Monday night was an exciting night for Folded Wing and the rest of the radio industry, it was of course the 2013 Sony Radio Academy Awards.

Folded Wing were delighted to be nominated in the “Music Radio Broadcaster Of The Year” category for Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2.

Jamie and the Folded Wing team all headed down to the Grosvenor House Hotel for the awards, suitably dressed up for the night! Jamie also played at the event and caused a bit of a stir on the red carpet when he decided to turn the tables on the press!

Here’s the photo from Jamie’s view

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The first half saw a performance from Robbie Williams and the first awards. Radio 1′s Dan and Phil walked away winners of this years first ever “Sony Golden Headphones Awards”. Danny Baker took an award for “Best Entertainment Programme” for his weekend show on 5 Live,  only a few months after leaving his BBC London slot! John Humphrys collected an award for Radio Journalism Of The Year for his interview with former BBC Director General, George Entwistle, John made a lovely tribute to the former DG in his acceptance speech.

The Folded Wing team were particularly happy to see The Listening Project take away a bronze award for “Best Speech Programme”, a project that we all particularly admire and love.

It was also fantastic to see Steve Lamacq walk away with his FIRST EVER Sony award. He was presented with a special award for his 20 years of service to radio, an award that is thoroughly deserved!

Robbie Williams performing at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2013

Following a performance from The Saturdays it was soon time for the second half of the awards featuring the category we were particularly interested in “Music Radio Broadcaster Of The Year”. Unfortunately Jamie didn’t win an award, but the whole team were delighted to see Cerys Matthews take the Gold. Cerys is an outstanding broadcaster and produces a show that we all love and listen to a lot!

Although a cliché we were incredibly happy just to be nominated in the 3rd year of doing the show with Jamie and we received some brilliant feedback from the judges…..

Jamie has become an accomplished broadcaster as well as a much loved musician. He wears his knowledge and respect lightly to deliver a show of fantastic music with energy and enthusiasm.

Folded Wing’s table number, the lucky number 68!

The second half of the awards saw Christian O’Connell win his 10th award in 10 years and Eddie Mair win “Speech Radio Broadcaster Of The Year”. Radio 4′s The Today Programme picked up “Breakfast Show Of The Year” and after a superb year with the Olympics and Paralympics, BBC Radio 5 Live won “UK Station Of The Year” .

There was also a lovely moment when Metro Radio won “Station Of The Year (1m+)”  as Programme director Chris Pegg spoke of his delight at finally winning an award after years of turning up and leaving empty handed.

It was also fantastic to see so many UK indies represented in the awards and many of them taking awards away too! And to see National Prison Radio in a couple of categorys was a great reward for the work that they do!

All in all it was a lovely night and we had a few drinks afterwards in celebration of our nomination and a wonderful evening, topped off when Jamie Cullum performed to close this years ceremony!

You can listen to some highlights of the awards here…

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1391139-sonys-2013-highlights

Congratulations to everyone that won an award and we hope to see you next year!

FW

Jamie along with some of the Folded Wing team headed down on Friday morning to Cheltenham to record some interviews, videos and tracks to be played out on Jamie’s special Cheltenham Jazz Festival highlights show which aired last night on BBC Radio 2!

You can check out some of the backstage photo’s of Jamie and the Folded Wing team here!

The team set up and managed to track down two of Jamie’s favourite artists for interviews; the legend that is Georgie Fame and the fantastic Laura Mvula.

Georgie joined Jamie at the Hammond Organ to talk all about his long illustrious career and reminisced about those famous days at the Flamingo Club. The interview was played out last night on the show but was also filmed, you can watch the interview on the BBC Radio 2 website or right here!

Jamie was also joined outside in the sunshine by the wonderful and extremely talented Laura Mvula, they talked all about the influences that Laura grew up with and looked upon the whirlwind that her career has been caught up in  at the moment!

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Alongside interviews with Laura and Georgie, we also managed to get hold of some live tracks from the festival recorded by BBC Radio 2 from Madeleine Peyroux and of course Georgie Fame himself, who also celebrated his 70th year with a special performance live from the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on BBC Radio 2′s Friday Night Is Music Night which you can hear back on the iPlayer. There was also a very special performance from Jamie and Laura at the festival performing ‘Sad Sad World’, which you can see a clip of on the BBC Radio 2 website. All of this was featured on last nights Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2 Cheltenham Highlights special which you can hear here!

Listen back to last nights Cheltenham Highlights special of Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2

And if you enjoyed that show why not tune in next Tuesday at 7pm where Jamie will have GoGo Penguin in session!

FW

This week we thought we would treat you to a little preview of a special interview Jamie Cullum did recently with his favourite pianist, Ahmad Jamal! The interview will feature on Jamie’s show next Tuesday 16^th April on BBC Radio 2 at 7pm.

Jamie sits down with Ahmad Jamal at the Piano at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios where they talk about his childhood growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the incredible artists that have come out of the city.

Ahmad Jamal also talks about learning the piano from an early age and even plays a childhood favourite of his, listen to the clip below to find out what it is!

They discuss how his improvisational style has evolved, his experience playing in big bands and his feelings on being sampled by hip-hop artists.

He also talks about working on his legendary Poinciana album at the Pershing Hotel nightclub.

Ahmad Jamal also talks about what it’s been like composing more new material than ever before and describes the process of making his new Grammy Award Nominated album, Blue Moon.

So tune in next Tuesday 16^th April at 7pm – definitely an interview not to be missed!

The Etymology of Entomology aired last Saturday 9th March and was our first documentary for BBC Radio 4!

Presented by zoologist and broadcaster Dr. George McGavin and produced by Andrea Rangecroft, the half hour programme looks at the unusual and often very funny names that scientists give to insects.

From a rare Australian horse fly named after the singer Beyonce to a trio of slime mould beetles called Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi and Agathidium rumsfeldi after the Bush administration, we met the entomologists behind the names and found out from the organisation that lays down the rules, the ICZN, just why these strange names can’t be changed.

Max Barclay and Dr. George McGavin in the Natural History Museum’s entomology collection

Folded Wing and George went on a journey across the UK to capture content for the documentary. We started at the Natural History Museum in London where we met Max Barclay, the Curator of Beetles and True Bugs. Max showed us the tiny beetle named in honour of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s as well as the largest beetle in the world, Titanus giganteus.

Titanus giganteus

George worked at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History for 35 years so we went down there next to talk to his former colleague Darren Mann about some of their specimens. Darren showed us the oldest pinned insect in the world, the Bath White butterfly, as well as some dung beetles with names like sordidus and putridus. He and George then compared the number of insects they’ve got named after them. (George has five!)

The Bath White butterfly (centre)

Darren Mann shows Dr. George McGavin insects specimens in the Hope Entomological Collections at Oxford

At London Zoo we were introduced to the Head of Invertebrates, Dave Clarke, who told us about the importance of correctly identifying the right hissing cockroach when it comes to conservation. Have a listen to find out what a hissing cockroach sounds like.

I think the highlight for George was going down into the strong room in the basement of The Linnean Society in London to see the original collections and personal library of the great Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. Here we met Mike Fitton who looks after the insect collection. Mike pulled out some specimens that were pinned by Linnaeus himself in the 1700s and showed us Linnaeus’ own copy of his seminal work Systema Naturae, the book that laid down the system of classification that we still use for all living organisms today.

Mike Fitton and a first edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae

We’re really pleased that the programme has been chosen as Radio 4′s Documentary of the Week which means that it will still be available to download for a week after it comes off of the iPlayer.

We have also had some great press around the programme including being chosen as Radio Times’ top 5 shows of the week and being used as an example of how speech radio has grown more intelligent in The Sunday Times!

The BBC’s own Science and Environment online section featured an article on the topic and we also had write ups in The Saturday Times, The Daily Mail and The Metro. Not forgetting a whole host of blog posts from our contributors including Quentin Wheeler from International Institute For Species Exploration, a brilliantly detailed blog by Beulah Garner at the Natural History Museum in London and a piece by Rachel Parle at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History as well as a post on their Hope Entomological Collections blog.

Team Insect (L-R – Dr. George McGavin, Ian Parkinson, Andrea Rangecroft, Micky Curling)

Thanks to everyone who was involved in the programme.

A nice pic of Joe Banfi recording his session in the Folded Wing studio for The Selector for The British Council.

Listen to the session, plus a mix from Kahn, and loads more great new UK music on this week’s Selector show here >

Folded Wing’s next documentary ‘D.A.N.C.E.O.N – The Story of Ed Banger Records’ is aired next Monday 17 September at 9pm on BBC Radio 1.

Before then we thought we’d let you see behind the scenes of the making of the documentary. We went to Paris to meet Ed Banger’s founder Pedro Winter, aka. Busy P, to find out the real story behind the label.

At the offices we also met Ed Banger’s DJ Feadz who let us in on some secrets about his ex-girlfriend and label mate Uffie.

Ed Banger’s Art Director So-Me drew a great piece of artwork exclusively for the programme in his usual colourful style.

Then to round up the visit in true Ed Banger style, we went to a club night called Reverie where Ed Banger DJs Mr Oizo and Feadz battled it out with Boys Noize Records.

The next day we caught up with Radio France’s Laura Leishman to find out her anecdotes from the club night.

The Story of Ed Banger Records is presented by Annie Mac and produced by Andrea Rangecroft. It also features interviews with Erol Alkan, Todd Terry, A-Trak and Sebastien Tellier.

As well as the documentary, Annie Mac has an Ed Banger minimix from Busy P on her show this Friday.

You can also listen to clips from the documentary below.

This week Jamie Cullum has two beautiful session tracks from Norwegian singer/songwriter Ane Brun.

Ane recorded them at BBC Maida Vale with her full live band – check out the photos!

Join Jamie tomorrow from 7pm on BBC Radio 2 to hear which songs Ane recorded.

On this week’s Selector Goldierocks has an awesome mix from British hip hop maestro Jehst. Co-founder of the label YNR, the elusive rapper is not one to make a mix for just anyone so we’re thrilled to have him on this week’s show.

Listen to a clip from Jehst’s mix.

tune-yards were in session this week on Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio 2 show. Influenced by afro-beat, jazz and traditional folk, the group has two saxophonists together with live voice and drum looping –  an amazing group to witness live!

Here are some great pictures from the session at BBC Maida Vale. Check out Merrill Garbus’ selection of loop pedals!

Catch up with the show until 20th August 2012 on BBC iPlayer.

This week Jamie is joined by Ben Lamdin from one of his favourite electronic jazz acts Nostalgia 77. The pair chat about Ben’s journey from his record collecting beginnings, to using those found sounds to create his own music, and going on to work with some of the best names in UK jazz.

Ben also shares an exclusive first listen of a new Nostalgia 77 track fresh from the studio!

Tune in to BBC Radio 2 on 7th August 2012 to hear full interview. Until then listen to the clip below.