It's estimated that over one billion people worldwide watch the Sydney fireworks display every New Year's Eve. Regina Botros goes behind the scenes of this global event, finding out about the process of putting on an unforgettable light show and the pressures of living up to the expectations of a mass audience. She learns why the team think of the Sydney skyline as their canvas.

Sydney's New Year fireworks

In the Studio is the new podcast which takes you into the minds of the world’s most creative people, with unprecedented access. Famous artists, writers, sports stars, musicians, DJs and designers invite you behind the scenes. We explore the creative process like never before.

Agatha Christie is the world's most translated author, with her work being available in over 100 languages. And one of her most beloved characters, Miss Marple, is about to be resurrected with the help of 12 contemporary authors. In The Studio talks to two of those writers: Dreda Say Mitchell who specialises in a different type of crime story, the gritty gangster genre, and Kate Mosse, who is known for her historical sagas. They reveal how they rose to the challenge of reinventing one of the most famous characters in 20th Century fiction.

Miss Marple returns

Maggie O’Farrell’s historical novel Hamnet was published in 2020 to great critical acclaim, winning the Women's Prize. It tells the story of a gifted herbalist, Agnes Hathaway, who is married to a young William Shakespeare. We follow her on her journey as they meet, marry, and later come to terms with the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Now, the Royal Shakespeare Company is putting Hamnet on stage for the first time in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon. Presenter Dan Hardoon follows the RSC’s Acting Artistic Director Erica Whyman throughout the rehearsal process. We also hear from award-winning playwright Lolita Chakrabarti on the challenges of adapting the novel for the stage, and from cast and crew as they get ready for opening night.

Erica Whyman: Directing Hamnet

Beyond Belief - The Life And Mission Of John Hume is a new drama musical about the Irish politician who was one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process. Marie-Louise Muir goes behind the scenes of the production staged in Hume's home city of Derry with its director Kieran Griffiths. She follows his young company of actors rehearsing for a major production which will be streamed live globally on the 25th anniversary of the signing of the historic peace accord, the Good Friday Agreement.

Kieran Griffiths: telling the John Hume story

The poet Nikita Gill has written several volumes of poetry, and enjoys engaging poetically with her audience using social media. Her work often explores Greek Myths, and her latest project continues with that theme as she embarks on a series of four books, each one focusing on a single goddess. For this episode of In The Studio, we join her as she starts with Hekate, often known as the Goddess of Witchcraft, and about whom little is known, other than that she was brought up in the underworld by Styx. Nikita describes Hekate as a dark anti-feminine goddess and a protest against what is expected of women which is what appealed to her. But how do you go about creating a life for someone who is so mysterious? And as Nikita will also be illustrating her work, how will she decide how to visually portray her? Follow Nikita across several months as she works towards completing her first draft of this exciting new work.

Nikita Gill: Imagining Hekate

Nick Duncalf meets artist Theo Jansen at his studio in Delft, as he creates his latest Strandbeests, multi-legged creatures designed to walk the sands of Holland’s North Sea coast. Outside his workshop, the grass is littered with bleached plastic pipes; the skeletons of strandbeests past. He has been building these creatures for decades. Each year, new creatures - some the size of shopping trolleys, some the size of cars - are designed, tested, and allowed to run free across the sands. At a battered work table, Theo toils over sections of pipe, heating and bending and attaching pieces of what will become the skeletons of the new beests. In recent years, the Strandbeests have become internet stars, hugely popular on Instagram and Youtube. Theo began this project in 1990, when he was 42 years old. He tells Nick of his annual quest to bring these creatures to life, and to prepare them to battle the elements on the beach. Each year brings new challenges, new dreams, new failures, and new triumphs. Aged 74, Theo will not have another 33 years to continue his work. He is confronting the time limitations of this project, and his own legacy as an artist. There is a renewed sense of urgency in his work, and his boundless energy, enthusiasm and optimism mean that this year’s strandbeests will be more ambitious than ever.

Theo Jansen and the Strandbeests of Delft

Author Sofi Oksanen shares with Olga Smirnova how she begins a new novel. Olga witnesses how Sofi painstakingly gathers details for the lives of her characters, from choosing the colour of their nail varnish, to the perfumes they prefer, and the difference in the smell of Estonian and Soviet women. Olga visits Sofi’s writing studio in a bohemian quarter of Helsinki where they both listen to the silence which is so important for Sofi to write. We discover why sometimes kneading dough and chopping carrots or onions can help the process. Having an Estonian heritage, Sofi is fascinated by Soviet history. The theme of war in Ukraine is never far from Olga's conversations with Sofi as they discuss how it impacts upon the writing process.

Sofi Oksanen: Crafting a new novel

Faig Ahmed is one of Azerbaijan’s best-known contemporary artists, and has won international acclaim for his fantastical woven artworks. Based on Azerbaijan’s ancient carpet weaving traditions, his pieces explore the visual language of classic rug design to radical effect. Pieces can distort and bulge, grow deep-tufted pelts or rise off the walls into the gallery space overhead. His work has been described as psychedelic, surreal, even iconoclastic. Speaking from his weaving workshop in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Faig Ahmed talks to broadcaster and artist Bidisha Mamata about the process of making these pieces, working with a traditionally all-female team of carpet-weavers who use centuries-old techniques to create his intricate designs. Ahmed also works in other mediums including painting, video and installation, all fed by a restless curiosity and experimental zeal. So we also hear about one of his current works-in-progress: A large-scale performance piece, through which he is exploring the fundamentals of social interaction.

Faig Ahmed

A poet can’t sleep. She sits at a desk in a wooden house at the heart of a palm forest, watching the night sky through the window. The full moon lights up the palm fronds, which dance in the wind. She has been tasked with writing a poem that will be sent into space, to another planet’s distant moon. What should she say? What is the message in a bottle that she should launch out into the solar system? How can she begin writing a poem that speaks of the fragile wonders of our home planet? That expresses our hope that there might be other life out there somewhere, in the stars? In the Studio follows US poet laureate Ada Limón as she crafts an original poem dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s icy moon. Her poem will be engraved on the Clipper spacecraft, which will launch in 2024 and travel 1.8 billion miles to reach Europa - a journey that will last six years. We follow Ada’s creative process over several months, from her first meetings with the NASA team, through many drafts of the poem and a visit to NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory in California to see the Europa Clipper under construction.

Ada Limón: A poem for Nasa

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an award-winning Vietnamese writer whose debut novel The Mountains Sing, published in English in 2020, won the International Book Awards in 2021 and was runner-up in the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. It portrays the lives of four generations of a Vietnamese family enduring many hardships, something she understands well from her own upbringing. In conversation with presenter Felicity Finch, Quế Mai shares her writing process as she works on her second novel Dust Child, which is about Amerasians, children of American military men who were abandoned during The Vietnam War. Meetings with her New York publisher and editor Betsy Gleick help guide her through the many months of development as well as her desire to retain the Vietnamese-ness of her prose. This programme was first broadcast in May 2022, but for this version, as dust Child is about to be published, Felicity takes the opportunity to catch up with Quế Mai, to find out how that feels.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai - novel number two

Restaurateur Keith McNally is a 71-year-old Londoner, the son of a longshoreman and office cleaner, who moved to New York in 1976. Forty-five years later, he is one of the most celebrated restaurateurs in the city. In 2004, The New York Times dubbed him “the restaurateur who invented Downtown.” In this episode of In the Studio, we get a glimpse into the mind of this unique creative talent, who used his early career in film and theatre to dominate an altogether different stage. The flagship of his New York restaurants is Balthazar, which is packed day and night and has been in operation for more than 25 years. But who is Keith McNally, and how has he created such an iconic success in such a cutthroat business?

Keith McNally's Balthazar

Sydney’s main public art museum, the Art Gallery of NSW, recently completed Sydney Modern, a massive expansion project ten years in the making. Almost doubling the existing exhibition space, the new building was designed by the Pritzker Architecture Prize winning Japanese firm SANAA. Positioned within verdant parkland, yet a mere stone’s throw from the city centre, the new gallery is a series of interconnected glass–encased pavilions that seem to cascade down an incline towards Sydney Harbour. With its landscaped terraces and courtyards, the new gallery almost merges with its surroundings, inviting visitors to experience art as part of the environment. Join Masako Fukui as she follows the final stages of this construction project, and talks to some of the key people who have contributed to the creative vision, including the Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, Dr Michael Brand, the architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, as well as artisans, artists and the structural engineer on the project.

The Sydney Modern Project

Denise Mina meets comic book artist Frank Quitely in his Glasgow studio. Frank is one of the biggest names in the comic world, responsible for drawing superheroes like Superman and Batman &#38; Robin alongside his latest collaboration with writer Mark Millar “Jupiter’s Legacy”. Starting on Scottish underground cult comic 'Electric Soup' he progressed to working for Judge Dredd magazine and then The New X-Men gathering an international reputation. As he completes the final few pages of comic book 'Jupiter's Legacy 2', artist Frank explains his artistic process as he completes the project that took over 3 years of his life. He will explain how he turns the written concepts from writer Mark Millar into a coherent visual story and finally put pencil to paper to painstakingly produce his signature style. Denise follows his pencil strokes as he explains artistic and cultural influence as well as soaking in the landscape and atmosphere of his hometown of Glasgow. A real Superhero master class in storytelling, lines and shapes perspective, space and most importantly colour as he creates these last few pages. They cross to the Glasgow Art Galleries where Frank’s career retrospective exhibition is being held and meet up with his writing partner Mark Millar. We’ll learn about their working relationship in this competitive industry of graphic storytelling. During the conversation, Frank discusses with Denise the thoughts that go through his mind in these final stages and talk us through the pressures of creating, plus making, and breaking, deadlines.

Comic Book Artist, Frank Quitely

Since the 1980s, composer Kaija Saariaho has been lauded for her explorations of sound and music, from tape and live electronics mixed with layered orchestral textures, to opera, song cycles and smaller scale pieces. In the BBC Music Magazine’s top 20 composers of all time, Kaija Saariaho is the only one alive today; as she moves into her eighth decade, there’s no sign that she wants to stop creating the magical sounds she has become known for. Kaija was born in Helsinki in Finland, but since 1982 has spent most of her time living and working in Paris. Keval Shah meets Kaija in Helsinki just as her most recent opera Innocence is having its Finnish premiere - part of her 70th birthday celebrations. But there’s not much time for Kaija to rest after the conclusion of this huge, 10-year project. A text message prompts her to start thinking about a new work and a new challenge: a trumpet concerto. We visit jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola on a grey Helsinki day (with plenty of candles) to find out how Kaija’s composition process develops through collaboration with the musicians who will be playing or singing her music. And we hear some unexpected trumpet techniques that may find their way into the new concerto - from flap tonguing to what Verneri calls ‘white noise'.

Kaija Saariaho: Composing intricate soundworlds

Follow renowned theatre and opera director Richard Jones as he creates a brand new production of Handel’s magical opera Alcina for the Royal Opera House. When Handel composed this opera, he was inspired not only by the possibilities of a new theatre in the heart of London, but also by his collaborator John Rich, who encouraged him to incorporate magic and dance into this new work. Nearly 300 years on, Richard Jones is also inspired by the possibilities of this opera, and with the opportunities created by his many collaborators too. We join Richard at his home to explore his thoughts on the opera, including his ideas for the set design. Further discussions then follow at the Royal Opera House once rehearsals are underway, and we delve into the changes now being made as this new production comes to life on the stage. Movement director and choreographer Sarah Fahie discusses her intensive collaborative journey in assisting in the creation of this new work, whilst soprano Lisette Oropesa, who sings the title role of Alcina, also chats about working alongside Richard Jones.

Richard Jones on Handel's Alcina

David Galullo is the world’s leading designer of futuristic workspaces for the forward-thinking tech giants of northern California. But in a post-pandemic world, how will our homes and work co-exist? Nick Duncalf follows Galullo and his team as they create inspirational new work environments that keep pace with our new lives.

Rapt Studio: Designing the workplace of the future

Looking back over a year of In The Studio, we consider the role of the artist's muse. Why does one subject suggest itself above all others, how does an artist then go about incorporating that subject into their work, and what, if any, are the pressures they feel? From Nitin Sawney’s latest work marking the 60th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem; through Sally Beamish, whose Proms composition was inspired by bees; to Yuri Herrera’s historical novel about Mexican leader Benito Juarez, and Stephen Page, whose aboriginal-heritage inspired his dance work for Sydney Festival; to Elizabeth McGovern who took Ava Gardner as her muse for her latest theatrical performance. We explore how each of these artists used their muse to create a work of art.

In The Studio - The Artist's Muse

Žygimantas Kudirka is Lithuania’s leading spoken-word artist and agent provocateur. A prolific writer and creative artist, he has won Europe’s Best Slam Poet as well as multiple hip-hop awards, blending satire and social critique with dystopian and futurist themes. Žygimantas, who goes by the alias MC Messiah, is shaking up the scene with a new libretto for the opera Brave New Body, teaming up with avant-garde composer Arturas Bumšteinas. Kudirka’s texts play with the idea of the human body as a machine, not without his trademark satire, and sets them to the sutartinė, an ancient polyphonic form found in Lithuania which has Unesco status. Is it possible to combine centuries-old traditional music with hyper-modern dystopian themes? We sit in on rehearsals with the Lietuva Song and Dance Ensemble leading up to the opera’s premiere, commissioned by the Operomanija festival in Vilnius.

Žygimantas Kudirka: Slam messiah

Sean Rafferty spends time in the company of the pianist Lang Lang, one of the most famous classical musicians in the world today. He has had a hugely creative, successful and glamorous career, performing all over the world and collaborating with musicians from Herbie Hancock to Sir Simon Rattle. But during his private time, Lang Lang has spent 20 years of deep study and personal reflection on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach’s Goldberg Variations is the musical peak that many major pianists have attempted to scale over the course of time. Sean meets Lang Lang at the piano, where he plays and talks about his personal journey towards performing and recording J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations – one of the most mysterious, complex and rewarding pieces in all music. Along the way, Sean meets Lang Lang’s wife, Gina Alice, as they perform an informal duet, and Lang Lang opens up about the very personal struggles he faced as a child prodigy, and talks about how the power of music now inspires his work and commitment to young people and music education.

Lang Lang

In 2009, Jessie Burton visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where she saw something that went on to transform her life. Petronella Oortman's doll's house became the inspiration for Jessie's debut novel, The Miniaturist, which was published five years later and went on to become an international bestseller. Eight years on from this success, as its sequel is published, Jessie takes Vic James back to the days when she began writing it. A time when she was doing office jobs by day, whilst trying to build a career as an actor by night. She reveals how seeing that doll's house sparked a story that explores feminism, racism and homophobia, in the form of a thriller intricately laced with a bit of magic. And she discusses the development of the key characters within - not least Petronella Oortman, whose doll's house it was.

Jessie Burton: Writing The Miniaturist

Production designer Maria Djurkovic takes us behind the scenes of Harry Styles' new movie, My Policeman, which was made in the middle of the pandemic. Lockdown presents a number of challenges, expected ones like social distancing and sick crew members. And unexpected ones, like studios being too full and staff being in short supply because more movies were being made during the pandemic, rather than less. Maria kept an audio diary during these unprecedented times for the British film industry, as she battles with crew shortages, schedule changes and a possible bout of Covid.

Maria Djurkovic

What if you could rewrite a part of history? What would you change, and where would you start? For multidisciplinary artist Nazanin Moradi, who was brought up in the Islamic Republic of Iran where women are, “second-class citizens in every sense,” the answer is easy; she would start at the very beginning of “time” to reverse the “unfair” gender roles. In her new project, the multidisciplinary artist challenges male domination and toxic masculinity, within a fragmented historical context where fantasy meets rebellion. She does this by changing the narrative of ancient Mesopotamian mythology, fixating on the legendary battle where the supremely powerful dragon goddess of oceans Tiamat, was killed by the storm god Marduk. Over a period of six months, reporter Sahar Zand spends time with Nazanin at various locations in London to find out how she embarks on the ambitious project, and how it’s affected by the protests in Iran, which take place as she nears the end of her work. Through the mediums of textile design, interpretive dance, digital editing, collage, painting and sculpture, Nazanin rebels against social conventions by using her own body through the creative process.

Nazanin Moradi: Becoming Dragon

Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf takes us behind the scenes of the making of Kandahar, his film about life in Afghanistan that captured the world's attention when President Bush asked to see it after the attacks on 9/11. He reveals how he managed to film on a smugglers' route between Iran and Afghanistan, and how he avoided the attentions of the Taliban. And he also reveals details of the documentary he is currently making about the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Jarvis Cocker, the British indie pop star and frontman of the band Pulp, talks to Miranda Sawyer about his autobiography that's not an autobiography. Good Pop, Bad Pop is an inventory of all the stuff that's in his loft: badges, pencils, photographs, chewing gum, etc. But it's also about the memories that are stirred by those objects and seeing them for the first time in decades. He reveals the process of writing the Sheffield version of A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu.

Jarvis Cocker

Agatha Christie is the world's most translated author, with her work being available in over 100 languages. And one of her most beloved characters, Miss Marple, is about to be resurrected with the help of 12 contemporary authors. In The Studio talks to two of those writers: Dreda Say Mitchell who specialises in a different type of crime story, the gritty gangster genre, and Kate Mosse, who's known for her historical sagas. They reveal how they rose to the challenge of re-inventing one of the most famous characters in twentieth century fiction.

Miss Marple Returns

On 4 August 2020, a massive explosion destroyed the port of Beirut. It's impact was felt across the city, reaching the Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut (AUB). The pressure from the explosion shattered a glass display at the museum holding 74 glass vessels, mainly Roman with a few Byzantine and Islamic. The team at the AUB collected the shards from the floor, separated them and sent eight of the broken vessels to the UK. And so began the journey of collaboration between Lebanon and England to restore these ancient vessels at the British Museum. Janay Boulos, a Lebanese BBC News journalist, follows the journey of restoring these vessels and they become a symbol of Beirut, broken into pieces, scarred, and slowly being restored to its formal glory.

Shattered glass of Beirut: The restoration

The award-winning South African tenor was a 2014 finalist in the prestigious Belvedere Singing Competition, considered one of the most important global opera showcases. He has since headlined festivals and has worked with many of the world’s top opera directors and conductors. For this In The Studio, actor and filmmaker Tara Gadomski is following Khanyiso for two, fast-paced weeks, as he rehearses for his United States’ debut, singing the title role in Rossini’s Otello at Opera Philadelphia. Discover how he learns the part and takes care of his voice, what it’s like to go from practicing on his own to working with the whole opera company and orchestra, not to mention singing the high C notes while still jet lagged!

Khanyiso Gwenxane

Glass: a functional material and silent witness to our daily lives, so unnoticed we’re usually looking straight through it. But in Venice, glass is an art form, and Ai Weiwei’s latest work is designed to make you look. Having mastered many mediums – wood, marble, even social media - the artist-activist is now turning his hand to glass. Through a collaboration with Adriano Berengo, on the glass-making island of Murano, he’s creating an immense chandelier, made up of over 2000 glass bones, organs and other surprising objects. Set to be displayed at the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, La Commedia Umana is Ai’s attempt to “talk about death in order to celebrate life”. Join Alice McKee in Venice, speaking with Ai Weiwei and the Berengo Studios team, as she follows the life cycle of La Commedia Umana, from the furnace to the church.

Ai Weiwei: Glass artistry

For decades, illustrator Axel Scheffler has been keeping children and adults around the world entertained with his warm and witty illustrations, from the Gruffalo and Stick Man to worms with attitude, gobbly goats and smart giants. He has published more than 150 books, including collaborations with writer Julia Donaldson that have become modern-day classics, translated into dozens of languages and selling millions of copies. Axel was born in Hamburg in Germany and moved to the UK in his twenties, where he has been based ever since. We join him in his attic studio perched high above a leafy part of west London, where he is hard at work on his latest project. This one centres not on a fantastical creature with terrible teeth and terrible claws, but on a small, slightly scruffy dog who may or may not have played a role in the creation of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Writer and actor Dame Emma Thompson has conjured up the story and we eavesdrop on a rare conversation between the two - rare because Axel generally doesn’t collaborate directly with his writers. Axel also allows us to witness his unique process, from pencil sketch to finished illustration, as he creates a scene from the new book before our ears.

Axel Scheffler: The man who drew The Gruffalo

In the Studio follows Grammy-winning American composer Christopher Tin as he embarks on the creation of an ambitious new work. Based on poetry and inspired by folk music, The Lost Birds is a musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by humankind. Edwina Pitman follows Christopher through his composition process, his collaboration with the prolific British vocal ensemble VOCES8 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Lost Birds is an elegiac response to the noise of our times and a haunting tribute to those soaring flocks that once filled our skies, but whose songs have since been silenced.

Christopher Tin - The Lost Birds

Errollyn Wallen, the Belize born British composer, tells Antonia Quirke about the inspiration behind Lady Super Spy Adventurer, which is receiving its world premiere at the proms this year. And she invites her to the place where the piece was composed, a remote lighthouse on the Scottish coast. Errollyn made history when she became the first Black woman to have a work performed at the Proms. She tells Antonia about breaking down barriers, and how living in a lighthouse has influenced her music, and who exactly is Lady Super Spy Adventurer.

Errollyn Wallen

The opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London was heralded as one of the most spectacular and successful outdoor theatrical events in the world, watched by more than 3.8 billion people. The man behind it was Bradley Hemmings. Bradley is a festival director, and every year is responsible for putting on the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) in London. Now in its 27th year, he tells Anna Bailey about the key elements that make for a great and accessible outdoor event. Follow Bradley as he puts together the line-up for this year’s festival and coordinates the opening night. Collaborating with Jenny Sealey, his co-producer of the Paralympic Games, and with Peter Hudson, the artistic director behind Charon, a 32-foot-high rotating zoetrope as seen at The Burning Man Festival in America, and now one of the main attractions for this year’s GDIF in London.

Bradley Hemmings: Curating a festival

Welcome to Cremona - city of the violin. These Italian streets are brimming with horse hairs, varnish and chiselled wood. The central square is lined with storefronts displaying beautifully handcrafted wooden instruments. Braimah Kanneh-Mason, concert violinist and member of the musically gifted Kanneh-Mason family, travels to where the Stradivarius was born. Braimah learns about the techniques used to replicate the world’s most famous stringed instruments in the workshop of world-class violin maker Daniele Tonarelli. It was in Cremona, 500 years ago, that Andrea Amati was credited with inventing the “modern” violin. In his footsteps came the likes of Nicola Amati, Guarneri “del Gesù” and, most famously, Antonio Stradivari, who all perfected their craft in this northern Italian city. Daniele is the latest in a long line of Cremonese luthiers. Braimah gets a taste of the age old recipe that created these musical masterpieces hundreds of years ago. It is still used today. Daniele shows Braimah his newest violin – just 20 days old. How does this youthful instrument feel in the young violinist’s hands, and – more importantly – how does it sound? Are today’s Cremonese luthiers living up to the legacy the great violin makers left behind?

Braimah Kanneh-Mason: Stringing it together

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most iconic music venues in the world. And yet it was also known for less-than-perfect acoustics in the main concert hall. The sound was considered thin and scattered. The problem has taken two years and 150 million Australian dollars to fix, involving 174 tonnes of steel in the roof space alone.Regina Botros joins a team of experts as they enter the final stages of re-tuning the building, ready for an opening night concert where everything has to sound just right.Presented by Regina Botros.Executive produced by Stephen Hughes for the BBC World Service.

Sydney Opera House

We journey with the internationally celebrated operatic conductor Carlo Rizzi as he revives Il proscritto after 180 years of neglect.Mercadante’s opera was first performed in Naples in 1842, and centres on a love triangle set in Scotland during Oliver Cromwell’s rule. The original cast were stellar performers, having previously taken lead roles in opera premieres by Verdi and Donizetti. The Neapolitans applauded Act One, but the following Acts were indifferently received, and Il proscritto fell into neglect.Complete with a newly edited score and world class performers, Luke Whitlock journeys with conductor Carlo Rizzi, artistic director of Opera Rara, as he prepares Il proscritto to be heard at the Barbican in London, after nearly 200 years of silence.From collaborating on a new performance edition, heading into the studio to record the opera for commercial release, to journeying to London’s Barbican to rehearse and perform the work before a 21st-century audience, this creative process has been a labour of love for Carlo Rizzi and Opera Rara.Image: Carlo Rizzi (Credit: Simon Weir)

Carlo Rizzi on Mercadante’s Il proscritto

Frankincense, tonka beans and a steam iron. Just some of the elements that top mixologist Arnd Henning Heissen uses to create his cocktails. Inspired by aromatherapy and the perfumes people wear, he searches the globe for unusual ingredients to recreate that smell in drink form, blending together bark juices and fragrant herbs, working with smell and memories to craft what he calls ‘liquid sculptures.’ Lindsay Leonard meets him in Berlin, Germany as he creates new tastes and sensations for his latest menu.Producers: Lindsay Leonard and Andrea Kidd

Arnd Henning Heissen - the Art of Mixology

Composer Sally Beamish tells Anna Bailey why she decided to write a concerto about bees for the BBC Proms. She reveals that Hive was inspired by a ballet that she's collaborating on with her partner, the writer Peter Thomson, who shares her fascination with queen bees. Anna talks to Sally and Peter on a visit to a local beehive and then joins Sally during the first rehearsal with harpist Catrin Finch, who explains why the harp is perfect for capturing the sound of a beehive. Anna captures the buzz as the piece is rehearsed with the BBC National Orchestra Of Wales, and finally, the hive of activity that is the world premiere at The Royal Albert Hall.Presented by Anna Bailey
Executive produced by Stephen Hughes for the BBC World Service
Image Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic courtesy of Sound Festival

Sally Beamish

James Corner, is the founder of the urban landscape design Field Operations, is best known for his work on the New York High Line - the reclamation of a disused former railtrack in Manhattan. He talks about the transformative impact that the High Line has had on the area into a 21st century city - and about the potential for new urban green space in London as he works on another project with a railtrack at it’s heart, the Camden High Line.With the project at an important stage of planning he describes the challenges of creating a green park alongside a rail track which is in everyday use. We meet James on a visit to the site in London and Olivia Reevell meets him in his new offices which overlook New York’s Bryant Park - he talks about the importance of urban green spaces in cities, post-pandemic, and the inspiration he draws from the work of Frederick Law Olmsted on the 200th anniversary of his birth - Olmsted was the founder of American landscape architecture and the man responsible for creating New York’s central park.James Corner was born in the the North of England in the UK, and draws inspiration from the natural landscape of that part of the world for his urban design work. He founded Field Operations in New York which has a cosmopolitan team of 100 people and he is at work on other major projects including the Presidio in San Franscisco and the waterfront for the city of Seattle. For this programme he describes the qualities and characteristics of his urban green space design work.

James Corner

The horses are learning their dance routines, the acrobats are perfecting their tumbles and sequins are being sewn onto leotards and leggings - in 2017, In the Studio had ringside seats to the circus. Antonia Quirke met the inner circle of Giffords Circus as they conceived and crafted the show where the theme was the 17th Century Spanish court. The team were led by circus creator Nell Gifford, who left home aged 18 to join her first circus. She then set up her own travelling troupe based in the West of England featuring performers from all over the world. As the circus rides again this summer, Antonia reveals the tragedy that befell the troupe a couple of years after the programme was broadcast.

Giffords Circus rides again

Chocolat was Joanne Harris’s third novel, famously made into a film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, bringing the writer worldwide recognition. Set in Southern France, it’s a darkly magical modern folk-tale, in which food, namely chocolate confections, plays a central part. Readers delighted in the story of Vianne Rocher and her six-year-old daughter, Anouk, who set up a chocolate boutique during Lent, right opposite the church, much to the annoyance of the village priest, Francis Reynaud. It’s an act that gently changes the lives of many of the villagers. Having recorded the audio book in recent years, Joanne has revisited the novel, and the writing process behind it. In conversation with Dr Vic James, she reveals how she drew inspiration from her French heritage, why the themes of indulgence and guilt, motherhood and patriarchy are so present, and crucially, about the importance of chocolate to the story. They’re also joined by Laura Grandi who translated the novel into Italian, and has continued to work with Joanne ever since.

Joanne Harris - Writing Chocolat

Yuri Herrera is a political scientist, editor, and prize-winning novelist, considered one of the most relevant Mexican writers in the Spanish language. When we meet him he's starting his new novel, which he says will take him in a different direction to his previous books, basing it on Benito Juarez, the first President of Mexico of indigenous origin. What's less known about him is that he was exiled briefly, in 1853, to New Orleans where Yuri now lives. We join him as he walks the streets Benito would have walked, searching for inspiration as he embarks on his writing.

Yuri Herrera - starting a new novel

This week, an update on our guest, a Dutch icon - The Night Watch. This masterpiece by Rembrandt is nearly 400 years old and sits centre stage at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where more than 2 million visitors come to see it every year. So when it became clear the painting needed a serious makeover, taking years to complete, the idea of removing it from display was rejected. Instead the museum’s Director, Taco Dibbits, decided to make Operation Night Watch accessible to all, by building a specially-constructed glass chamber for restorers, scientists and conservators to work under the public's watchful eye; both in the museum and online. Anik See follows Taco and his team during this key phase of Operation Night Watch, diving into state-of-the-art imaging techniques and discovering the masterpiece’s secrets and storied past, to find out why this painting remains so important to us. After her initial report on the restoration process, Anik returns two years later to see what progress has been made.

Operation Night Watch

Cercle is one of the most respected live-streaming platforms in dance music, broadcasting performances in breathtaking locations to tens of millions of viewers across the globe. From hot air balloons to mountain tops, waterfalls, world-heritage sites, and under the Northern Lights in the arctic circle. Part videographers and music curators, part adrenaline junkies, Cercle blend sound with mind-blowing images and aesthetic, creating audio-visual experiences in which viewers are immersed from start to finish. Broadcaster and DJ Frank McWeeny follows founder Derek Barbolla and his team of creatives for nine months, as they plan and broadcast a show under a waterfall in a remote part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. What makes it a perfect location? How is the artist selected? And with multiple cameras, drones, and a live audience of one thousand, how difficult is it to capture? From the importance of colour to the best time of day to film, we uncover the technical and logistical challenges of pulling off a production of this magnitude.

Cercle: Dance under a waterfall

After nearly 20 years of planning, in June 2022 Norway will open its new National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. The building will merge four museums and galleries into one space. The new National Museum will contain Norway's biggest collection of art, architecture and design. It will display over 6,500 works, from antiquity to the museum’s most recent contemporary acquisitions. Discover what it takes to launch a new world-leading cultural collection. In The Studio follows Stina Högkvist , Director of Collections, as well as curators, conservators and museum staff as they prepare for the grand opening. The National Museum will be topped by a huge 'Light Hall' displaying the work of 147 contemporary Norwegian artists in a special opening exhibition entitled ‘I Call It Art’. As the deadline draws nearer Stina negotiates test events, oversees installations, works with artists and adapts to the changing international situation. The pieces will be on display in an exhibition spanning 55,000 sq metres and 89 rooms, the largest art museum in the Nordic countries. Other exhibitions followed include a collection from the painter Edvard Munch, creator of 'The Scream', loans from the world leading art collection of the Fredriksen family and pieces by Norwegian designer Peter Dundas, who has styled Michelle Obama and Kim Kardashian.

Norway’s National Museum

The artist Sonia Boyce has just won the top prize at the Venice Biennale, the Olympics of the art world, where she has been representing Great Britain in a commission for the British Council. Sonia is a multidisciplinary practitioner known for working with audio, video, wallpaper and print. For this project she has been collaborating with four female singers at the famous Abbey Road studios in London, recording a piece of sonic art. It’s part of her award-winning exhibition in Venice called Feeling Her Way. Join the BBC’s Anna Bailey as she follows Sonia on her artistic journey from recording, installing and opening her work at the British Pavilion. Presented and produced by Anna Bailey for the BBC World Service Executive producer: Rebecca Armstrong

The sound of art with Sonia Boyce

The Met Gala is an annual fundraiser for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. Each year it marks the opening of The Costume Institute’s spring exhibition and is widely regarded as one of the most exclusive social events in the world. This year’s theme is 'In America: An Anthology of Fashion', the second in the two-part exhibition. The exhibition follows 'In America: A Lexicon of Fashion', which opened last year and remains on view with part two. This year the focus is on American fashion and Andrew Bolton, The Costume Institute’s head curator, his team and curators from The Met’s American Wing are working with film directors to create different cinematic scenes, installed as still vignettes across 13 period rooms. Each room depicts a different period of history in the world of American fashion. The nine film directors involved include Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese and last year's Oscar winner Chloé Zhao. Reporter, Kizzy Cox, has behind-the-scenes access shadowing the team, as they create the exhibition, bringing Andrew Bolton’s vision to life. She also chats to film director Chloé Zhao about how she goes about creating the Shaker Retiring Room vignette.

An Anthology of Fashion

In the Studio meets S-X, the Grammy-nominated British record producer and singer-songwriter, as he prepares to launch his career as a solo artist and release his debut album. As a sought-after record producer, S-X, born Sam Gumbley, has worked with the likes of Chance the Rapper, KSI, Skepta, Childish Gambino, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. Laura Sanders follows Sam as he works to transform himself from producer to front-man and show the world who S-X is. Sam demonstrates how he comes up with his tracks, from the first beat to the finishing touches - sometimes using just a podcast mic and laptop. Laura learns some of the tricks of the trade as she goes behind the scenes and watches Sam at work in his Wolverhampton studio as he pieces together his hotly anticipated studio album. He discusses his bi-polar disorder and how he differentiates between his on-stage character S-X and his quieter self, Sam Gumbley. He reveals why he composes his songs on the voice note function on his mobile phone, what it's like to turn your hobby into a job and why that's not always a good thing. He explains why he rarely composes a track before he gets into studio and why waiting around for something to happen can be a bad idea. Plus, we hear tracks from his new album Who We Are, as they're being recorded.

Paco Peña, regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional flamenco players, is coming back to Sadler's Wells Theatre in London with Solera, his new flamenco show, devised in collaboration with long-time friend and theatre director Jude Kelly. Their work aims to showcase the raw talent of young artists, tempered by the understated authority of an older, wiser generation. Solera, the title of this production, refers to the solera process of ageing liquids such as wine. Andalucía, in Southern Spain, where Paco was born, has for generations produced fine wines using a method that stacks oak barrels in several layers. Young wine enters the highest barrel and given time flows down, nurturing its best qualities, until what remains is a delicious wine that can only be achieved with age. The mature solera of the older generations enriches and refines the best qualities handed down to the young. Flamenco is not a written tradition, but one handed down from one generation to the next, constantly striving to find different ways to express; the best of performances will incorporate part of what has been created before by the great practitioners of the past.

Paco Peña: Flamenco from our elders

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an award-winning Vietnamese writer whose debut novel The Mountains Sing, published in English in 2020, won the International Book Awards in 2021 and was runner-up in the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. It portrays the lives of four generations of a Vietnamese family enduring many hardships, something she understands well from her own upbringing. In conversation with presenter Felicity Finch, Quế Mai shares her writing process as she works on her second novel Dust Child, which is about Amerasians, children of American military men who were abandoned during The Vietnam War. Meetings with her New York publisher and editor Betsy Gleick help guide her through the many months of development as well as her desire to retain the Vietnamese-ness of her prose.

The composer and multi-instrumentalist Nitin Sawhney has been commissioned to write a contemporary piece in response to Benjamin Britten’s piece War Requiem, which was premiered 60 years ago. Nitin’s new piece, like Benjamin Britten’s work, will be premiered in Coventry Cathedral in England’s Midlands. It will be performed both inside the cathedral and in the preserved ruins of the old cathedral that was bombed in WWII. The new work, called Ghosts in the Ruins, will be a response to Britten’s War Requiem but with a 21st century twist, concentrating on the plight of refugees and migrants. In the Studio follows Nitin as he works with professional musicians, poets and community choirs to create this site-specific work of art. Known for studio albums including the acclaimed Beyond Skin, Nitin's career has seen him collaborate with major international artists including Paul McCartney, Sting, Mira Nair, Anoushka Shankar, Norah Jones and Herbie Hancock, as well as working with Nelson Mandela. His film and TV music includes Netflix's Mowgli and the BBC’s epic Human Planet series. In 2017, he received the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement Award.

Nitin Sawhney

Irish author Colm Tóibín is among the world’s most celebrated contemporary writers. His works includes novels such as Nora Webster and The Blackwater Lightship, but also journalism, criticism, drama and more. His book Brooklyn was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Saoirse Ronan, and his writing has been translated into over thirty languages.Colm has explored the experiences of other novelists and creative thinkers in his writing. His recent title, The Magician, traced the life of German writer Thomas Mann, and his book The Master, an international literary sensation, told the story of the novelist Henry James.Alongside the release of his debut collection of poems, Vinegar Hill, Colm gives fellow Irish writer Helen Cullen an insight into how he works, taking her through his writing process, how he gathers his ideas and his approach to refining his work.They explore the differences and similarities in techniques of writing prose and poetry, and how influence can be drawn from outside the literary world. Helen discovers what it is like to immerse oneself in the creative of mind of figures such as Henry James, and how it shaped Colm as a writer.Presenter: Helen Cullen
Readings: Matthew Durkan
Producer: Sam Peach
Executive Producer: Rebecca Armstrong for the BBC World Service

Colm Tóibín: A life of writing

Siri Hustvedt is best known for her novels ‘What I loved’ and ‘The Summer Without Men’ which were international bestsellers. She has in fact written seven novels, two books of essays, a book of poetry and several works of non-fiction. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages and she has been nominated for many international literary awards. In 2015 she won the Los Angeles Times Book for Fiction. She is married to fellow writer Paul Auster and lives in New York in America.Reporter and actor Tara Gadomski is hanging out with Siri as she starts writing her next novel, ‘The Haunted Envelope’. This process involves very early starts along with lovely walks in the park. Siri has also been recording regular dispatch voice recordings from her desk as she works. We discover how being afflicted by migraines and the pandemic all play a part in Siri’s creative process.Presented by: Tara Gadomski
Produced by: Emma Betteridge for the BBC World Service
Image by: Spencer Ostrander

Siri Hustvedt writing her next novel

Handel’s Messiah is one of the great Christian works of Easter. Jeff Lloyd Roberts follows the creation of a new production by the Glyndebourne opera company, looking at the challenges of mounting a huge choral piece and touring with it during a time of rising Covid rates.While most oratorios put the spotlight on the soloists, Handel’s Messiah has the chorus at its heart. We hear from performers in one of the foremost choruses in international opera, as they take on a piece that wholeheartedly showcases its singers in everything from the exhilarating He Trusted in God to the rapt wonder and stillness of Worthy is the Lamb. Conductor Ben Glassberg discusses the challenge of finding a new way to tell the story of Christ’s birth, crucifixion and resurrection in such a well-known and well-loved work.Image: The Glyndebourne chorus rehearses Handel's Messiah (Credit: Richard Hubert Smith)Show less

Glyndebourne's Messiah

Nostalgia. Sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. But what if this sweet, warm, and fuzzy feeling was exploited by world leaders, and used as a tool to manipulate the masses?That’s what Afshin Naghouni, a London-based Iranian-born British visual artist, believes has been happening around the world, with increasingly terrifying consequences. Through the rhetoric of the “good old days”, and an insistence on returning to the heyday of a “glorious” past, Afshin believes that some world leaders are tugging on nations’ collective nostalgic heartstrings to further their own agendas, and he explores this in his art.Reporter Sahar Zand visits Afshin’s studio in West London, to find out how, for his new collection, the artist will paint this “collective nostalgic feeling” for a past we don’t remember correctly or haven’t personally experienced, drawn in our head by some external force. Having had to adapt and relearn how to paint after a life-changing accident, and vowing never to reveal what exactly each piece is depicting, mystery, and the overcoming of adversity, exist alongside imagined nostalgia as vital components in his vivid and evocative artworks.Reporter/Producer: Sahar Zand
Executive Producer: Rebecca Armstrong for the BBC World Service

Afshin Naghouni: Jelly beans and nostalgia

With the forthcoming publication of her debut short story collection, A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times, Meron Hadero takes us inside her process of writing short stories revealing how she creates a new, overarching narrative by presenting them as a collection. Over months of conversation with presenter and producer Sonia Paul, and in separate audio diaries and recordings with others in her life, Meron reflects on the themes she is attracted to as an Ethiopian-American writer and explores what it's like to create the space between Ethiopia and the United States with the turn of the page. She shares the nuts and bolts of publishing such a book - from determining the order of stories to working through edits, to deciding on a book cover along with dedications and acknowledgments - she pulls back the curtain to reveal the detailed thought process behind every decision.

Meron Hadero: Inside the Mind of a Writer

Northern Irish composer Hannah Peel (Mercury Music Prize and Emmy nominee) has come together with the ground-breaking Paraorchestra to create a new album, The Unfolding. For In The Studio, we discover what lies behind Hannah’s creative vision: as thoughts of deep time and our shared roots as human beings in the universe swirled around her mind, she found the genesis of the project. We hear how the idea developed out of Hannah’s early melodic sketches and how it bloomed from there to celebrate Paraorchestra’s progressive approach to what an orchestra should be - mixing analogue, digital and assistive instruments with a unique ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians. As the record finally comes out into the world, we discover what it took to record it in morsels of time over three years, in the midst of a global pandemic.

Hannah Peel and Paraorchestra: The Unfolding

Carlos Acosta was the most acclaimed ballet dancer of his generation, taking starring roles around the world. His journey from the streets of Havana - where he grew up poor, the youngest of 11 children - to becoming principal male dancer of the Royal Ballet in London is the stuff of legend. Now he passes on his experience to the dancers of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, where he is artistic director. Susan Marling joins Carlos as he rehearses a new and challenging production of Don Quixote with the company. How has he made the transition from dancer to director, and how has he kept the life and energy of the company through the long dark months of the pandemic?

Carlos Acosta

Legendary dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp has been creating dances for half a century, as well as for Broadway musicals and Hollywood hits like Amadeus and Hair. Since starting her own company in 1965, Twyla has been expanding our idea of what dance can be by combining a huge variety of movement from jazz, ballet and even boxing into her work. She’s won Emmys and a Tony, and is still working aged 80. Clem Hitchcock joins Twyla as her latest performance, Twyla Now, opens at New York City Centre. Back in 1973, it also staged Twyla’s Deuce Coupe, her revolutionary breakthrough work scored to music by the Beach Boys, which mixed classical and modern dance to become the first ‘crossover’ ballet. For this performance, Twyla is drawing on dances from her mighty back catalogue, some famous, some never seen before. In a rare interview, Twyla chats with Clem Hitchcock about refreshing the dances of her past by collaborating with some of the superstars of American dance today. We hear from two of them: New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns, and James Gilmer from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. This includes a version of a dance Twyla first choreographed for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov back in 1992, but this time switching around the gender of the two leads. She discusses the need for inclusivity and diversity in dance companies, and why for this show she was also keen to work with younger emerging dancers she found on the internet. Never one to stand still, Twyla looks back at how the last two years have been surprisingly productive, including choreographing a ‘Zoom ballet’, and reflects on her lifelong commitment to broadening the appeal of ballet to new audiences through evolving a relaxed, looser, more accessible way of moving.

Twyla Tharp

Johan Holmström’s music is heard by millions of people every day but very few would know his name, what he looks like, or be able to give you the title of one of his compositions. That is because Johan is the resident composer and sound designer at King, the makers of the incredibly successful Candy Crush - a social game that has been installed over 1.7 billion times around the globe. Downton Abbey composer, John Lunn, joins Johan and follows every step of his creative process. Together, they discover how creating music for TV and film compares with scoring for social games.

Johan Holmström's Lo-Fi Masterpiece

We join wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson and go behind the scenes of Green Planet, a new, hugely ambitious BBC natural history television series which offers a plant’s eye view to our understanding of the world. We discover how Chris embraces the challenges of this series, the creative decisions he makes, and how he uses the latest technologies to capture the sounds produced by plants, as well as the sound world inside and around them.

Green Planet

The Emmy and Oscar-nominated actor Elizabeth McGovern is about to star as the glamorous Hollywood legend Ava Gardner in a new play that she’s written about her life. Elizabeth is known all around the world for her portrayal of Cora Crawley, the Countess of Grantham, in the British drama series Downton Abbey. In this, her first play, she aims to capture the complexities of Ava’s life and the relationship with her biographer on stage at the Riverside Studios in London. Join Anna Bailey as she follows Elizabeth in rehearsals with her fellow creatives, exploring the action, set, sound and costumes.

Elizabeth McGovern: Becoming Ava Gardner

Some people have called Phil Grucci "the firework king," but that’s a title he politely rejects, adding that if anything it really belongs to his father and his uncle – older generations of a family-owned fireworks business that was founded in Italy in 1850. Phil Grucci is president and creative director, and is responsible for planning and designing award-winning pyrotechnic spectaculars all over the world. He invites the BBC World Service into his studio as he prepares for another record-breaking performance.

Phil Grucci and the Art of Fireworks

Wudjang : Not the Past is Stephen Page's swan song after 30 years at the helm of Australia’s First Nation company, Bangarra Dance Theatre. This production is their biggest yet; a contemporary corroboree of story, poetry, song, dance and music, told by twenty-six performers on stage. This is a new work and as the last in Stephen’s long career as Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance, the pressure is on to create his crowning achievement in a short eight weeks where it will premier at Sydney Festival, a huge cultural event that takes place across Sydney in January. The work lives close to Stephen’s experience of family, drawing on his father’s lost language of Mibinyah from Yugambeh Country and the songlines of his Aboriginal heritage. It’s a work that addresses ancestors and new knowledge and connects the past with the present. It’s a fusion of form that elevates and strengthens the continent’s troubled culture and moves from the land and ritual to the stage. Join Regina Botros as she follows Stephen in his creative process from conception to completion. She’ll also talk with the other creatives in this very collaborative production including; award winning co-writer Alana Valentine, composer Steve Francis, designer Jacob Nash and dancer Daniel Mateo. Wudjang: Not The Past is the first co-production between Bangarra Dance Theatre, until recently, Australia’s only First Nations company and Sydney Theatre Company.

Stephen Page: Staging Indigenous Culture

Do you have what seems like an impossible dream? Maybe it’s to complete a marathon, swim with dolphins or win the lotto. Or, maybe, it’s to bring the world’s first public opera theatre back to life? Well the latter is the "impossible dream" of Dr Paul Atkin, a business man and musicologist from the UK. 200 years after Teatro San Cassiano was demolished – apparently on the orders of Napoleon – Paul is attempting to recreate this lost opera house, so that the Baroque opera he loves can be performed in the very theatre it would have been composed for. In a tale that’s as dramatic as any opera or World Cup final, join Ella-mai Robey for an episode of In the Studio, which reveals - before even a brick is laid – what it takes to try and turn an impossible dream into reality.

Teatro San Cassiano: Turning the impossible dream into reality

For nearly five years, In The Studio has been at the forefront of the creative process - with extraordinary access to big names and exciting talent working in the creative industries around the world. Our reporters are right there as works are brought into being, whether that be in design, music, TV and film, photography, sculpture, writing, painting or performance. In this episode Laura Hubber delves into the archive to consider the enormous challenges artists face as they bring their projects to fruition. One of the major obstacles to all artistic endeavours in the last couple of years has been the worldwide pandemic. This programme features Turkish author Elif Shafak who tells how her writing life was shaken up during lockdown, Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company coping when Covid-19 closed the theatres and New Orleans’s oldest parading organisation, Krewe of Rex, working to keep the Mardi Gras Carnival flourishing despite social distancing and the wearing of very different kinds of masks. There are contributions too from producer Linda Wong Davies battling deadlines and culture differences to stage a western opera in Shanghai, Finland’s Kari Kola struggling in Ireland to mount the world’s largest illuminated artwork and animator Phil Tippett reflecting on the stress of making a film over the course of more than thirty years.

Artists' challenges: Natural and manmade

For nearly five years, In The Studio has been at the forefront of the creative process, with extraordinary access to big names and exciting talent working in the creative industries around the world. Our reporters are right there as works are brought into being, whether that be in design, music, TV and film, photography, sculpture, writing, painting or performance. During that time, activism and public discourse around issues of contemporary politics has intensified, with others left trying to make sense of it all. Artists and creatives are no exception, often making work with a political agenda, or to encourage conversation, as they engage their artistic sensibilities with the events of the real world. In this episode, Laura Hubber takes a look at some of those In the Studio moments, when creative impulses come face-to-face with realpolitik. With contributions from Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, creator of a participatory light installation on the US-Mexican border Raphael Lorenzo-Hemmer, Zanele Muholi whose photographs address hate crime in South Africa and the team behind satirical television puppetry in Kenya The XYZ Show.

Activism, politics and creativity

To say that balafon player Balla Kouyaté was born into a musical family is an understatement. His family line goes back 800 years to Balla Faséké, the first of an unbroken line of djelis in the Kouyaté clan. Djelis are the oral historians, musicians, and performers who keep alive the history of the Mandé people of Mali and Guinea. The balafon is the ancestor to all marimbas and xylophones. Played with mallets, it comprises of wooden slats with rows of gourds acting as natural amplifiers underneath. The story goes that back in the 13th century, when the emperor Sundiata overthrew the villainous Soumaora Kante, he appointed the Kouyaté family to protect the Sosso Bala, the original balafon. That instrument survives today, in the safe keeping of Balla’s father’s in Guinea. With all that history it’s no surprise that Balla is a virtuoso player of the balafon. Now living in Boston in the US, he’s a much sought-after collaborator, playing with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma in his Silk Road ensemble. As well as frequently touring with his own band, he also makes time to fulfil his responsibilities to his community as a djeli, playing traditional music at family events from weddings to baby naming ceremonies.

Balla Kouyaté: 800 years of tradition

We follow the internationally celebrated choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne as he reimagines his popular work Nutcracker! for Autumn 2021. Taking Tchaikovsky’s ballet and in a set heavily influenced by the lavish Hollywood musicals of the 1930s, Bourne’s production is a spectacle as it journeys between Dr. Dross’ drab Orphanage, through a shimmering, ice-skating winter wonderland, and into the mouth-watering Sweetieland full of dancing sugar coated goodies. Complete with newly-refreshed delectable sets and costumes, combined with sparkling new choreography, Luke Whitlock explores with Bourne how this reinvention comes about. From preparations way ahead of the opening night of the tour, and then heading to London to light up the Christmas Season, the creative process for Bourne doesn’t stop.

Nutcracker! with Sir Matthew Bourne

Rankin has been described as one of the UK’s greatest photographers. Perhaps best known for his striking, playful and intimate portraits, he has photographed the likes of Britney Spears, David Bowie and Queen Elizabeth II. His work appearing in magazine’s like Vogue, GQ and Marie Claire. Join Anna Bailey for a ringside seat as Rankin shoots the casts of shows such as The Lion King and Tina Turner The Musical - capturing the moment when London’s theatres reopen after lockdown, for a new book and exhibition. Anna also discovers what lies behind Rankin’s creative vision as he experiments with beauty photography for his latest edition of Hunger Magazine.

Rankin: Capturing the moment

In The Studio enters the dazzling world of American visual artist Devan Shimoyama as he makes a brand new installation for the recently re-opened Arts and Industries Building at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. Reporter Kristin Vermilya follows Devan in the months leading up to the Smithsonian’s Futures exhibition as he completes work on The Grove, an imagined future monument created in response to the police shootings among Black Americans during the tumultuous year of 2020. We hear the painstaking process of creating a shimmering urban forest of utility poles bedazzled with thousands of rhinestones and Swarovski crystals complete with gem-studded shoes and silk flowers dangling from their power lines. And how drag culture and his grandmother’s innate sense of style has inspired this radiant artwork which represents a space for both collective grieving, and the healing power of hope.

Devan Shimoyama: Rhinestones and telephone lines

World renowned British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare has art work exhibited across the globe, but for this project, he’ll be swapping international museum spaces and his trademark, brightly coloured wax batik fabric for a wild, rural landscape and some altogether more industrial materials. Reporter Nicola Humphries joins Yinka Shonibare as work begins on one of his most ambitious projects yet, the Ecology Green Farm. A residency space for artists, agriculturists and researchers, created with a sustainable infrastructure and food security for the local community in mind. We’ll hear from Yinka in his studio in London, and from his collaborator, architect and master planner Papa Omotayo, on the ground in Lagos, as they work together to establish an organic farm across a 54-acre site whilst overseeing their team of local artisans handmake 40,000 bricks to construct a state-of-the art, artists residence and workshop. Gardens will be planted, greenhouses filled and local craft will take centre stage. Across the year they’ll navigate lockdowns and rainy seasons, and gradually witness the centrepiece to this project, a locally styled barn house, rise from the ground, ready to become a place for people to share skills and ideas in an ambitious cultural exchange programme. Yinka shares his personal motivations for establishing the Ecology Green Farm and explains his ongoing beliefs in the relationship between art and social justice, demonstrating with this project, how the combined disciplines of architecture and science can contribute to local eco systems, food security and of course, creativity.

Yinka Shonibare

The fashion label Hanifa was launched in 2012 - Anifa Mvuemba's dream of a label that featured ready-to-wear clothes for women sizes 0-20, finally came true. And now she's preparing for her debut runway show in Washington, DC, and is designing shoes to accompany it, her first foray into footwear. Join Karen Baker as she meets Anifa at the drawing table where the design for a beautiful evening gown is emerging but will it make it to the catwalk? Feel the buzz as preparations for the show pick up pace and Karen meets others involved in preparing for a runway show, from music makers to make-up artists to models.

Anifa Mvuemba – preparing for the runway

Internationally-acclaimed textile artist, Billie Zangewa calls her work “daily feminism”. Crafted in silk with thousands of tiny hand sewn stitches, her creations explore the themes of feminine strength and the power of family. As part of the BBC's 100 Women season in 2021, In The Studio joins Billie at her kitchen table in Johannesburg as she creates her latest works - visions brought to life amid one of the harshest Covid lockdowns in the world, and riots that left hundreds dead. All the while, home-schooling her 8-year-old son at the same table. Journalist Vauldi Carelse is invited into the Malawian-born artist’s home as she transforms raw silk into intricate tapestries for solo shows opening in Seoul and London this year.

Billie Zangewa: Silk, stitches and feminism

Working as DRIFT, Dutch art duo Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta make spectacular immersive installations. For this September's Design Miami fair in Basel, they are presenting their biggest and most complex Shylight project to date. Seeing Shylight is a mesmerising experience, as dozens of silk flower-like lights gracefully open and close above the viewer’s head. We hear about the level of detail involved in creating the Shylights effect, with hundreds of hours spent sewing the delicate silk shapes and programming the choreography of their movement - not to mention the challenge of a global computer chip shortage. DRIFT are known for the way they use technology to explore the hidden mechanisms of nature: the movement in Shylight is inspired by the way some flowers close at night. In other works, DRIFT have programmed drones to swarm the skies in patterns based on bird flight, made concrete blocks float, and captured the fragility of dandelion seed heads. As she anticipates the final reveal in Basel, journalist Bidisha talks to Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta about their decades-long working partnership.

DRIFT: Coding nature

The Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas creates beautiful, thought-provoking sculptures using items that other people have thrown away - from old plastic crates and driftwood to childrens’ toys and birdcages. Anything can be transformed into his art. His inspiration comes from growing up on the outskirts of Mexico City, in a house built by his parents using any materials they could find. He has exhibited across the world including at the prestigious Turbine Hall at the Tate in London. As Abraham constructs his latest exhibition, Autorreconstruccion: Social Tissue at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Switzerland, he talks to Jo Fahy about his work, his ideas about inclusivity, the importance of beer to his creative process and the challenges when a sculpture collapses.

Abraham Cruzvillegas - Turning Discarded Items into Art

Los Angeles-based artist Sandy Rodriguez grew up on the California-Mexico border, descended from three generations of Mexican painters. For In The Studio, reporter Laura Hubber follows Sandy as she creates large-scale map paintings, which tell the story of the current political moment, while harnessing methods and materials from indigenous Mexican culture. These maps explore issues of immigration – deportations, separated migrant children and protests – against the backdrop of California’s majestic desert landscape. Sandy sees her role as ‘tlacuilo’, a Nahua word meaning artist, scribe and sage. This is demonstrated in her unique practice as she creates the maps by collecting clippings of local plants, grinding and boiling them to make her own pigments, and painting onto traditional amate paper – all techniques that come from indigenous Mexican teachings.

Sandy Rodriguez: When art, geography and politics collide

Dan Meis has developed a reputation for out-of-the-box, innovative thinking while creating projects that redefine their respective building types. This include a “transformable” venue in Japan that mechanically changes from arena to stadium. He also led the design for the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Host and professional football player Neil Danns gets an exclusive insight into the innovative sports architect's creative process reflected in past, present and future projects, including Everton FC’s new football stadium, a tennis centre in Los Angeles and a pitch for a yet to be named project. Neil examines the creativity it takes to bring a design to life, exploring the process of the designs, how progress is made and how the ever-present challenges are overcome.

Dan Meis: Designing a stadium

Meet Little Amal, a 3.5 metre-tall puppet of a young nine-year-old refugee girl, created to represent all displaced children. She is travelling over 8000km, from Turkey, through Europe, ending in the UK. The Walk is an unique and ambitious travelling art festival organised by Good Chance Theatre in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company, that brings artists, cultural institutions and community groups together in the countries Little Amal visits. Her message is “Don’t forget about us”. But at a time when the world is still fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and when anti-immigrant sentiment is present in certain countries, The Walk does not come without its challenges. Join Cagil Kasapoglu as she meets the people involved, including artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi and general manager Sarah Loader, who travel with Little Amal across borders and seas.

Little Amal: The Walk

George Condo, whose work blends pop culture with art history and regularly sells for millions of dollars, is breaking out of his home, his canvases and the style of painting he is best known for. Now he is exploring a new phase and In the Studio has a front row seat. Reporter, actor and filmmaker Tara Gadomski is spending time with the New York artist - who has worked with the likes of Kanye West and Andy Warhol - as he prepares for his biggest show since the world was changed by the Covid-19 pandemic. We discover how George has also been transformed, both by his time in isolation and the tentative steps he has taken back into the crowded city. What is emerging? A cosmos of living, breathing organisms created in paint, ink and crayon. Join George Condo in the studio for a whirlwind ride, as he climbs high ladders to paint the top edges of huge canvases and explains his technique and his thoughts. Prepare to see the world in a new way.

George Condo: Painting a new world

Australian director, writer and designer, Cameron Menzies, flew into Belfast from Australia in the midst of the pandemic to start his new tenure as Artistic Director and relaunch Northern Ireland Opera. Puccini's La Boheme is one of the most famous operas ever written, and tells the story of a group of Bohemians who are all desperately trying to find their way in life and love, alongside the difficulties a life of poverty and illness throws at them. This is the opera that Cameron Menzies has chosen to make his debut. It will be staged in the iconic and derelict Carlisle Memorial Church in Belfast in an area of the city which was once the flashpoint for much of the Troubles. Due to Covid, he has flipped this most classic of operas and is presenting it in a way it has never been seen before. The set will be built from scratch, and there will only be a few short weeks between first entering the church to the live performances in September. Join Marie-Louise Muir as she discovers what it takes to stage an opera in less than six weeks, and talks to the other creative voices involved, including the conductor, Rebecca Lang and the production manager, Pádraig Ó Duinnín.

Cameron Menzies: La Boheme in Belfast

With the autumn fashion season in full swing, we meet the Norwegian designer who’s creating new collections and a gown for this year's Met Gala in New York. Peter Dundas is renowned for his catwalk couture and for dressing some of the world’s most powerful women including Beyoncé and Michelle Obama. Join Anna Bailey, who follows Peter as he makes a bespoke gown for the Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Ciara, while also preparing a new collection for the catwalk with his team at Dundas in London.

Peter Dundas: Dressing the world’s powerful women

The makers of James Bond's car are entering new territory. Aston Martin, the British manufacturer usually associated with 007's sports car, are launching their first family motor - an SUV. In The Studio has gained exclusive access to the design and manufacturing process. We join head of design, Marek Reichman, in his studio, follow the car through rigorous testing, and finally, see it launched to the public.

Designing the new Aston Martin

A bowler hatted, gas mask-wearing figure descends in a diving bell into an apocalyptic landscape of nightmarish creatures. Flames and searchlights puncture the darkness as the ‘Assassin’ begins his wordless quest in a shattered world. Welcome to Mad God. This is a film that has been 30 years in the making. The dark, disturbing vision of filmmaker and visual FX artist Phil Tippett, Mad God is his tormented love song for the craft and power of stop motion animation. A technique as old as cinema itself but largely abandoned since the coming of digital technology. Tippett won two Oscars for his work on The Empire Strikes Back and Jurassic Park. That film effectively spelled the end for stop motion in major motion pictures. But Mad God remained an unshakeable vision for Tippett. It was begun and abandoned as too costly and time consuming. Tippett had his own all digital vfx studio to run with projects like Starship Troopers &#38; Evolution. That was until the new century and a new generation of colleagues who saw the footage and urged him to revive the project. Tippett mentored these younger animators, all keen to experience the art and craft of stop-motion and volunteering their spare time. Jointly they expanded Mad God from a 6 minute short into a full blown apocalyptic vision. As Mad God enters its final weeks of completion and unveiling, Mark Burman speaks to Tippett and some of his key collaborators about the art, madness and dreams that have fuelled the project and their collective love for the hand crafted magic of stop motion.

Phil Tippett: Mad God, 30 years in the making

With new leadership in full swing at Williams Racing, model and racing driver Jodie Kidd gets exclusive access to explore the factory of the once-great British F1 team. Nestled in the Oxfordshire countryside, the Williams Racing factory is a hub of activity as engineers and mechanics work around the clock to produce the best car they can. In this programme, we’ll follow the various changes to the barge board, an integral part of an F1 car, through the first half of the 2021 season. Operations director James Colgate gives us a guided tour of the factory floor, while Dave Robson, head of vehicle performance, talks us through the intricacies of the racing car. Jodie also meets Williams driver George Russell, who will take us into the simulator and explain how the smallest of changes can make or break a race. Williams Racing was founded in 1977 by Frank Williams who, until last year, still ran the team, with the help of his daughter, Claire Williams. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Williams was a tour de force, with the best cars and best drivers in Formula 1 and an enviable winning streak. In recent times, though, Williams have found themselves at the bottom of the grid and the league tables on an almost weekly basis. We’ll learn about the intricacies of the car and get a sense of the teamwork involved in building and maintaining one of the world's fastest cars.

Start your engines: Williams Racing with Jodie Kidd

As the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games begin, we meet the composer who’s creating music for Para Equestrian dressage competitors, Natasha Baker and Laurentia Tan.Tom Hunt specialises in composing original music for one of the most exciting parts of competitive dressage, Freestyle.Join Hilary Dunn as she discovers how Tom works with Natasha and Laurentia to make music which brings out the best from them and their horses, and allows them to remain at the top of their game in this highly competitive performance-led Olympic event.Presented by Hilary Dunn
Produced by Hilary Dunn and Eliza Lomas
Executive Produced by Ella-mai Robey for the BBC World Service

Tom Hunt: Dressage music for the Tokyo Paralympics

We hear from Tareq Abu Kwaik, known by his stage name El Far3i - songwriter and producer.

El Far3i: Palestinian music sensation

Dick Pope, the Oscar-nominated cinemtatographer of Mr. Turner and The Illusionist, visits master paint-maker Michael Harding at his colour mill in Cwmbran, Wales. Michael takes Dick on a drive to his local stables to collect a special ingredient for an ancient paint recipe. On the way, they discuss the challenges of their respective crafts, and the time-tested ways they each create colour in their work. Back at the colour mill, Michael shows Dick around and recounts some of the weird and wonderful ways paints and pigments have historically been made, taking him into a heavily padlocked shipping container where the special ingredient they collected earlier helps to create a brilliant white paint.

Michael Harding: In vivid colour

All Melody is the latest work and tour by contemporary composer and pianist, Nils Frahm. This programme reveals the creative, emotional and physical processes involved when new material is combined with vast stage shows for an international schedule of truly daunting proportions. Captured during a number of visits to his studio, Nils opens up to his good friend, Sebastian Schipper, director of single-take Berlin heist, Victoria, for which Nils composed the award-winning original score. He also chats to his biggest fan, British TV, film and stage writer, Sam Bain. Not only does the show combine three incredible minds of music, film and TV, the audience is also treated to an immersive binaural experience, recorded at London’s Barbican Centre during a run of sold out concerts.

Composer and Pianist Nils Frahm

Aditi Mittal came to prominence as one of the first female stand-up comedians in India and has won plaudits for her work, observing what she calls “fempowerment” and her life as an Indian woman. Her shows have toured around the world and been on Netflix. Now she’s writing new work from her home in Mumbai for her first online comedy show, and trialling it out on the internet. But without an audience in the room, and with new technical demands, it’s a challenge. Yasmeen Khan follows Aditi over a month as she writes, performs, rewrites and hones her material. How will she adapt to the constraints of Zoom? And with India in the grip of Covid-19, how easy is it to find humour during this time?

Aditi Mittal: Creating the laughs

These boots - if a success - will go on to sit on shop shelves across the world and grace the feet of the biggest footballing stars.In this episode of In the Studio, football journalist Raphael Honigstein guides us through this creative duo's process, as they balance new, exciting ideas with tried and tested formulas that have brought the company success before.We’ll join Dave as he sketches out the new design, discussing the delicate balance between emerging technologies and the dream boots he has in his mind. He’s also keen to reflect the history of the sport too, taking us inside the Archive Room to search for design inspiration from the past.For Rob, his domain lies in what’s worked before. Armed with the stats about which designs sell well and why, he guides Dave and his team towards a boot that not only looks good, but performs well on the pitch and the shop floor too.
But what is success for them both? A slick design? An impressed athlete? Or a sales boom? And which one of these takes precedence when designing a new football boot?
We follow the next steps in the process - from the rigorous testing to the storytelling around the launch - and hear the final moment when Dave and Rob get to unbox their creation for the very first time.

Designing Football Boots

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Palme d’Or award-winning Thai filmmaker and artist, is back at the Cannes Film Festival this year with his film, Memoria, which has just been selected for the main competition. Starring Tilda Swinton, Memoria is Apichatpong’s first feature film to be shot outside his native Thailand. Apart from being shot in the mountains of Colombia and centering on a widow, played by Swinton, who goes in search of her own identity after hearing a series of mysterious bangs, many details of the film have been kept under wraps. With exclusive access to the Director, cast and crew, In the Studio joins Apichatpong on the shoot in Colombia and follows him through to the post-production in Thailand.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: From Colombia to Cannes

Emma Kathleen Thomas was confronted with the fragility of life at a young age. The British-Mexican artist lost both of her parents early, and this painful experience has made her passionate about preserving the rich variety of life on earth, protecting the planet for her young children and - she hopes - instilling in them the confidence to bring children into the world themselves one day. To mark International Day for Biological Diversity 2021, Emma has been planning an ambitious collaborative artwork: a tapestry of large-scale images of endangered species, laid out in different-coloured clothes and visible from the air, which will unfold in real time across the planet’s surface. The project will involve participants from countries including Australia, Ghana, the UK and the US, who will create images as diverse as the white-necked picathartes, a bird living in Africa for 44 million years and now critically endangered, and the golden paintbrush, a prairie flower that is disappearing due to the loss of its habitat. Each image will be completed at exactly 17:00 local time, creating a 'Mexican wave’ of endangered species around the globe, with audiences worldwide following online. Danish visual artist Eske Kath joins Emma in Copenhagen as she oversees the Danish leg of the project - a huge image featuring the great yellow bumblebee, laid out in a sports ground in the Danish capital - and finds out how some of the other participating groups have fared.

Emma Kathleen Thomas: A tapestry of species

When the world’s first A.I. “robot artist” was announced in 2019, In the Studio was given exclusive access to the design and making of Ai-Da, a humanoid robot capable of drawing people from real life, and named after Ada Lovelace, the first female computer programmer in the world. As an exhibit of Ai-Da’s artwork is shown at the UK’s Design Museum, and she takes up her first artist residency, we hear how the team used A.I. processes and algorithms, cameras in her eyes and a pen in her robotic hand, to allow Ai-Da to draw from sight. Karl Bos talks to the creative visionary behind the project, Gallery Director Aidan Meller, along with the young engineers tasked with making her drawing arm and the team producing her head, face and body.

Ai-Da: The world’s first A.I. robot artist

As you enter Lungelo Gumede’s studio, in the heart of South Africa's coastal city of Durban, you are greeted by the smell of paint, clay and other materials. Across the room, what you see is surprising. At first glance, you are looking at Nelson Mandela, the recently departed King of the Zulu Nation, Goodwill Zwelithini and Queen Elizabeth II. As you get closer, of course, you discover they are wax figures elegantly dressed in real clothes. That's what Lungelo specialises in - life size statues of prominent global figures in politics, sports and entertainment, with a special focus on African heroes. His art is celebrated across South Africa and, at only 36, he’s on a mission to create the country’s first ever wax museum. Mpho Lakaje spends a week with Lungelo to discover what it takes to make a new wax figure.

Lungelo Gumede: The uncanny art of wax sculpting

Motoring journalist Erin Baker gets behind the wheel of Porsche's latest 911 sports car. Michael Mauer, current chief designer at Porsche, and Tony Hatter, design manager on models including the 993, describe to Erin what it takes to design a car that will be both instantly recognisable and desirable. From the initial sketch to full-scale models and the final product, Erin gets under the bonnet of the design process. Porsche is also the largest high performance vehicle manufacturer in the world. Erin asks what the future holds for Porsche design, and driving for pleasure, beyond the internal combustion engine.

Dream machines: Inside Porsche's design lab

Scottish guitar maker Jimmy Moon receives an order to make a custom-built acoustic guitar from musician Midge Ure, as the craft of handmade musical instrument making is put in the spotlight in this edition of In the Studio. We follow the process from Midge’s initial specifications of size and finish, to the picking of wood, joinery, engineering work and finishing by Jimmy and his assistant Stephen Devine, to final delivery to Midge. Midge needs a new acoustic to use on stage for a series of shows where he’s stripping back his solo hits and those as front man with electronic 80s band Ultravox to perform them with just an acoustic guitar. Jimmy has eight weeks before Midge returns to Glasgow, and we follow this master instrument maker as he creates the guitar that will accompany Midge’s catalogue of classic tunes including If I Was, Vienna, Dancing with Tears in My Eyes and the Band Aid classic Do They Know It’s Christmas. Along the way, Midge talks to guitarist supremo Martin Taylor about the different requirements for him as a jazz guitarist compared to Midge’s rock style. Midge throws up a challenge requesting an all-black matt finish, a first for Jimmy’s order book, so he has to juggle design as well as creating musical tonal perfection.

Making Midge Ure’s New Guitar with Jimmy Moon

A derelict lighthouse…an island only accessible by boat …and the rhythm and sound of water…..all these are crucial components in the latest artwork being unveiled this June by the Spanish installation artist and sculptor Cristina Iglesias. She’s won international acclaim for her work transforming public spaces and her latest project takes this further by remaking the lighthouse as a sculptural site. The lighthouse is on St Clara Island, in the area of San Sebastian, Spain, where Cristina was born. She’s transforming the interior of the building and adding water to recreate the impression of waves. It’s a process that is full of complications with complex engineering and structural logistics. Reporter Kristina Zorita travels with Cristina by boat to the island for a day to find out how she and a team of specialists work on creating the wave effects. Will the timings of the water sequences work as Cristina has imagined? We also hear about the significance of the lighthouse and the island in Cristina’s artistic imagination and the life of the community.

Cristina Iglesias: To The Lighthouse

As Covid-19 has swept the world we’ve become used to seeing musicians in lockdown presenting videos of virtual performances. But for the Grammy-award winning American composer and conductor Eric Whitacre, the idea of a virtual choir is nothing new because he pioneered the concept over 10 years ago. His first choir of 185 singers became a global phenomenon and has been seen by millions on YouTube. More virtual choir projects followed and the choir videos have featured as installations and as part of the 2012 Olympics and the Davos World Economic Forum. Now Eric’s just released his largest Virtual Choir project to date, which premiered on YouTube a few days ago. It features 17,572 singers from around the world performing his new piece “Sing Gently” for which he’s written the words and the music. Eric talks to Emma Kingsley about creating this latest project, the inspirations for his other compositions, the idea of the musical “golden brick” and how his early dreams of becoming a pop star changed through singing Mozart in the college choir.

Eric Whitacre – Creating the Virtual Choir

The designer Ini Archibong has won global recognition for his work with Hermès and Sé and his pieces have been exhibited in galleries across Europe and the USA. He’s known for his designs of luxury items but recently he’s been working on something very different – a partnership with the American design firm Knoll, renowned for its workplace furniture - where Ini has been designing a stackable chair and a table to be used in cafeterias. Working closely with Ini to make his designs a reality is Knoll’s Executive Vice President of Design, Benjamin Pardo. We follow the discussions between him and Ini over months as they work through the intricacies of making the chair safe and stackable. The programme begins in 2019 when Imogen Foulkes meets Ini at his home in Switzerland and sees how his designs are beginning to take shape. There will be 2 versions of the chair- one with arms and one without. But can what’s in Ini’s head be adapted to the manufacturing processes and the demands of making something like this for a mass market? As the pandemic takes hold, the process has to be paused – but soon it resumes and, finally, Ini can take delivery of a completed chair ahead of its planned unveiling in the Pavilion of the African Diaspora that he’s designed for the London Design Biennale in June 2021.

Ini Archibong: Making the Chair

U.Me: The Musical is a new musical for radio and podcast that premieres on Wednesday 12 May. How – in a period of global pandemic – do you take the idea of creating a radio musical that aims to bring joy and catharsis to a locked down world, and turn that into a reality? This programme examines the huge team effort that goes into crafting a piece of audio art for our times. At the centre of the story are BBC story commissioner and co-writer Simon Pitts, composer and lyricist Theo Jamieson (musical supervisor of West End hit Everybody’s Talking About Jamie), plus Grammy Award-winning record producer Steve Levine. The trio are at the heart of a large cast of artistic talents, all of whom contribute to the final work. Via a combination of video calls, exclusive access to the fully Covid-19 compliant bubble of London rehearsal rooms, actual production recordings featuring the socially distanced BBC Philharmonic, and contributions from show leads Anoushka Lucas and Martin Sarreal, actor and writer Mathew Horne (Gavin Shipman in BAFTA-winning BBC TV series Gavin and Stacey) examines the creative process behind this unique radio production.