Programme Information

Fifteen talented singers have been selected to go through to the semi-finals of the BBC Radio 2 Kiri Prize, a nationwide hunt with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to find an opera star of the future.

The singers can be heard performing in five special Friday Night Is Music Night programmes, introduced by Penny Smith.

The semi-finalists are accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra and their performances are judged by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, mezzo-soprano Anne Howells, renowned conductor Robin Stapleton and director John Cox. Five singers will then go through to the final which is broadcast on Radio 2 on Friday 3 September.

The winner will perform with Dame Kiri at BBC Proms In The Park in London's Hyde Park on Saturday 11 September and be given the opportunity to attend a three-week residential course at the Solti Te Kanawa Accademia in Italy.

This third semi-final programme features soprano Hannah Bradbury, soprano Susana Gaspar and mezzo soprano Una McMahon. They are joined by the string quartet Raven.

Hannah, from Stoke-on-Trent, began her voice training at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music. She is a postgraduate on the Royal Academy of Music's Preparatory Opera Course and her concert work includes Handel's Messiah and Carmina Burana.

Susana is currently a Fellow at the Guildhall School and lives in London. She has a piano degree from the Escola Profissional de Musica de Almada and trained at the Lisbon Conservatoire. She was a finalist in the Gold Medal Singing Competition and has performed the parts Papagena (Die zauberflote) and Serpina (La serva padrona).

Una studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama where she completed a Masters in opera. Her roles include Maddalena (Rigoletto), Didone (L'egisto) and Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte). Una is from Belfast and now lives in London.

Presenter/Penny Smith, Producer/Jodie Keane for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

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The Arts Show With Claudia Winkleman

Friday 13 August

10.00pm-12.00midnight BBC RADIO 2

Claudia Winkleman is at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for The Arts Show

Live from Edinburgh, Claudia Winkleman and The Arts Show aim to capture all the excitement and buzz from arguably Europe's most significant cultural event, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Claudia says: "The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is always properly exciting and brilliant, and I can't wait to broadcast live from there on 13 August."

Claudia will be talking to Sarah Millican, the winner of the 2008 if.comedy award for Best Newcomer, about her Chatterbox act and also to the Australian singer Ali McGregor about her acclaimed solo show in which she's backed by a trio of jazz musicians and sings classic jazz ballads and blues made famous by Billie, Ella ... and Britney.

Claudia also catches up with the award-winning comedian Alex Horne, star of BBC Four's comedy quiz show We Need Answers, to talk about his act which celebrates beating the bookies and overcoming the odds. She also meets Doctor Peter Lovatt, direct from his dance lab at Hertfordshire University – who lets listeners know why it feels great to gyrate.

To contextualise the Festival, Claudia talks to the chief executive of the Fringe, formerly known as the artistic director, Kath Mainland.

Plus, as the audience is central to the continuing success of Edinburgh, the show includes feedback from a cross section of the many thousands of people who attend each year.

Presenter/Claudia Winkleman, Producer/Jessica Rickson for the BBC

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

BBC PROMS 2010
Performance On 3 – Prom 37

Friday 13 August

7.30-10.15pm BBC RADIO 3

• www.bbc.co.uk/proms
• Press pack

The BBC Philharmonic returns to the BBC Proms with chief conductor Gianandrea Noseda. The first part of the concert conjures up flavours of Noseda's native Italy, commencing with Verdi's overture to his opera The Force Of Destiny. Dallapiccola's Partita is a dazzling piece from early in his career, ending with a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, sung by Sarah Tynan.

Music from Germany features after the interval, with Bruch's most popular work, his First Violin Concerto, and Schumann's Fourth Symphony which encapsulates the world of this most Romantic of composers, and continues the Proms complete cycle in the bicentenary of his birth.

Presented by Martin Handley, this Prom is also broadcast live on BBC Four and will be repeated on BBC Radio 3 on Tuesday 17 August at 2pm.

Presenter/Martin Handley, Producer/Mike George

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

Dwarfed by the might of the domestic washer/dryer, Yasmeen Khan investigates what has become of the humble launderette.

From the very first UK launderette in West London, 1949, the launderette has played a vital part in the UK's modern history.

Yasmeen, a "child of the launderette", discovers, that for many, the local launderette is as much a community centre and social hub as the pub, and is more dot.com than Dot Cotton with Manchester's first internet launderette where customers can surf the net and use the free library.

She visits the Liverpool offices of the UK's largest chain of launderettes and learns first-hand what business is really like in the clothes-cleaning industry – and she explores the life of the canal-boat launderette users on the Grand Union Canal in West London.

Yasmeen speaks to her family about why and how they ended up in the launderette business, how her name was derived from a new washing machine model in the Seventies, and just how much the people, machines and washing powder impacted upon their lives. She takes a trip back to her hometown of Huddersfield to visit the only one of their establishments that has remained as a launderette.

Yasmeen also pops to Albert Square to one of the most famous launderettes in the country to learn about the role the EastEnders washeteria has had in the history of the soap-opera, and just why it has remained a key location for so many years.

Presenter/Yasmeen Khan, Producers/Neil Gardner and Yasmeen Khan for Ladbroke Productions

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Nina Wadia stars in Samina Baig's Tall Stories.

Samina's life is a whirl of work and worry about her single status until a family crisis stops her in her tracks. Both her parents are admitted into separate hospitals forcing her to come to terms with their sudden entry into old age.

Between hospital visits, emergency phone calls and cookery lessons, she attempts to finally grow up and preserve the fading family memories that connect her to her roots. But then things take a turn for the worse.

The cast stars Nina Wadia as Samina, Indira Joshi as Mum, Madhav Sharma as Dad, Christine Kavanagh as the Radiographer Miriam, Michael Shelford as the Taxi Driver, Sean Baker as Peter, David Seddon as the Doctor/Patient, Alison Pettitt as Nurse One and Samina Zehra as Nurse Two.

Producer/Mary Peate for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

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Chain Reaction Ep 1/6

Friday 13 August

6.30-7.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Chain Reaction, the talk show with a twist where this week's guest becomes next week's interviewer, returns for a brand new series.

First up, Scottish actress and impressionist Ronni Ancona interviews one of the UK's most celebrated comics, writer and star of Not Going Out, Lee Mack.

Presenter/Ronni Ancona, Producer/Lianne Coop for the BBC

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

Colin Murray hosts the first Kicking Off With Colin Murray of the season, with a special live fans forum from Blackpool on the eve of the city's team's first game in the top flight since 1971.

Colin will be joined by Friday night regulars Perry Groves and Pat Nevin, as well as Blackpool and England legend Jimmy Armfield and a local audience to preview the start of the Premier League season.

Presenter/Colin Murray, Producer/Patrick Whiteside

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

Swimming

Friday 13 August

3.55-5.45pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary of the European Swimming Championships comes from Budapest, Hungary.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

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Sports Extra Athletics

Friday 13 August

5.45-9.00pm BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA

Uninterrupted commentary from the Diamond League Athletics Meeting comes from Crystal Palace, London.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

Lauren Laverne closes BBC 6 Music's Science Week with a very special experiment.

On the night of 15 August 1977, just a few hours before Elvis Presley died, a radio telescope in the US state of Ohio called The Big Ear picked up a signal from space that, to this day, is still unexplained.

This signal was christened the "Wow Signal" after scientist Jerry Ehman scribbled wow on a printout of the high intensity burst. Today, over 30 years on, many people still think this could be the closest planet Earth has come to receiving an artificial message from outer space.

In a new feature, Lauren goes where no DJ has gone before – by beaming a message into space. Each week Lauren will invite a listener or guest on to the show to send their very own Wow Signal to the stars, which will take the form of a five-minute burst of music and greetings. Using a radio telescope in deepest Suffolk, the signal will be beamed live, via the 6 Music studios, to a star system of their choice (disclaimer – stars and exo-planets have to be in the northern hemisphere and available for beaming at the designated time).

It's a chance to send a message to the stars and to get listeners thinking about this most profound of subjects – what message would you send to our space brothers and which song would you want to represent one of the finest Earth-based art forms – music?

The Sky At Night's very own Paul Abel will be on hand to guide people through the universe, offering a guidance when it comes to choosing an area of space to send the message, and an online star chart will be updated each week, documenting how far each message has travelled and the time it will take for it to reach its final destination (very likely hundreds or thousands of years).

This week BBC 6 Music looks through its musical microscope at various aspects of science. From the science behind the "earworm" (music that gets stuck on repeat in your head) to an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life forms via the medium of music, plus the universal musings of friend of the station, Professor Brian Cox, 6 Music attempts to take its understanding of its reason for being to a higher plain.

Presenter/Lauren Laverne, Producer/Gary Bales

BBC 6 Music Publicity

Iranian-born Sami Yusuf is perhaps the most famous British Muslim in the world. He was dubbed "Islam's biggest rock star" by Time magazine in 2006. He's adored in the Middle East and the Arab world, his records sell millions and he plays to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe.

It has been suggested that much of his popularity stems from recognition – from young Muslims seeing a role-model they understand and who speaks to their own situation.

The BBC's Nihal Arthanayake spends a day with Sami in Dubai to find out what makes the King of Muslim Pop, so unique.

Presenter/Nihal Arthanayake, Producer/Alain Gales for Gale Force Productions

BBC World Service Publicity