Thursday, February 22nd, 2007
World Report
Radio One: 6, 7 & 8 am (6:30, 7:30, 8:30 am NT)
CBC News Correspondent Connie Watson reports on Mexico's "Narco Corrido" ballads and the government's attempts to ban them because they glorify drug lords and crime.
Here's to You
Radio Two: 9 am (9:30 am NT)
Here's To You looks at music in the Soviet Union. Russian Church music and the twist were banned. Balalaikas and the Tchaikovsky Competition were allowed. From Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff (who left) to Prokofiev (who returned) to Shostakovich, Ashkenazy and Rostropovich (who stayed), it's a look at the musical history of that nation.
Studio Sparks
Radio Two: 12pm (12:30 am NT)
As part of Censor This!, Studio Sparks will feature the story and music of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish musician whos life was immortalized in the recent film The Pianist. Szpilman was a Polish Jew who survived the Second World War living and hiding in Warsaw. He wrote his memoirs in 1946, but his book was immediately supressed by Poland's Communist government. It was only after the fall of the Soviet bloc that his son managed to get the memoirs published. The book provides a stark portrait of life and death in wartime Poland.
Dispatches
Radio One: 7:30 pm (8 pm NT)
A Special edition of Dispatches: with reports from our CBC News Foreign correspondents. Can songs be so dangerous as to be banned? Connie Watson reports on Mexico's "Narco Corridos", a genre of song which glamorize drug traffickers and crime, so much so that some Mexican authorities are trying to get them off the radio. And Margaret Evans visits Syria to report on how the government fears the growth of blogging so much it's clamping down already.
Global Village
Radio One: 8 pm (8:30 pm NT)
Censor This! Doc. Music is so potent that its very essence propels so many people to attempt to harness its powers. Censor This! is a feature documentary written and produced by Bruce Edwards, Ann MacKeigan and Susanne Reber. The hour-long program takes the listener on a sonic tour around the world from the street bazaars of Istanbul to the townships of South Africa, from the conflict zones of Beirut and Rwanda to North American popular music of the 20th century. Through the strength of music and powerful narratives, the documentary explores the duality, which allows music to be both frightening and seductive to those in power positions. Musicians and censors are still coming into conflict, as they always have.
Censor This! will also be re-broadcast on Radio Two on March 3rd to mark an international day of music and censorship.
Iranian Sisters (Runs:
1:29) Play: Real Media »
In Performance
Radio Two: 8 pm (8:30 pm NT)
From George Weston Recital Hall in Toronto, Persian classical music with expatriate Iranian singer Parissa and the Dastan Ensemble. This concert could not be performed in Iran today by a solo female singer and a group of male musicians.
