Breakfast Show’s Nick Grimshaw

DJ Nick Grimshaw and chart stars Rizzle Kicks have been lined up to host a pair of new music shows for Channel 4.

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Classical Music: Perfect vehicle for a family of four

Bath Festival Contemporary Music Weekend

Basketball: Bullets' pair still helping each other out

When H L Coleman and Chris Haslam were room-mates at University at Wyoming, it was the American Coleman who steered the young English student through the adjustment to an alien culture. Now they are room- mates again and team-mates with the Birmingham Bullets, but it is the 6ft 11in Haslam who is helping Coleman to find his feet, and shooting touch, in a foreign land.

Letter: Hiss and boo the musical purists

Hiss and boo the musical purists

Letter: Applause that spoils the Proms

Sir: Michael Varcoe-Cocks (letter, 14 August) defends the right of enthusiastic but inexperienced concert-goers to applaud between movements.

Letter: Monkee jibe

I attended the Monkees' concert in Manchester and can understand the reluctance of the organisers to continue to give out press tickets ("Cries and Whispers", Real Life, 23 March). The concert was entertaining, lively, and thoroughly enjoyed by the audience and the Monkees finished to a standing ovation. Two days later a less than lukewarm review appeared in the local paper.

reviews: Kaddish

Billed as a multi-media spectacle, this monumental testament of the Jewish experience is actually a thematic, hi-tech concert by the tellingly named Towering Inferno, with huge back projections depicting the march of Fascism and the attempted destruction of a race. Whether you'd get the theme without the visuals is debatable, but either way the music is ear-splittingly intense. One moment avant-garde, the next a haunting lament, all the while punctuated by ferocious martial drumming. The overall effect isn't that far away from the path Test Department and Laibach have been thundering along for the past 15 years, though with less posturing and a less ambiguous intent.

Letter: Encore!

Sir: Now that the promenade concert season is with us again I would like to know why home orchestras at concerts in London rarely, if ever, play encores - no matter how enthusiastically their performance has been received. Visiting foreign orchestras can be relied upon to continue to entertain with two or three additional pieces at the end of the published programme.

Music: RAVI SHANKAR Barbican, London / SHIVA NOVA Purcell Room, London

Saturday's Ravi Shankar concert saw the Barbican foyer packed with fans - sitting, laughing, strolling or nibbling samosas - while, inside the hall, warm stage-lighting revealed a large Indian rug, a wispy trail of incense and a modest array of microphones. Up on stage came two girls with bass and treble tamporas (small sitars that set a tonally unchanging drone), Partho Sarathy and his lute-like sarod, Sukhvinder Singh and Bikram Ghosh - fast-fisted tabla-players who could have given Gene Krupa a run for his money - and the 14-year-old Anoushka Shankar, a beautiful if passive presence, here making her European debut.

LETTER: Decade of change

From Mr Paul M. Pearson

TICKET OFFER: HENRY WOOD PROMS

The Centenary Season of the BBC Henry Wood Proms opens on Friday with a record 70 concerts. On 25 July, at the Royal Albert Hall, Pierre Boulez conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers in a concert of 20th-century classics with music by Bartok, Debussy and Messiaen. The concert will also include Boulez's Le Soleil des Eaux with American soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson.

Perfectly balanced concert by the Brindisi Quartet

Music:BRINDISI QUARTET / ELLIOTT CARTER;Aldeburgh Festival

Letter: Dial M for music

Sir: Your leader 'Future is culture fed through cable' (20 June) took my mind back 70 years to the days when we listened to concerts via the telephone wires on my grandfather's electrophone. He would ask the exchange to put him through to the concert hall and we listened on headphones that were kept in a wooden box like a lady's workbox.

Upbeat: Late love

Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini has had to wait 80 years for its second UK outing - in a concert performance by the Chelsea Opera Group tonight in the QEH. Based on Gabriele d'Annunzio's Dantesque drama, the opera tells of Francesca's doomed love affair with her tyrant husband's brother Paolo. Covent Garden gave the UK premiere in July 1914, five months after its Turin prima. So why the wait? 'It's the sort of music the British get snotty about,' says Hannah Francis, tonight's Francesca. 'You know, Hollywood Bowl stuff. But it's absolutely glorious, unbelievably romantic. This may be a concert performance, but you can't just stand there - you have to act.'

Briefly: Musical memories

Anne Shelton - the forces' youngest sweetheart during the Second World War - will lead the London Docklands D-Day Commemorative concert at Cabot Hall, Canary Wharf, on 6 June.
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Johnny Marr talks relationships and reunions

He's worked with Modest Mouse, the Pet Shop Boys and Beck, to name a few, and recently released his first solo album. So why, wonders Johnny Marr, do people still hark on about The Smiths?
After the flood: From Haiti to Britain, one man has captured the devastation of our increasingly deluged lands

In pictures: After the flood

From Haiti to Britain, one man has captured the devastation of our increasingly deluged lands
Death becomes her: Meet the very modern mortician who champions 'cool' funerals

Death becomes her: A very modern mortician

Ever considered baking a loved one's remains into a cake or putting their ashes in fireworks? If so, talk to Caitlin Doughty, champion of the alternative death industry.
How long can the 'Keep Calm' trend carry on?

How long can the 'Keep Calm' trend carry on?

At first it seemed clever and cute. Then the 'Keep Calm' motif went mad, spawning endless offshoots.
The man who built Brum: A lament for the demise of John Madin's Brutalist Birmingham

John Madin: The man who built Brum

The architect's buildings were supposed to leave an indelible, futuristic mark on his beloved hometown but they are now being inexorably torn down.
School of chop: Learning the art of butchery at the Ginger Pig

School of chop: Learning the art of butchery

How do you butcher a lamb? Or make Mexican street food in a British kitchen? Christopher Hirst finds out.
James Pembroke: The man who's eaten everywhere

The man who's eaten everywhere

Few people know more about restaurants than James Pembroke, who only spent five mealtimes at home during his entire childhood.
A Berliner in 1963 – but did John F Kennedy once admire Adolf Hitler?

A Berliner in 1963 – but did John F Kennedy once admire Adolf Hitler?

The young JFK praised 'superior' Nordic races during visits to Germany
Banned Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof to attend Cannes Film Festival 2013, his first public appearance since prison

Banned Iranian director to attend Cannes Film Festival

Mohammad Rasoulof to make his first public appearance since being imprisoned three years ago
Seeing the larger picture: Inspiring images of space

Seeing the larger picture: Inspiring images of space

An exhibition explores images how photography has shaped astronomy
Eat Spam and carry on: Wartime pamphlets could teach us a thing or two about healthy, thrifty eating

Eat Spam and carry on

Wartime pamphlets could teach us a thing or two about healthy, thrifty eating
Facial hair: Cat beards and the purrrsuit of excellence

Facial hair

Cat beards and the purrrsuit of excellence
The 10 Best salt and pepper sets

The 10 Best salt and pepper sets

Whether they're for everyday use or to make your dining table look just right, it's worth getting a stylish shaker...
Ferran Soriano: Predicting success if Manchester City 'vision' is followed

Ferran Soriano: Predicting success if Manchester City 'vision' is followed

Chief executive says trophies will come if a 'core' of suitable players is in place
Thomas Müller: We couldn't handle losing a Champions League Final again

Thomas Müller: We couldn't handle losing a Champions League Final again

The Bayern Munich forward tells Tim Rich his side have to shed chokers' tag after two recent final defeats