BROADCASTS.com

b"

Sara Mohr-Pietsch talks to Ruth Slenczynska, the last living pupil of Rachmaninoff, from her home in Pennsylvania ahead of releasing a brand new solo piano album entitled My Life in Music. She reminisces about her childhood as a prodigy, connecting with her audiences, and performing still in her ninth decade.

The writer, musician and composer Richard Thomas, and contemporary BAFTA and multi award-winning artist, photographer and filmmaker Alison Jackson, join Sara to discuss their new collaboration at the Birmingham Rep \\u2013 The Covid Variations: A Piano Drama \\u2013 which takes the form of a unique film-and-concert-in-one depicting everyone from Donald Trump to the Royal Family, and provides an imaginary glimpse into the lived experience of celebrities during the pandemic.

As Mali's military leaders expel the French ambassador for comments made by the French foreign minister about the transitional government, ethnomusicologist Lucy Duran and the BBC\\u2019s reporter Lalla Sy explain more about the fragile situation inside the former French colony following the imposition of sanctions by the Economic Community of West African States. We hear, too, from Malian musicians including the singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Tour\\xe9, the balafon virtuoso Fod\\xe9 Lassana Diabat\\xe9, and kora player Ballak\\xe9 Sissoko, as they describe how years of civil war, military coups, and insurgencies by Islamist militants are collectively impacting music making in the country.

And, as we celebrate the centenary of the publishing of James Joyce\\u2019s modernist masterpiece, Ulysses, scholar Katherine O\\u2019Callaghan explains the musical references which litter the work and how music informs Joyce\\u2019s language, while the composer Betsy Jolas remembers accompanying James Joyce at the piano as he sang.