91Èȱ¬

As part of a week-long series of programmes from Scotland, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3's Lunchtime Concert partners with the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama to present four live concerts featuring acclaimed international artists. All concerts come live from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (Tuesday 2 to Friday 5 March 2010).

On 2 March at 1.00pm one of the RSAMD's most famous alumni, soprano Lisa Milne, is joined by Iain Burnside at the piano.

On 3 March at 1.00pm the inspirational young violinist Nicola Benedetti, whose meteoric success has made her a household name, makes her Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert debut as a recitalist, performing Prokofiev's Sonata No.1 and the much-loved Franck Sonata.

The Hebrides Ensemble, based in Edinburgh, perform an exciting mix of new, 20th and 21st century chamber music on 4 March at 1.00pm and rounding off the week of live lunchtimes, French-Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin performs one of Liszt's greatest works for solo piano, the Sonata No.1 in B minor, in a programme which also includes Berg's Piano Sonata and Faure's Nocturne No. 6 in D flat (5 March, 1.00pm).

The series of Radio 3 programmes from Scotland start on Friday 26 February when Sean Rafferty presents Radio 3's drivetime programme In Tune live from the stage of the Grand Hall of Glasgow City Halls, home of the 91Èȱ¬ Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Music will be provided by the orchestra, its Associate Guest Conductor Stefan Solyom and Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti. Nicola will be playing a piece From Ayrshire by composer James MacMillan and joining the orchestra in the Scherzo from Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un lieu cher.

The show opens in true Scottish fashion with Alexander MacKenzie's Overture The Cricket On The Hearth, and there's From The Scottish Highlands by Cecil Coles – the young Scottish composer killed by German sniper fire on the Western Front while on active service during the First World War.

There will be well known classics too, such as Mozart's D major Divertimento for strings K.136, Sibelius's Karelia Suite and Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

Later the same day (26 February) Mary Ann Kennedy introduces a special World On 3 programme from her own studio at home in Scotland's Western Highlands, with sessions from two generations of Scottish musicians: Sandy Wright, a veteran singer who is now being acclaimed as one of the country's finest undiscovered songwriters, and The Bevvy Sisters, fronted by three Edinburgh singers who share a passion for Americana, vintage rarities and original songwriting.

Jazz Line-Up, the weekly Radio 3 show produced in Scotland, returns to the award-winning Jazz Bar in Edinburgh (to be broadcast 28 February) to feature international bassist Martin Zenker, with his international group.

In the same programme Jazz Line-Up also presents Edinburgh pianist Dave Patrick with drummer Bill Kyle (owner of the Jazz Bar), 91Èȱ¬ Radio Scotland award-winning jazz bassist Andy Robb and saxophonist Sam Coombs.

Afternoon On 3 comes live from Scotland on 4 March when the 91Èȱ¬ Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze perform Brahms – Tragic Overture and Symphony No 1 – and Schumann – Piano Concerto – with soloist Angela Hewitt.

Performance On 3 also broadcasts a week of concerts recorded in Scotland (1 to 5 March).

In a concert broadcast on 1 March (recorded on 25 February at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall) listeners can hear the UK broadcast premiere of Guillaume Connesson's A Glimmer In The Age of Darkness, and Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky joins the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Stephane Deneve to perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.3.

The concert on Tuesday 2 March begins with a short work by young Swedish composer Benjamin Staern and ends with Shostakovich's epic Tenth Symphony, performed by the 91Èȱ¬ Scottish Symphony Orchestra with conductor Stefan Solyom and features young Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti in Sibelius's passionate concerto (recorded on 25 February 2010 at Glasgow City Halls).

Giles Havergal's production of Donizetti's popular comic opera L'Elisir d'amore featuring the Scottish Opera and conducted by Francesco Corti is broadcast on 3 March (recorded on 28 November 2009 at Edinburgh Festival Theatre).

Thursday's Performance On 3 (4 March) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Scottish Ensemble, welcoming back their former Artistic Director Clio Gould, who joins fellow violinist Jonathan Morton in Bach's Double Violin Concerto. Students from the RSAMD join the Ensemble in Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis as part of the Ensemble's "Side by Side" project.

Rounding off the week (5 March) Robin Ticciati conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and soloists including Karen Cargill (mezzo-soprano) and Matthew Rose (baritone) in Berlioz's dramatic masterpiece, L'Enfance du Christ – a biblical narrative following the Holy Family as they flee from Herod to safety in Egypt (recorded 4 February 2010 at Usher Hall, Edinburgh).

Also as part of Radio 3's focus on Scotland, Music Matters records a show in Glasgow (to be broadcast on 6 March) in which Tom Service brings together Scottish performers including mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill and soprano Lisa Milne to talk about the experience of performing in front of a home crowd. Also the newly installed principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Robin Ticciati – a Londoner in his mid-twenties – discusses his plans for the ensemble in cities across Scotland.

Music Matters also looks at the role of the bagpipe in Scottish life and how the pipes, which are played across the world, have become inextricably linked with a nation's identity.

In other Radio 3 speech programming Night Waves Landmark (to be broadcast on 3 March) is in Edinburgh to examine a book set in the city that is hailed as one of the true greats of world literature – James Hogg's The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner.

Night Waves presenter Matthew Sweet and guests discuss a book with so many dimensions it has been described as the ultimate unclassifiable novel. Published anonymously in 1824 it is a hugely influential thriller with a psychological element, a political dimension and a religious spin. As writer Ian Rankin has noted without it there would be no Dr Jekyll or Miss Jean Brodie but it "seems as fresh as the day it was written – and more relevant than ever."

This week's Words And Music (28 February) explores Scottish landscape and history. Jimmy Yuill and Stella Gonet read poems and prose by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sorley MacLean, Edwin Muir, Muriel Spark, John Burnside, George Mackay Brown and Robert Crawford.

The music reflects Scotland's rich heritage with work from Scottish composers and musicians including James MacMillan, Judith Weir, Tommy Smith, Thea Musgrave, Aly Bain and Jean Redpath as well as from the many composers like Mendelssohn, Arvo Part and Max Bruch who have been inspired by Scotland.

Finally, The Verb (5 March) broadcasts a show recorded in Glasgow. Ian McMillan's guests are the novelist Louise Welsh, with a brand-new commission written specially for the programme, and the poet and dramatist Liz Lochhead, who'll be treating listeners to a reading of her latest work.

TH2