On 4 August 2020, a massive explosion destroyed the port of Beirut. It's impact was felt across the city, reaching the Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut (AUB). The pressure from the explosion shattered a glass display at the museum holding 74 glass vessels, mainly Roman with a few Byzantine and Islamic. The team at the AUB collected the shards from the floor, separated them and sent eight of the broken vessels to the UK. And so began the journey of collaboration between Lebanon and England to restore these ancient vessels at the British Museum. Janay Boulos, a Lebanese BBC News journalist, follows the journey of restoring these vessels and they become a symbol of Beirut, broken into pieces, scarred, and slowly being restored to its formal glory.

The award-winning South African tenor was a 2014 finalist in the prestigious Belvedere Singing Competition, considered one of the most important global opera showcases. He has since headlined festivals and has worked with many of the world’s top opera directors and conductors. For this In The Studio, actor and filmmaker Tara Gadomski is following Khanyiso for two, fast-paced weeks, as he rehearses for his United States’ debut, singing the title role in Rossini’s Otello at Opera Philadelphia. Discover how he learns the part and takes care of his voice, what it’s like to go from practicing on his own to working with the whole opera company and orchestra, not to mention singing the high C notes while still jet lagged!

Glass: a functional material and silent witness to our daily lives, so unnoticed we’re usually looking straight through it. But in Venice, glass is an art form, and Ai Weiwei’s latest work is designed to make you look. Having mastered many mediums – wood, marble, even social media - the artist-activist is now turning his hand to glass. Through a collaboration with Adriano Berengo, on the glass-making island of Murano, he’s creating an immense chandelier, made up of over 2000 glass bones, organs and other surprising objects. Set to be displayed at the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, La Commedia Umana is Ai’s attempt to “talk about death in order to celebrate life”. Join Alice McKee in Venice, speaking with Ai Weiwei and the Berengo Studios team, as she follows the life cycle of La Commedia Umana, from the furnace to the church.

For decades, illustrator Axel Scheffler has been keeping children and adults around the world entertained with his warm and witty illustrations, from the Gruffalo and Stick Man to worms with attitude, gobbly goats and smart giants. He has published more than 150 books, including collaborations with writer Julia Donaldson that have become modern-day classics, translated into dozens of languages and selling millions of copies. Axel was born in Hamburg in Germany and moved to the UK in his twenties, where he has been based ever since. We join him in his attic studio perched high above a leafy part of west London, where he is hard at work on his latest project. This one centres not on a fantastical creature with terrible teeth and terrible claws, but on a small, slightly scruffy dog who may or may not have played a role in the creation of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Writer and actor Dame Emma Thompson has conjured up the story and we eavesdrop on a rare conversation between the two - rare because Axel generally doesn’t collaborate directly with his writers. Axel also allows us to witness his unique process, from pencil sketch to finished illustration, as he creates a scene from the new book before our ears.

In the Studio follows Grammy-winning American composer Christopher Tin as he embarks on the creation of an ambitious new work. Based on poetry and inspired by folk music, The Lost Birds is a musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by humankind. Edwina Pitman follows Christopher through his composition process, his collaboration with the prolific British vocal ensemble VOCES8 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Lost Birds is an elegiac response to the noise of our times and a haunting tribute to those soaring flocks that once filled our skies, but whose songs have since been silenced.

Errollyn Wallen, the Belize born British composer, tells Antonia Quirke about the inspiration behind Lady Super Spy Adventurer, which is receiving its world premiere at the proms this year. And she invites her to the place where the piece was composed, a remote lighthouse on the Scottish coast. Errollyn made history when she became the first Black woman to have a work performed at the Proms. She tells Antonia about breaking down barriers, and how living in a lighthouse has influenced her music, and who exactly is Lady Super Spy Adventurer.

The opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London was heralded as one of the most spectacular and successful outdoor theatrical events in the world, watched by more than 3.8 billion people. The man behind it was Bradley Hemmings. Bradley is a festival director, and every year is responsible for putting on the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) in London. Now in its 27th year, he tells Anna Bailey about the key elements that make for a great and accessible outdoor event. Follow Bradley as he puts together the line-up for this year’s festival and coordinates the opening night. Collaborating with Jenny Sealey, his co-producer of the Paralympic Games, and with Peter Hudson, the artistic director behind Charon, a 32-foot-high rotating zoetrope as seen at The Burning Man Festival in America, and now one of the main attractions for this year’s GDIF in London.

Welcome to Cremona - city of the violin. These Italian streets are brimming with horse hairs, varnish and chiselled wood. The central square is lined with storefronts displaying beautifully handcrafted wooden instruments. Braimah Kanneh-Mason, concert violinist and member of the musically gifted Kanneh-Mason family, travels to where the Stradivarius was born. Braimah learns about the techniques used to replicate the world’s most famous stringed instruments in the workshop of world-class violin maker Daniele Tonarelli. It was in Cremona, 500 years ago, that Andrea Amati was credited with inventing the “modern” violin. In his footsteps came the likes of Nicola Amati, Guarneri “del Gesù” and, most famously, Antonio Stradivari, who all perfected their craft in this northern Italian city. Daniele is the latest in a long line of Cremonese luthiers. Braimah gets a taste of the age old recipe that created these musical masterpieces hundreds of years ago. It is still used today. Daniele shows Braimah his newest violin – just 20 days old. How does this youthful instrument feel in the young violinist’s hands, and – more importantly – how does it sound? Are today’s Cremonese luthiers living up to the legacy the great violin makers left behind?

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most iconic music venues in the world. And yet it was also known for less-than-perfect acoustics in the main concert hall. The sound was considered thin and scattered. The problem has taken two years and 150 million Australian dollars to fix, involving 174 tonnes of steel in the roof space alone. Regina Botros joins a team of experts as they enter the final stages of re-tuning the building, ready for an opening night concert where everything has to sound just right. Presented by Regina Botros. Executive produced by Stephen Hughes for the BBC World Service.

We journey with the internationally celebrated operatic conductor Carlo Rizzi as he revives Il proscritto after 180 years of neglect. Mercadante’s opera was first performed in Naples in 1842, and centres on a love triangle set in Scotland during Oliver Cromwell’s rule. The original cast were stellar performers, having previously taken lead roles in opera premieres by Verdi and Donizetti. The Neapolitans applauded Act One, but the following Acts were indifferently received, and Il proscritto fell into neglect. Complete with a newly edited score and world class performers, Luke Whitlock journeys with conductor Carlo Rizzi, artistic director of Opera Rara, as he prepares Il proscritto to be heard at the Barbican in London, after nearly 200 years of silence. From collaborating on a new performance edition, heading into the studio to record the opera for commercial release, to journeying to London’s Barbican to rehearse and perform the work before a 21st-century audience, this creative process has been a labour of love for Carlo Rizzi and Opera Rara. Image: Carlo Rizzi (Credit: Simon Weir)