they wake up in the morning, how to get to heaven, and how to make the perfect cup of tea.
By The Rivers Of Babylon	20041211		The story of the unlikely collaboration between the Already famous Lord Byron, and Isaac Nathan, a young, unknown Jewish musician who persuaded His Lordship to write lyrics to some ostensibly ancient songs of David. The venture was a publishing success, and a critical disaster. Byron's poems eventually inspired several composers much greater than Nathan. By Judith Chernaik. Byron....Giles Fagan Nathan....Dominic Colchester Pianist....Anna Tilbrook Commentary by the conductor Charles Mackerras.
A Strange Eventful History	20041218	20050903	One man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages... From Shakespeare's infant through schoolboy, lover, soldier, judge, and pantaloon to second childishness, the passing of time is made audible in the hopes, fears and regrets of seven everymen. With a double soundtrack of music tracing the arch of Western civilisation and golden songs from the last seventy-odd years. Devised and produced by Alan Walker and Antony Pitts
Criss-cross	20050108		Mixed race children are Britain's fastest growing ethnic group, but how do they see themselves? This programme explores the joys and the challenges of mixed race identity.
Strata	20050129		Voices mix with sound and music to tell the story of the landscape of South YORKshire.
Ports	20050305	20070630	In Paul Farley's evocative radio poem, three ports - Carthage, LIVERPOOL and Rotterdam - speak to each other across the centuries and down the sea lanes. From the ruins of the great Phoenician harbour, we follow the radar-blip of commerce as it travels on from the abandoned LIVERPOOL dockside to the cranes and containers of Europe's busiest port.
Pliny's Naturalis Historia	20050326	20060311	Pliny the Elder was passionate about directly observing the natural world. So passionate, in fact, that he was killed when he got too close to Vesuvius in AD 79. Two years earlier, however, he had completed his Naturalis Historia, which included four volumes of observations of the animal kingdom. In this programme, Sean Barret and Mia Soteriou read the Latin text, accompanied by a soundscape of specially composed music, mixed with animal recordings gathered from BRISTOL?s famous Natural History Unit. Pliny's Naturalis Historia Pliny the Elder was passionate about directly observing the natural world. So passionate, in fact, that he was killed when he got too close to the erupting volcano Vesuvius in AD 79. Two years earlier, however, he had completed his Naturalis Historia, which included four volumes of observations of the animal kingdom. Sean Barrett and Mia Soteriou read the Latin text, while a soundscape of specially composed music, mixed with animal recordings gathered from Bristol's Natural History Unit, provides the translation. Adapted and produced by Kate Mcall. Music by Adrian Lee, Simon Rogers and Sylvia Hallett.
The Darkest Place In England	20050604	20060325	Poet and writer, Lavinia Greenlaw goes in search of darkness - nowadays banished as much from our imaginations as from our night skies. Is there anywhere truly dark left in England? How can we live without the dark? Can we recover its pleasures and its perils? With photographer Garry Fabian Miller and literary critic Alan Downie
The Third Generation	20050611		How do the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors come to terms with the experiences of their grandparents as they reach young adulthood? Anne Karpf talks with medical student Shoshana Burke, rock musician Sam Fluskey and musicians Simon, Benjamin and Jo Wallfisch. The programme climaxes with a piece of music, Requiem, specially composed by Benjamin Wallfisch, and performed in the studio by his brother Simon, his father, the distinguished cellist Raphael Wallfisch, and his grandmother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, whose cello-playing famously saved her life in Auschwitz.
Gateshead Multi-storey Car Park	20050618	20060617	As Gateshead's brutalist car park and shopping centre face possible demolition as part of the town's ongoing redevelopment, Between the Ears presents an unlikely journey through the concrete building, created entirely out of the sounds and personal perspectives found there, manipulated and processed on analogue tape.
Doing The To Do List	20050709	20060729	Get up, do tax, extend overdraft, give pills to cat, explore foreign rights, check diving charts, book honeymoon, pack knickers, have baby - anything and everything can go on The To Do List. Trying to make sense out of the busy muddle that makes up our lives is a vital part of survival for many. And ticking off the items is a blissful joy, while the un-ticked glower back and are moved on to the next page. Whether it's a nuclear submarine commander remembering his medals, or a poet sorting out the polystyrene under the sink, or the comedian just trying not to lose it, 'Doing The To Do List' taps into people's need - sometimes their obsessive need - to put order into the threatening chaos of their lives. Hold tight for a bumpy ride through The To Do List.
Peter Blake's Mystery Tour	20051112	20060923	British painter Peter Blake takes listeners on a magical journey in an old char-à-banc bus. He is joined by characters who have peopled his imagination over the years - Elvis, Ian Dury, Frankie Howerd, Kim Novak to name a few...one in particular though is the White Knight played by John Hurt.
A Very English Ganges	20051119	20060722	Every Hindu traditionally wishes to have their ashes scattered on the holy waters of the Ganges. But what of the British Hindu community who have made their homes here? While many make the long trip to India with the ashes of a loved one, others have adapted this ancient ritual to modern life in this country, and have quietly found an alternative 'English Ganges' closer to home. Poet Debjani Chatterjee portrays Hindus scattering ashes on British rivers. She takes us on a poetic journey - of the soul and of a generation finding new ways to uphold tradition, based on the Hindu belief that ultimately all rivers become one.
Sound Relations	20051126	20060819	Is our voice something we inherit from our ancestors? And do we sound like relatives who died decades ago and who we never met? Oral historian Alan Dein tries to plug the gap in our self-perception in a series of sound experiments. He listens to fathers, cousins, grandmothers and great-grandfathers as far back as sound recording goes, on archive, home-made cassettes and through personal memories. Through them he traces the evolution of distinctive intonation, pitch and timbre in a number of very different families. And with the results, he creates a home-made audio family tree.
Jan Kerouac	20051203		A portrait of poet Jan Michelle Kerouac (1952-1996) made by her friend Marjorie Van Halteren in remembrance of her astonishing spirit. Jan Kerouac met her famous father Jack Kerouac only twice. When she was a teenager, he said to her "Write a book. Use my name". But in the end his name turned out to be the last part of him that she really needed. She took up writing of her own accord and it became her lifeline. Towards the end of her life, Jan even talked of changing her famous name so that she could continue to do what she loved above all in peace - to write. But her grip on health loosened and her life ended in the midst of the kind of confusion that the estates of famous writers too often come to today. Her identity was overshadowed by a drama made up of all the greed and obsession concerning Jack's papers and works. Marjorie Van Halteren was crushed by Jan's untimely death aged just 44. In this programme, Marjorie has tried to evoke the last time she saw her friend, acting on a desire to bring Jan back for the listener.
The Pembrokeshire Underground	20051210	20060826	What do you think of while travelling on the Tube? Writer Dan Anthony has several thoughts. Join him as he takes a ride on the train line of the mind, heading west on The Pembrokeshire Underground. Featuring the voices of Phil Rowlands, Gillian Elisa Thomas, Alun Owen, Alun Lewis and Gary Jones
Guest + Host = Ghost	20051231	20060805	A journey into one man's isolation: written and narrated by Peter Blegvad, with readings by Nick Cave. The narrator consigns himself to a flotation tank in an attempt to beat the world record for sensory deprivation. He is visited by doubtful guests of the mind as his desire for solitude collides with his social instincts and thoughts of his lost love, Esperanza. The programme uses Edward Gorey's tale The Doubtful Guest and other literary illustrations to explore the ambiguities of disengagement, using musique concrete techniques specially developed by the producers Felix Carey, Iain Chambers and Philip Tagney.
Virgins And Virginals: The Shadowy World Of John Bull	20060107	20060812	The life of the keyboard composer John Bull is cloaked in mystery. He's glimpsed only fleetingly as a player in the murky secret theatre of the court of Elizabeth I. In this free elaboration on Bull's life, his times and his music, expert witnesses - including the virginalist Sophie Yates, the writer Charles Nicholl, the scholars David Smith and Martin Souter - offer a portrait of the man and his art within a musical frame composed by Steven Faux and featuring the saxophone of Will Gregory.
A Ship Of Voices	20060304	20060416	A celebration of the white vessel that is BBC Broadcasting House in London, including the voices, sounds and music that inhabit its walls.
Not In My Name	20060318		written and composed by Antony Pitts and Gary Watt. Featuring John Crook, Christopher Gunness and Sally Phillips
Maysles In The Dakota	20060603	20070721	Paul Mccartney and Martin Scorsese explore the life and times of Albert Maysles. Along with his brother David, Maysles played an important role in the mid-20th Century documentary film-making revolution. He developed the genre of 'direct cinema' with his classics What's Happening!, The Beatles in the USA in 1964, Salesman and the controversial Gimme Shelter in 1970 - which explored the Rolling Stones' tour of America.
Flotsam	20060610		Film-maker Tessa Sheridan was born on a London barge. Since then the dark and seductive Thames has exerted a profound tug on her imagination. As the hustle and bustle of city life gives way to the still of night, she goes in search of the sounds and secrets hidden within the river's murky depths.
Occasional Offices	20060624	20070217	A collaboration between Roger Elsgood and audio artist Scanner. It features words from the Occasional Offices of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, delivered by the Reverend Dr Peter Mullen in actual services, woven into a soundscape of voices and scored with music by Scanner.
Artist Crawls To Canterbury	20060701		On Boxing Day 2005, performance artist Mark McGowan started his epic crawl from Southwark to Canterbury. Why did he do it?
Steamboat Kurt	20060708	20070224	Kurt Schwitters, the Dada artist and sound poet, left Nazi Germany, was interned on the Isle of Man, and spent his last years in Ambleside. He worked as a portrait painter but created some of his most radical work there, transforming a farm building into an environment called the Merzbarn, and writing an anti-Nazi satirical play, The Family Plot. Ian Mcmillan searches for traces of Schwitters' life in Ambleside, hears his poetry and talks to those who knew him or know about him. Ian stages a scratch performance of Schwitters' play on a Windermere steamboat, and makes a radio collage in homage to this radical artist in the genteel lakeside town. Ian Mcmillan searches for traces of the life of Kurt Schwitters, Dada artist and sound poet, who left Nazi Germany, was interned in the Isle of Man and spent his last years in Ambleside. He worked as a portrait painter but created some of his most radical work there - transforming a farm building into an environment called the Merzbarn, and writing an anti-Nazi satirical play, The Family Plot. Ian also hears his poetry, talks to those who knew him or know about him and stages a scratch performance of his play on a Windermere steamboat.
Horse Whisperer	20060902	20070714	Stephen 'Yarmy' Dyble is a familiar figure at Newmarket Racecourse, generally known by trainers to be the man to turn to when only his horse whispering talents will calm difficult thoroughbreds. After months of following the training techniques of Yarmy, director Lou Stein and composer Deirdre Gribbin create an impressionistic portrait of the horseman and his almost magical ability to turn problem horses into champions. Stephen 'Yarmy' Dyble is a familiar figure at Newmarket Racecourse, known by trainers as the man to turn to when only his horse whispering talents will calm difficult thoroughbreds. After months of following the training techniques of Yarmy, director Lou Stein and composer Deirdre Gribbin create an impressionistic portrait of the horseman and his almost magical ability to turn problem horses into champions.
Three And The Third	20060930	20061230	Alan Hall brings together voices from 60 years of BBC cultural broadcasting to celebrate the anniversary of the start of the Third Programme. Alan Hall presents voices from 60 years of BBC cultural broadcasting to celebrate sixty years on from the start of the Third Programme. This irreverent but affectionate feature is crammed full of highlights and hiccoughs, familiar characters and flaming controversies.
Affirmation	20061104		As part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas for the Future, New York artist Julianne Swartz introduces a specially commissioned version of her Affirmation sound installation in Liverpool. The building comes alive with the sounds of disembodied voices, allowing the public space to become an arena for private moments.
Cloudscape	20061111		A composer, an artist, a meteorologist, a glider pilot and a cloud-chaser reflect on the meaning and inspiration of clouds. Sometimes they are flocks of celestial sheep herded across the sky on a summer afternoon, others sail majestically overhead like battleships while some are stratospheric wisps of angel hair. Too often maligned or ignored, clouds are nature's poetry. So is it really so bad to have a cloud hanging over you?
The Soldiers' Poet	20061118		Wilfred Owen wrote that he was a 'poets' poet'. He also wrote, in the preface to War Poems, 'Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War'. He is, then, a soldiers' poet. In the concluding programme of Wilfred Owen Week, serving soldiers - including one who joined as a boy soldier, a woman corporal, a major who, like Owen himself, was awarded the Military Cross, and General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff - each choose an Owen poem to read. They speak of the impact it has on them, and on soldiers who have served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Iraq.
Tiles Of The Alhambra	20061125		This experimental feature celebrates the extraordinary tiles which adorn the Moorish palace of The Alhambra in Granada. Each room has elaborate tiles which are full of precise symmetries, different patterns, colours and geometric complexities. The feature presents an aural picture of six tiles from the simplest repeated square pattern to the explosion of shapes and patterns in the Hall of the Ambassadors which seem to represent infinity itself. Weaving through the feature are the sounds of the Alhambra with fountains, channels of water, the sumptuous gardens and the reflection of tiles in pools of water. With contributions from art historians Michael Jacobs, Robert Irvin and Dalu Jones, and mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy. Featuring music specially commissioned for the programme by the Spanish composer Carlos Miranda.
The Edge	20061202		Dermot Healy's home is disappearing into the sea.
Bread On The Waters	20061209		A look at the theory and practice of Bottle Evangelism, in which the word of God is sealed in glass flasks and floated across the oceans.
The Charming Mr Kharms	20061216		A look at the life and career of Daniil Kharms, a Russian absurdist who wrote hilarious microscopic playlets about the silliness of the human condition. He continually fell foul of the authorities and died in prison in 1942. With music by Haflidi Hallgrimsson.
The Sleepover	20070616	20091219	Shut away for 20 hours in a humble house and barn beside a creek, Judith Kampfner explores Jackson Pollock's domestic world.
Blackpool: The Greatest Show Town	20070623	20071222	Film-maker Ken Loach returns to Blackpool to recollect the summer shows of his boyhood. Focusing on the comedy acts and the working class resort he remembers, he paints a picture of the northern holiday town at the peak of its popularity in the 1940s.
Ivories In The Outback	20070804		A radiophonic survey of pioneer pianos, harmoniums and organs which have arrived in outback Australia since white settlement. Australia's very first piano was dumped on the beach at Sydney cove in 1788, just after arriving on the first fleet from England. In 1888, it was estimated that there were 700,000 pianos Already imported into Australia: that's one piano for every three people then living on the fifth continent. This programme consists of a series of cameos featuring various instruments and their stories. Historic texts are spoken by actors, while contemporary voices from outback Australia 'sing up' the stories surrounding the selected keyboard instruments. There are interviews with the collectors, the accidental finders and the small but dedicated group of improvisers actively seeking ruined instruments.
Communicating Underwater	20071027		Lisa Walker is a classically trained musician who has taken her music out onto Pacific waters to collaborate with musicians of the underwater world - humpback whales. Combining Lisa's music with her journey into scientific exploration of the whales' song, the programme dives into the haunting yet magical underwater musical world of the humpback whale.
Rock's Dna - Portrait Of A Guitar Chord	20071117	20080823	Embedded in the riffs to Purple Haze and Foxy Lady there's a guitar chord that's saturated in the blues, that's jazz-inflected and inclined to funk but, above all, speaks of rock. The Jimi Chord, a conflicted major-minor chord with a flattened seventh, unlocks the window into the soul of rock music and much more besides. With contributions from famous axemen such as Steve Howe (Yes), Bernie Marsden (Whitesnake), and John Campbell (Are You Experienced?).
Dreaming Of Osama	20071124		He has a way of lying low, just long enough for you to almost forget about him, and then when you do, he makes an unwanted reappearance. Osama Bin Laden. Usually the strangely mild-mannered man appears on videos, uploaded to radical Moslem sites, but since 9/11 he has also been appearing in people's dreams all over the West. Pejk Malinovski's soundscape of real dreams and reflections on security gauges the impact of the 'War on Terror' on our collective unconscious.
The Refuge Box	20071208	20081213	Half way between Holy Island and the mainland of Northumbria, a flight of steps leads to a wooden cabin on stilts. It is the Refuge Box, built to save people cut off by the tide from being swept away and drowned. This is the focus of a new radio poem by Katrina Porteous, whose poetry, recorded all over Holy Island and in the Refuge Box itself, is interspersed with other voices, including island fishermen who remember rescues and tragedies, the coastguard and lifeboat crew, the bird warden, the Franciscan vicar of Holy Island, and a refugee who fled her West African homeland to seek sanctuary in Britain. Beyond the human voices is the poetry of the place itself, the seals singing, the wheeze of swans flying over Holy Island, sudden jet fighters protecting this sanctuary yet violating its peace and, always, the wind and the sea.
Jazz Ghosts In The Bronx	20071215	20080912	A tour of the vast Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, which is the final resting place for numerous jazz luminaries including Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, King Oliver and Max Roach. With contributions from historian Susan Olsen, novelist Laura Shaine Cunningham and musician Maxine Roach, daughter of Max Roach. Plus original music by Iain Ballamy and Ashley Slater.
Dream Astronomy	20080105	20091229	In the early years of the 20th century, letters arrived at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California written by people from all over the world who wanted to tell the astronomers information about the universe that they had acquired without using the observatory's giant telescope. The letters contained details of experiments, observations and intuitions, and read like an alternative history of space. With John Moraitis, Kerry Shale, Barbara Barnes and Jennifer Lee Jellicorse, plus the music of Olivier Messiaen and Urmas Sisask. Letters sent by people who had gleaned information about the universe without a telescope.
Behind God's Back	20080126	20080905	Nagyrev was a sleepy village in a remote part of Hungary - until a spate of mysterious poisonings made it big news. Nearly 50 of the town's men lay prematurely dead in the cemetery. Their bodies were found to be full of arsenic - and the suspects were their wives. What caused the women of Nagyrev to poison their husbands? Was it, as commentators at the time suggested, the impact of World War I or of social change? Was it revenge for their husbands' drinking and violence? The programme reconstructs the facts of a baffling mass-murder with archives from the trial, press reports and the memories of one Nagyrev resident still living who remembers the case.
The Wall Of A Million Bricks	20080202	20080315	In September 1969, Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Freeland, the most senior figure of the occupying British Forces in Northern Ireland, said that peace lines - solid walls separating communities - would be a temporary affair. Today, despite relative harmony in Northern Ireland, there are over 40 peace lines keeping Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods apart. Belfast-born DJ and film composer David Holmes weaves a soundtrack through stories told by people on both sides of the ever-continuing divide.
Mobius Strip And The Confidence Trickster	20080216		Forensic Psychiatrist Anne MacDonald, architect Cecil Balmond and the fiance of a compulsive liar try to understand the process of psychological manipulation in humans using the mathematical concept of the Mobius Strip - a piece of paper with only one side.
Symphonies Of Wind Turbines	20080308	20080816	A sonic meditation on wind turbines and their place in today's environment, recorded in Norfolk and the Fenlands. Including contributions from poet Kevin Crossley-Holland, architecture critic Jonathan Glancey and local residents, along with music created from the sounds of the turbines themselves.
Out Of The Mouths	20080510		A soundscape of the acquisition of language from a baby's viewpoint, concentrating on the way in which cries become sounds, then babbles, words and then sentences. The programme features fly-on-the-wall observations of several children at various stages in their linguistic development alongside contributions from language and child experts.
A Map Of Paradise	20080524		An impressionistic feature on the notion of paradise - lost, sought and found. In 1442, a Venetian cartographer in 1442 firmly situated paradise at the most eastern edge of India. For a young film company location scout, it is indistinguishable from the beach at Applecross on the west coast of Scotland, whereas others recognise it in the English country garden at Sissinghurst, Kent. For one of the architects responsible for a new retail experience in Paradise Street, Liverpool, it can be glimpsed in the joy in existence he feels with each new dawn.
The Wash	20080531		Poet Laureate Andrew Motion explores the great wilderness on the east coast of the country, known as the Wash.
Staring At The Wall	20080607	20090606	Alan Dein captures the sounds and thoughts of everyday life just outside the walls of Pentonville prison in North London, building up a portrait of enclosure, freedom and imagination. He talks to Bob, who was born close to Pentonville and grew up in the area. Bob rented a flat across the road with his girlfriend, became an inmate himself and watched her comings and goings on the street outside. Now a free man for many years, he lives just feet from the prison wall, but this time on the outside, staring at the wall first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Alan Dein captures the sounds and thoughts of life outside the walls of Pentonville prison
Uk Crossfade	20080614		Charting a journey in sound through the UK, moving from west to east, and north to south, in a series of long, very slow and sometimes almost imperceptible fades from one location to another. At the heart of the programme are location recordings and soundscapes from a wide range of places across the country - from the morning boats in a Devon harbour to an evening on the seafront in Skegness, via the daytime streets and quads of Oxford and a street parade in Spalding, to the sounds of rural Scotland and urban Lancashire. The journey follows a simple pattern, which listeners are invited to puzzle out for themselves.
Hearts, Lungs And Minds	20080621	20091228	An experimental documentary by sound artist John Wynne, who spent a year as artist-in-residence with photographer Tim Wainwright at Harefield Hospital, one of the world's leading centres for heart and lung transplants. Using recordings of patients, the devices some of them were attached to, and the hospital itself, the piece weaves together intensely personal narratives with the sounds of the hospital environment, exploring the experiences of transplant patients and the important issues raised by this invasive, last-option medical procedure. Sound piece about the experiences of Harefield Hospital's heart/lung transplant patients.
When Silence Sings	20081122	20091230	A sonic reflection on the city of Venice, which is portrayed through the ears of some of its residents, including Tonie, a Norwegian psychologist who has been deaf from birth. She leads us down alleyways and into hidden little pockets of the city, all the while meditating on what role not being able to hear has played in her life and, in turn, inviting us to reflect on how we listen to our everyday lives. A sonic reflection on Venice, portrayed through the ears of its residents. When Silence Sings
Crossing The Same River Twice	20081129		Dramatist and theatre director Lou Stein draws upon the many sound recordings he has made during his life in a distinctive audio journey that explores the tensions between selective memory and identity. It takes him from his South Brooklyn childhood to citizenship in the UK, via Belfast and the Outer Hebrides, to becoming the father of a child born with Down's syndrome. Randomly recorded sound, Lou has found, is an very precise trigger for memory.
Mole Jazz	20081206		A portrait of the late Ed Dipple, an obsessive collector who ran what has been described as the world's greatest second-hand jazz shop in a shabby corner of London's Kings Cross. Ed's widow Leni, a poet, interviews old friends such as saxophonist Bobby Wellins and drummer Spike Wells.
In Memoria	20081220	20090502	A sound-collage created by Edward Wickham and Anthony Pitts, originally inspired by a visit to the tunnels of the National Mining Museum near Wakefield. It includes early music group The Clerks performing inside Crossness Pumping Station in Bexley, as well as children's songs, poetry, real life stories, a new motet by Pitts for three pairs of two voices, and medieval motets by Ockeghem, Dufay, Obrecht and Josquin. A sound-collage created by Anthony Pitts, inspired by the National Mining Museum tunnels. A sound-collage created by Edward Wickham and Anthony Pitts, originally inspired by a visit to the tunnels of the National Mining Museum near Wakefield. It includes early music group The Clerks performing inside Crossness Pumping Station in Bexley as well as children's songs, poetry, real life stories and a new motet by Pitts for three pairs of two voices.
Woven In Time	20081227		A story about black female identity told through the words of poets. A story about black female identity as told through the words of poets Zena Edwards, Khadijah Ibrahim and Jean Binta Breeze, and the lives of women in an Afro-Caribbean hair salon. Taking the themes of woven hair and woven lives, of history and culture, the programme examines the link between the changing politics of black female identity, ideas of black beauty and how this has been expressed through hair.
Weather Reports You	20090110		American artist Roni Horn proposes that 'when you talk about the weather, you talk about yourself'. She brings together individual stories and reflections about the weather, recorded across the county of Norfolk to create a collective portrait.
Empty Ocean	20090516	20100123	Residents of Fair Isle, Britain's most remote inhabited island, talk about the loss of fishing and seabird colonies caused through over-fishing by trawlers and global warming. They also speak about the loss of traditions that bind the community together and have been handed down from generation to generation. With music by composer Damian Montagu and Fair Isle musicians, including his collaboration with singer Lise Sinclair on the song Empty Ocean. It sets Paul Rich's poem The Halibut Fisher's Saturday Night, about the great hauls of the past compared to today, where the ocean is empty of fish and the seabed smooth from over-fishing. There is also Sinclair's poem Silent, portraying the disappearance of seabirds from the skies because of the lack of sandeels for feeding. Islanders on Fair Isle lament the loss of fishing. And music performed by local musicians. Islanders on Fair Isle lament the loss of fishing. Plus music performed by local musicians
Vapourtrain	20090523		Harry Willis Fleming explores how in the Victorian era the advent of steam train travel influenced travellers and chroniclers of the time.
Ghost Town	20090620		A portrait evoking vanishing towns in the American Southwest, blending music, ambient sound and anecdotes from residents past and present.
A Wireless Revelation	20090704		Radiophonic version of the text in the Book of Revelations - from mysterious beginning to epic end - in a communAl Reading from a number of translations. Decorating and illuminating the sacred text, as it unfolds, is an array of music - including iconic fragments from Handel's Messiah and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.
Tennyson In Skegness	20090815		An exploration of a little-known connection between Tennyson, one of our greatest poets, and the brash and brassy seaside town of Skegness in Lincolnshire. Tennyson spent much time on the coast there, with its landscape providing a good source of inspiration. The programme combines the sounds of Skegness with the voices of locAl Readers interpreting a range of Tennyson's works and features excerpts from Charge Of The Light Brigade, Maud, The Miller's Daughter and Break, Break, Break. Exploring Tennyson's connection with Skegness, where he wrote some of his best-known verse
Salvado	20091107		The story of a remarkable encounter between Spanish monks and the native inhabitants of Western Australia in the mid-19th century. In 1846, Spanish bishop Rosendo Salvado arrived in the Australian outback to establish New Norcia, a Benedictine monastery. Despite the intention of the mission to bring salvation to the 'savages', records show that Salvado's interest and respect for the indigenous Nyangara, though patronising, was truly enlightened for the time. The programme reveals Salvado's views on the Nyangara people, customs, and music, as documented in his memoirs. There are reconstructions of the Aboriginal New Norcia String Orchestra, Brass Band, and Choir, as well as the sounds of the bush and the acoustics of the New Norcia monastery. Spanish monks encounter native inhabitants of Western Australia in the 19th century.
A Season In Hell	20091114		An abridged radio reworking of Rimbaud's intense masterpiece of spiritual disillusionment, narrated by Carl Prekopp with a soundscape by Bristol composer Elizabeth Purnell and poems sung by Robert Wyatt. A Season in Hell was written between April and August 1873 in London and France, when Rimbaud was 18, and in the throes of an intense, transgressive and destructive relationship with Verlaine. It is regarded as one of the most remarkable pieces of prose poetry ever written - a mixture of autobiography and enigmatic dream sequence in which Rimbaud looks back in despair over his life as a poet. Combining lucid self-appraisal with demented vision, it moves between hyper-realism and hallucinatory surrealism, blending sounds, colours, odours and intensely visual images. The 25 pages of A Season in Hell, here cut to a third of its length, are seen as both a testimony to and a tortured recantation of Rimbaud's poetic credo, the 'disordering of all the senses'. Elizabeth Purnell's soundtrack for the work includes composed music, field recordings and processed sound in a raw response to the words; she set the poems specifically for Wyatt, whose voice in its high, delicate register suggests a beyond-the-grave alter-ego to the young Rimbaud. Contains language that might cause offence. Setting of Rimbaud's hallucinatory prose poem. Contains language that might cause offence.
Melting Point	20091121		A feature by Nina Perry exploring the environmental, cultural and musical significance of the icy landscapes of Greenland, Iceland and the Highlands of Scotland. Featuring the words of an Icelandic writer, a Greenlandic fisherman, a drama therapist and an ice-climbing fiddle-playing mountain rescuer interwoven with spectacular recordings of the ice sheet as it calves and a specially composed musical soundscape.
Bal Bazaar	20091128		Award winning British-Indian poet Daljit Nagra's new poetic narrative inspired by his uncle's two shops in west London - where Muslim, Sikh and Hindu workers share a tiny working space and have between them created a small working community - Bal Bazaar. It's a journey through the shop and through Indian cultures in Britain - both real and imagined. Daljit Nagra's new poetic narrative inspired by his uncle's shops in west London.
Paul Klee, A Balloon, The Moon, Music And Me	20091205		A fantastical encounter with Swiss painter Paul Klee, in an imaginary Klee-world of twittering machines and dream landscapes, singing colour polyphony and scribbling violin. Composer and writer Ergo Phizmiz wanders through Klee's paintings in the company of their creator, evoking their vivid colours and whimsical humour in intricately composed soundscapes. Klee takes Ergo on a hot-air balloon ride which, like a magic carpet, miraculously flies them to Tunisia, the land where he 'became a painter'. Their voyage also passes through paintings of strange gardens, mountain carnivals, and abstract colour gradations, before they finally ascend to the moon, a dream-world populated by lunar monkeys, peculiar birds and trees bulging with seeping paint. Ergo Phizmiz's fantastical encounter with Swiss painter Paul Klee.
The Great Bell	20091212		Using stories, poems and sounds, Stephen Gill presents a portrait of bonshou - Japanese Buddhist temple bells - which are considered essential to the country's national identity. Bonshou are housed in an open wooden tower instead of in a belfry. They do not have clappers and are struck by huge tree trunks, suspended from ropes, swung against them from outside. Each Old Year is rung out with 108 booms from every the bell throughout the land. Every Japanese person has the right to one strike, in order to consume the sins of the old year and purify them for the new. The Gion bonshou, at 80 tonnes (six times the weight of Big Ben), is the heaviest in the land and it takes 20 monks to swing the beam in order for it to sound. Ikko Iwasawa, who runs the foundry that cast the largest bell in Japan, explains the mystery of creating such huge bells as one is being cast. The Rev Eishou Kawahara, the head priest of Rengein, whose bell can be heard for 40 kilometres, reveals their spiritual meaning and the impact they have on people. Stephen Gill has lived in Japan for many years and speaks the language fluently. He weaves into the recordings stories of famous bells, haiku poems about them and, most importantly, the sounds of all these bonshou, each of which has its unique voice. Stephen Gill depicts bonshou, bronze bells in every Buddhist temple in Japan.
The Chekhov Challenge - The Sound Of A Breaking String	20100130		One of the most enigmatic stage directions in all drama appears in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard: 'A distant sound is heard. It appears to come from the sky and is the sound of a breaking string. It dies away sadly.' Between the Ears focuses on the many attempts to produce this sound, ranging from musical saws to gun-shots. Guests include Paul Arditti, who mixed industrial, musical and bird sounds for the production by Sam Mendes, and musician Leafcutter John, who accepts Radio 3's own Chekhov Challenge, recording his experiments to find a resonant breaking string sound for the 21st century. Exploring attempts to produce a famous stage direction in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
Paul Klee, A Balloon, The Moon, Music And Me
Tennyson In Skegness