The Emperor and the Pianola

This Between the Ears odyssey weaves together the music - ragtime, classical and jazz - that Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia and his family and Royal Court used to play and listen to on their pianola when exiled at Fairfield House in Bath between 1936 and 1941, with the story of the Emperor himself, as told by those who knew him then, and the different communities - Rastafari, Bath Ethnic Minority Senior Citizens, visitors of the Ethiopian Coptic Church - that use the former home of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie today; a home he bequeathed to the citizens of Bath after he regained his country from Mussolini.

Professor Shawn Sobers of the University of the West of England, Director of the Freedom in the City Festival of Learning - a seven-month festival exploring Ethiopian and Rastafari cultures - and Trustee of Fairfield House CIC in Bath, is our guide for this fascinating story. And the Emperor's pianola, once lost without trace, is now found, restored and played for the first time since the late 1930s/early 1940s at a celebratory gathering at Fairfield House.

For the Emperor, the pianola and its music were his solace of the soul at a time of great uncertainty and turmoil as his country fought the fascist invaders, now reunited at last.

The pianola, like Haile Selassie's exile itself, served to build bridges between communities of different faiths, cultures and nationalities and all through the healing power of music. It continues to do so today.

His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, was a man described as the 'conscience of the world' and 'Father of Africa'.

The Emperor and the Pianola is a Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 3.

Deeply moving and laugh-out-loud funny, Mission: Joy gives unprecedented access to the friendship between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Tutu. The self-described ‘mischievous brothers’ were filmed over five days by an award-winning team who captured a relationship built on truth, honesty and, most importantly, joy.

The film goes behind the scenes at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, where Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama recount stories from their lives, both having lived through periods of incredible difficulty.

With genuine affection, mutual respect and a healthy dose of teasing, the two friends impart lessons gleaned from experience, ancient traditions and cutting-edge science to show that it is possible to live with joy in the face of all of life’s challenges, from the extraordinary to the mundane. Mission: Joy is an antidote for our times.

Another Country, Another Quandary is a montage of interviews, field recordings and self records scored with original compositions and vocalisation that draws on the ideas of hauntology. The piece features a number of UK based artists born elsewhere as they reflect on their journeys of where they are today across geographies and time frames. The cast of voices reflects on their childhood migration to the UK & other parts of the world and the impact this has had on their sense of self and their artistic practices. The piece focuses on how the artists see themselves in another dimension where they never left their home countries and what that intangible dimension looks like. How do they dream about the time and space between where they are and where they’ve been. The voices featured are of painter, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, visual artist, Fungai Marima and harpist, Marysia Osuchowska.

About Belinda

Belinda Zhawi is a Zimbabwean literary & sound artist. She is the author of Small Inheritances (ignitionpress, 2018) & South of South East (Bad Betty Press, 2019), co-founder of literary arts platform BORN::FREE & experiments with sound/text performance as MA.MOYO. Her work has been broadcast & published on various platforms including The White Review, NTS Live, Boiler Room & BBC Radio 3, 4 & 6. She has held residencies with ICA London, Serpentine Galleries & Triangle France to name a few. Belinda hosts Juju Fission (RTM FM), a monthly radio broadcast. She lives & works in South East London, UK.

New Creatives is supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts.

Josh Farmer (NTS) - Executive Producer Belinda Zhawi – Sound Artist, Researcher Fungai Marima, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Maria Osuchowska - Voices Maria Osuchowska - Original Music

In 2004, the Cameroonian triple-jumper Francoise Mbango made headlines around the world when she competed in the Athens Olympics with her head shaved. Mbango wanted to show solidarity with her mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Mbango won a gold medal and went on to retain her title at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She talks to Ian Williams about how motherhood inspired her journey to the very top of world sport.

PHOTO: Francoise Mbango after her Olympic victory in 2004 (Getty Images)

At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Maria Mutola won Mozambique’s first ever gold medal in the 800 metres. Mutola had long been regarded as the finest female middle-distance runner of her generation, but she had suffered shock defeats at the previous two Olympics. Her exceptionally long Olympic career would continue until Beijing 2008, her sixth games. She talks to Ashley Byrne. The programme is a Made-In-Manchester Production.

PHOTO: Maria Mutola winning her gold medal in Sydney, 2000 (Getty Images)

In 1990, two of Ghana’s most talented sprinters, Gus Nketia and Laud Codjoe, escaped from their national team’s accommodation at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland. The pair had made friends in New Zealand and wanted to flee from a country with an increasingly repressive government. They were helped by an extended Maori family, who hid them in the New Zealand backcountry and helped them apply for citizenship. Gus Nketia later became the New Zealand record-holder at 100 metres. Tom Roseingrave reports. The programme is a Whistledown Production.

PHOTO: Gus Nketia (l) in the year 2000 (Getty Images)

While we, as a species, grapple with ongoing legacies of racism and violence, and as biodiversity loss and the mass extinction of wildlife on earth accelerates, the call to bear witness becomes ever more necessary. What might it mean - for ourselves and the other beings on this planet - if we were able to sorrow, if we knew how to grieve? As things disintegrate around us, is bearing witness a final act of love we can offer our world?

“Loving and grieving are joined at the hip,” says spiritual activist and author Stephen Jenkinson. “Grief is a way of loving what has slipped from view. Love is a way of grieving that which has not yet done so.”

Biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber and poet and psychologist Anita Barrows reflect on what is lost as beloved species and places of wilderness continue to vanish; reparations scholar-activist Esther Stanford-Xosei grieves the genocide of communities that were the custodians of ways of living in harmony with the earth; and activist Kofi Mawuli Klu mourns the immense beauty of forests now destroyed.

Every waking moment is a requiem - not what we signed up for. But what did you sign up for? Into what were you initiated? Lacking in ceremony and ritual, grappling with legacies of undone spirit work and ancestral trauma, bearing witness to what is happening within ourselves and around us might “not be everybody’s idea of a good time” (Stephen Jenkinson), but it might be what we need to do. It might help us to belong.

Voice of the chorus: Niamh O’Brien. Cello improvisations: Lucy Railton Additional words and music: Phil Smith

Produced by Phil Smith. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3.

The dramatic effects of climate change evoked in words, sounds and a powerful new musical work.

Over four movements of rich and evocative music, the listener is transported to the front line of the climate crisis, with stories from coastal Ghana – where entire villages are being swept away by the rising sea – to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the high arctic where the ice is melting with alarming speed. The dramatic final movement ponders two contrasting possible outcomes to the crisis.

In an ambitious new work originally commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for their Between the Ears strand, Kieran Brunt weaves together electronic, vocal and orchestral elements recorded in isolation by players from the BBC Philharmonic. Each musician recorded their part individually at home and these recordings were then painstakingly combined by sound engineer Donald MacDonald to create a symphonic sound.

Documentary producer Laurence Grissell and composer Kieran Brunt have collaborated to produce an ambitious and original evocation of the causes and consequences of rising, warming oceans.

Credits

Composer: Kieran Brunt Producer: Laurence Grissell

Electronics and violin performed by Kieran Brunt Orchestral parts performed by members of the BBC Philharmonic Vocals: Kieran Brunt, Josephine Stephenson & Augustus Perkins Ray of the vocal ensemble Shards

Sound mixed by Donald MacDonald

Interviewees: Sulley Lansah, BBC Accra Office Hilde Fålun Strøm and Sunniva Sørby, heartsintheice.com Blaise Agresti, former head of Mountain Rescue, Chamonix

Blaise Agresti recorded by Sarah Bowen

Wildlife recordings by Chris Watson

Newsreaders: Susan Rae & Tom Sandars Adverts voiced by Ian Dunnett Jnr, Luke Nunn, Charlotte East, Cecilia Appiah

In 1999, ASECS Mimosas, one of the biggest teams in Ivory Coast, shocked the world of African football by fielding a team of youth players in the final of the African Super Cup. The youngsters had been handpicked and trained by French coach Jean-Marc Gillou, and with their speed and tactical sophistication they inflicted a shock defeat on the Tunisian side, Esperance. The ASECS Mimosas team is credited with modernising the African game, and bringing African talent to the attention of the biggest clubs in Europe. Robert Nicholson talks to Kolo Toure, who played in that African Super Cup final and later starred for Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. The programme is a Whistledown Production.

PHOTO: Kolo Toure (right) with his brother Yaya Toure in 2002 (Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

Lucy Ejike is Nigeria’s most successful female paralympian and the winner of gold medals in para-powerlifting at three different Paralympic Games. Ejike’s twenty-year career has been marked by her rivalry with her friend Fatma Omar of Egypt, whom she finally defeated with a world-record lift at the 2016 games in Rio. She talks to Iain Mackness. The programme is a Made-In-Manchester Production.

PHOTO: Lucy Ejike in 2017 (Getty Images)

Matthew Parris's guest this week is the epidemiologst Precious Lunga, who nominates for Great Life status that of the Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Muta Maathai.

In the course of her life, Professor Maathai made a huge contribution to re-establishing environmental integrity to Kenya by working with the women who lived there. She founded the Green Belt Movement and became a politician. In 2004 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The expert witness is Maggie Baxter from the Green Belt Movement. Producer Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

This week's Great Life might have become an Afrikaner Nationalist Prime Minister of apartheid South Africa, but instead became its most prominent white opponent. A formidable advocate, he led the defence of Nelson Mandela in the Rivonia Trial. It is no exaggeration to say Bram Fischer saved Mandela's life, and it is said Mandela would have made him his vice-president, had he lived to see Mandela's release. He's nominated by former English High Court Judge Sir Nick Stadlen along with Lord Joffe.

Presenter Matthew Parris.

Producer Perminder Khatkar.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2015.