Olympic Countdown - The London Philharmonic Orchestra is to record the national anthems of all 205 countries participating in the 2012 Olympics. Composer, conductor and cellist Philip Sheppard will take charge of the recordings, which will be played at the medal and welcoming ceremonies. Recording starts in May at London's Abbey Road Studios. It will take the musicians at least 50 recording hours over six days to finish the project.
Each anthem had to be up to a minute in duration and Mr Sheppard said it was a challenge to condense them."Uruguay is about six-and-a-half minutes long, so there comes a point where one has to chop it down, without offending the country in question," he told the BBC. "But Uganda is only nine bars, so I had to come up with a way of making it last longer without it being repetitive."
Glastonbury Final Line-Up - Plan B, Tinie Tempah and Laura Marling are on the full list of acts announced for this year's Glastonbury Festival. They join the likes of headliners U2, Coldplay and Beyonce who are set to play at Worthy Farm in June. Other acts on the bill include Pendulum, Paolo Nutini, Metronomy, Two Door Cinema Club and Wu Tang Clan, who will all play the main stage.
The Vaccines, The Kills, Chipmunk, White Lies, Kaiser Chiefs and Jessie J are all lined up for the Other Stage. Morrissey will make his Glastonbury return when he warms up the Pyramid Stage ahead of U2 on the opening night of the festival, 27 years after his first appearance there.The Chemical Brothers, Mumford and Sons, Primal Scream, Fleet Foxes and Friendly Fires have already been announced.
Farewell - Tributes have been paid to Sidney Harman who has died aged 92. With a work colleague, Bernard Kardon, and $10,000 capital, Harman went into business in 1953 and developed the world's first integrated hi-fi system. The Harman Kardon unit had a handsome wooden case that made it look more like a piece of furniture than the assortment of metal boxes with dials, knobs and messy wires that audio enthusiasts usually endured. But the unit had more than just looks; it also sounded better. "We knocked the hell out of them," Harman recalled. "Nobody had heard anything like that in his living room."
(Jim Evans)
