In BBC Radio 4's new Illuminated strand tonight, 'Sybil Phoenix, A Civil Life'... https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0022c1n
The years after Sybil Phoenix's arrival in England from British Guiana in 1956 follow a not unfamiliar pattern: trying to find a home and secure a livelihood, learning how to manage the endemic racism in Britain and, above all things, building a community.
Fostering countless children, setting up the famous Moonshot youth club in south-east London and dealing with the reaction from right-wing extremists bound together her personal and public lives. In 1972 she accepted - not without controversy - an MBE, the first black woman to do so. With her new status she set up a hostel for young women, the Marsha Phoenix Memorial Trust.
Now aged 97, Sybil's story is shared by her son Woodrow and daughter Loraine, the activist Eric Huntley, who's known her for over 80 years, and through previously not heard recordings that touch on her troubled early life, the death of her daughter Marsha, the New Cross Fire and much else.
Produced by Cherise Hamilton-Stephenson and Alan Hall
On BBC Radio 4 at 4pm, listen to 'This Land' an exploration of the rocky ground of the public domain told through the contested copyright history of a single song... https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021w7r
This afternoon on BBC Radio 4, the filmmaker and writer Charlie Shackleton explores the rocky ground of the public domain through the contested history of a single song - Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021w7r
One of the most famous odes to the public commons ever composed, Guthrie's This Land is Your Land offers a playful rebuke to the ‘big high wall’ of private property. In this documentary of legal interruptions, Charlie explores the history of the song and asks how much of our shared cultural history is truly shared, and how much should be?
Featuring interviews with Joe Klein (Woody Guthrie's biographer), Jennifer Jenkins (from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School) and Charlotte Vaughan (Senior Intellectual Property Counsel at BBC Legal) and archive of Nora Guthrie from Songlines in 2009 (presented by John Cavanagh and produced by Fiona Croall), Woody Guthrie from the BBC's Children's Hour in 1944, Pete Seeger from the 1968 documentary Bound for Glory and 'Interview with Flora Robertson about Dust Storms in Oklahoma, August 5, 1940' courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Produced by Charlie Shackleton and Eleanor McDowall
"The most evocative radio programme of the week was Searching for Butterflies (BBC Radio 4, Sunday and Monday) in which Syrian geologist Mudar Salimeh discussed his quest to find butterflies in the country’s mountainous Latakia region. Salimeh was a sweet, wryly funny guide, but didn’t shy away from the damage caused by civil war, physically and psychologically. There were plenty of ghosts.
What I took away, though, was the sense of place as captured by audio artist Nanna Hauge Kristensen. Here was the sound of rain and running water and thunder and birds and insects and Salimeh’s soothing voice. A sonic comfort blanket despite the encroaching shadows."
Wonderful to see another review for Searching for Butterflies on BBC Radio 4, this time from Teddy Jamieson in The Herald... https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/24457512.oh-england-give-us-break-footballing-entitlement/
In the mountains of Latakia, Syria, Mudar Salimeh devotes much of his time to searching for butterflies. A geologist, artist, and nature lover, Mudar's fascination with butterflies began in the spring of 2018 when a great number of caterpillars appeared in his art studio. Over time, the caterpillars transformed into a cloud of white butterflies, sparking Mudar's quest to find and document these beautiful, elusive creatures.
Syria's civil war has caused extensive ecological damage, affecting far more than just human lives. Then, in February 2023, an earthquake struck the region of Latakia.
Spring 2024 arrives and butterflies start to emerge, we join Mudar as he creates an encyclopedia of the different butterfly species in Western Syria - a task made challenging by the shadows of war.
Listen tonight on BBC Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002130c
Photo credit: Mudar Salimeh
From his blog: https://syrianbutterflies.wordpress.com/
Field Recordings by Mudar Salimeh
Music by Samer Saem Eldahr a.k.a. Hello Psychaleppo هالو سايكلپو
https://www.psychaleppo.com/
Lepidoptera Sound Recordings: Maria Brænder
Produced by Nanna Hauge Kristensen
There's another chance to hear Alice Boyd and The Listening Planet's Martyn Stewart's 'Shifting Soundscapes' on the BBC Radio 4 Seriously podcast now...
As well as tonight at 11.30pm on Radio 4! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xm2
In the mountains of Latakia, Syria, Mudar Salimeh searches for butterflies...
A geologist, artist, and nature lover, Mudar's fascination with butterflies began in the spring of 2018 when a great number of caterpillars appeared in his art studio. Over time, the caterpillars transformed into a cloud of white butterflies, sparking Mudar's quest to find and document these beautiful, elusive creatures.
In Searching for Butterflies, airing this Sunday on BBC Radio 4, we join Mudar as he creates an encyclopedia of the different butterfly species in Western Syria - a task made challenging by the shadows of war.
Produced by Nanna Hauge Kristensen
Music by Hello Psychaleppo هالو سايكلپو
Field Recordings and photograph by Mudar Salimeh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002130c
“Sound is the barometer of the health of the planet.”
It's almost 60 years since 11-year-old Martyn Stewart made his first recording near his house in Birmingham using a reel-to-reel machine borrowed from his older brother. From that day forward, he set out to capture all the natural sounds of the world, amassing nearly one hundred thousand recordings.
Now, musician and sound artist Alice Boyd retraces his steps to three locations in Britain to document how these environmental soundscapes have changed, revealing vanishing ecosystems, amplified human noise and the return of endangered species.
With archive from Martyn Stewart's library, The Listening Planet.
Location recordings and original music by Alice Boyd.
Listen to Shifting Soundscapes at 19.15 tonight on BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xm2
“Sound is the barometer of the health of the planet.”
This Sunday on BBC Radio 4, musician and sound artist Alice Boyd retraces the steps of legendary field recordist Martyn Stewart, capturing the changing sounds of our environments. (The Listening Planet) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xm2
This Sunday night on BBC Radio 4, don't miss Shifting Soundscapes.
Musician and sound artist Alice Boyd retraces the steps of legendary field recordist Martyn Stewart (The Listening Planet), capturing the changing sounds of our environments. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xm2
"A moving meditation about trauma and the ethics of capturing suffering on camera" - Financial Times
On the 25th anniversary of the London nail bombings, survivors and witnesses view the fatal events through some of the photographs of the time. Tonight at 7.15pm on BBC Radio 4 listen to Fragments: The London Nail Bombings - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001y9kp
Including contributions from photographer Chris Taylor; Jonathan Cash, who survived the Soho attack, Emdad Talukder, who was injured in Brick Lane and business owner Leo Epstein.
Photo credit: ChrisTaylorPhotography.com
Original music by Alan Hall
Produced by Alan Hall
Mixed by Mike Woolley
Tonight on BBC Radio 3's Between the Ears, listen to 'Staggering in the Dark' produced by Phil Smith.
On the final Thursday of August each year, the patrons of The Hand In Hand in Kemptown, Brighton, get together to remember those regulars, friends and family members who have died in the past twelve months. Landlady Jennifer Left started the night in memory of two dear friends who passed away suddenly in the space of a few weeks; and over the years since, Staggering in the Dark has become a well-loved feature in the community’s calendar and consciousness. Poets, pianists, comedians and singers crowd into the tiny space to offer performances in honour of the dearly departed. The night lurches between riotous glee and pin-drop quietude as spontaneous singsongs and bawdy odes weave around hushed sonnets of remembrance. This mosaic for radio combines the companionship of barroom scenes with forays into the reflective inner worlds of those present on the night, in a sonic exploration of what it is to grieve, collectively and in private.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001w8vv
In today's BBC World Service Heart & Soul, forensic psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead reflects on her work in prisons with violent offenders, including a conversation with the late Erwin James - a double murderer who sought redemption through writing.
'The Killer's Counsel' was produced by Sarah Cuddon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4pkt
Chrononormativity, duppies and post-colonial thought. Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures exploring beyond the past, present and futures in today's BBC Radio 4 Short Cuts
'Hereafter' features new work from Laura Carty, Sara Rahman and David Amber Devereux
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Produced and mixed by Axel Kacoutié
Made by Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio 4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001w737
"A charmingly leftfield way to see in the new year as this meditative audio experience takes us inside the delicate mechanism of the clock... A journey into sound and into the mechanics of consciousness" - The Guardian
Midnight tonight marks the 100 year anniversary of Big Ben's first radio broadcast... Just after the chimes ring out, tune in to Eleanor McDowall's Slow Radio on BBC Radio 3 to hear time unravel in ticks, cuckoos and bells https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0h0bxwz
How does one live with a difficult diagnosis that offers glimmers of hope, but that also emerges from pathologising histories?
'Sound' produced by Tej Adeleye closes this week's series of miniature Between the Ears on BBC Radio 3
A neuromantic quest through the psyche to come to terms with neurodivergence, unearthing buried signals that call for a rewiring of values in relation to self, health and society. Delving into the sound of bad crip feelings, this piece tunes into the register of crip negativity to find anti-ableist horizons both internally and in the outside world.
Featuring Faith Becky Oyeri, Jeanet Oyeri Fru from the Justice for Emmanuel Fru Campaign, Wemimo Aliyu, Micha Frazer Carroll, author of 'MAD WORLD: the politics of mental health’, J. Logan Smilges author of Crip Negativity and Robert Chapman, author of Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism
Original composition, “Phases”, by the composer and artist Matana Roberts.
Tej Adeleye is a writer, audio producer and arts programmer. Her arts practice focuses on the connections between past and present black political struggles using multidisciplinary activations, popular education and archives. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sm4l
How are we displaced from what we see? And what kind of unstable authority do we wield over a world constantly evading our grasp?
Jon Tjhia's 'Sight Reading' is the fourth edition of our miniature series of Between the Ears on BBC Radio 3 tonight...
In a series of instructions, speculative directions and personal knowledges – overlapping images composed of old light – we encounter a choreography of gestures that house the incalculable forms of our living.
Naarm/Melbourne-based Jon Tjhia is an artist, writer and editor working through radio and podcast, temporary broadcast, literature, photomedia, intersensory access, music and publishing. His recent work is published or commissioned by Debris Magazine, Chunky Move, Liquid Architecture, Un Magazine, LIMINAL, Weird Noise, the Powerhouse Museum, the Barbican, Avantwhatever and WFMU.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sm22
Hidden Touch - written, composed and narrated by Suvi Tuuli Kataja, Elli Salo - continues our series of Between the Ears in miniature on BBC Radio 3 tonight.
Exploring the rituals and culture of death through everyday and mythical traditions, the audio work follows Laru Yliskoski, an undertaker, on the last journey of the deceased and shows how the dead are cared for after death.
”Relatives often want to put something in the coffin. It can be anything. An unfinished cross. Liquorice pastilles in the breast pocket. Children's drawings.”
Hydrophone artist, music: Jussi Liukkonen
Suvi Tuuli Kataja is a director, screenwriter and sound designer whose work has been acclaimed at international festivals, including Prix Europa, BANFF World Media Festival and at home in Finland.
Elli Salo is a playwright and dramaturg. She has worked in a variety of roles in radio and sound, theatre, literature and film and her work has been translated into several languages and received awards in Finland and abroad. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sm3r
