TODAY’S RADIO

KEN BRUCE 9.30AM, RADIO 2

★★★★★ Katie Melua ends a week’s worth of live music from top performers on Ken’s show this morning. Katie will be in the Piano Room with members of the BBC Concert Orchestra at 11.30am, and she’ll sing a new song, a classic and a cover as part of a month-long series of live sessions. An hourlong special will be broadcast on Radio 2 each Sunday from 7pm, featuring highlights from the previous week’s performances.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BLENDING 2.45PM, RADIO 4

★★★ Whisky can taste deliberately harsh, soothingly smooth, but never bland. Blending is usually done to deliver a lower-priced whisky with a higher-priced

taste – and it’s a real art. On a rather enviable assignment, Barry Smith heads to the distilleries of Scotland to test the blenders’ art.

PAST FORWARD: A CENTURY OF SOUND

7PM, RADIO 4 ★★★★ This series – in which Greg Jenner, experts and other guests listen to random clips from the BBC archives – doesn’t sound that good a listen, but over the past weeks, it has proved to be compelling and full of insight. Today, we hear a 1962 clip from the government laboratory at Porton Down, and then a discussion that explores the difficult subject of medical ethics during the Cold War.

THE CLASSIC FM CONCERT 8PM, CLASSIC FM

★★★

John Suchet ends the week with a selection of music with a feelgood factor. Debussy’s languorous Prelude A L’apres-midi D’UN Faune opens the programme, followed by the warmth of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto De Aranjuez. Vittori Monti’s romantic, rhapsodic Czardas is also on the bill, while William Grant Still’s bold celebration of the many cultures of America closes the show. SJ