Today’s radio

COMPOSER OF THE WEEK

12 NOON, RADIO 3 HHHH

Mary Lou Williams, a musical prodigy, grew up in Pittsburgh, where she was known as the

Little Piano Girl. By the time she was 13, she was working with Duke Ellington, and went on to become a highly regarded performer and composer. Today, we hear how a religious crisis led Mary Lou to take up charitable work and compose hymns and other sacred music.

OPEN COUNTRY

3PM, RADIO 4 HHH

Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol was built by the Victorians as a commercial venture, and designed to look like an Arcadian garden. It became the fashionable place for the wealthy to bury their dead, but then became neglected and overgrown. A campaign to save

Mary Lou Williams (12 noon, R3) the cemetery has successfully brought it back from ruin, without making it too tidy. Wildlife, as Helen Mark discovers in this programme, now flourishes there.

MARC RILEY

7PM, BBC 6 MUSIC HHHH The Canadian singer-songwriter Dana Gavanski, who is based in

Belgrade and Montreal, is on a tour of the UK. Her voice is soft and sweet and her songs, often a little melancholy, are beautifully crafted and produced. Dana joins Marc for this evening’s show, and gives a live set of her slightly psychedelic folk sound.

THE FULL WORKS CONCERT

8PM, CLASSIC FM HHHH

The English chamber orchestra called the Academy of St Martin in the Fields gave its first performance 60 years ago.

This concert from the Queen Elizabeth Hall celebrates the Academy’s anniversary. The violinist Joshua Bell directs the orchestra for a concert that includes Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto In E Minor, with Joshua as soloist, and ends with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. SJ