Trust call to end music dispute

1 January 2013 Last updated at 09:14 GMT BBC Cymru Wales says a substantial offer was turned down but the body representing the musicians says it wants a 'fair price for Welsh music' The BBC Trust has urged both sides in a dispute over royalty payments to Welsh language musicians to reach a "fair and affordable" settlement.

Talks between the BBC and Eos, the body representing more than 300 artists, have stalled as the 1 January deadline takes effect.

From New Year's Day, Radio Cymru loses the right to to play over 30,000 songs.

BBC Cymru Wales says a substantial offer was turned down but Eos says it wants a "fair price for Welsh music".

The right to broadcast the songs of more than 300 Welsh-language musicians and music publishers will rest with Eos from 1 January.

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I urge both parties to reach a fair and affordable settlement so that Radio Cymru can quickly return to providing its usual comprehensive and much loved service”

End Quote Elan Closs Stephens BBC National Trustee for Wales The BBC Trust - the BBC's governing body which is independent of the corporation's management - said it was in nobody's interest for the dispute to continue.

BBC National Trustee for Wales Elan Closs Stephens said: "I urge both parties to reach a fair and affordable settlement so that Radio Cymru can quickly return to providing its usual comprehensive and much loved service."

If an agreement is not reached, the station will broadcast programmes with a number of changes from Tuesday.

'Very disappointed'

Daily output will be reduced by two hours, as the station will start broadcasting an hour later in the morning at 06:30 GMT, finishing an hour early at 23:00 GMT.

Daytime playlists will include popular classical and instrumental music, as well as a number of English language and international artists.

The C2 evening programmes - which showcase new Welsh music - will be cut to an hour.

BBC Cymru Wales said in a statement it was "very disappointed" an agreement had not been reached and Radio Cymru programmes would be affected.

"Radio Cymru's commitment to support and develop Welsh music is a longstanding one - and we have listened carefully to the concerns of Welsh language composers and artists during this dispute," the statement said.

"Both the BBC and Eos want to ensure that a fair outcome is achieved - and it is a fair outcome for all parties that we will be focusing on when further talks with Eos take place next week."

The dispute arose from a change by the Performing Rights Society (PRS) in 2007 which many Welsh language artists claim cut their royalty payments by as much as 85%.

Since then, an alliance of Welsh musicians and composers have sought to improve the payments made by broadcasters, launching a new agency in August this year to handle the licensing of their work.

'Lack of respect'

From Tuesday the rights to music by 331 artists will transfer from PRS to Eos, requiring radio and TV stations to make agreements with the new agency to continue using music by those artists.

Eos chair Gwilym Morus has said it was a "shame that the BBC have chosen to damage the national radio service because they are unwilling to pay a fair price for Welsh music".

He said he did not want any more harm done to Radio Cymru because both the station and the musicians shared the same audience.

"Regretfully I believe the BBC in London is showing a lack of respect towards their own staff in Wales and towards Welsh culture," he said.

On Saturday the Welsh-language TV station S4C confirmed it had reached agreement with Eos over the use of its artists' music.

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Billy Connolly: 'I'm 37!'

1 January 2013 Last updated at 06:12 GMT Watch Billy Connolly: "Dying is easy but staying alive is quite difficult."

In his latest film role, Billy Connolly plays a womanising former opera star.

Quartet, set in a nursing home for retired opera singers, features a host of British stars including Dame Maggie Smith, Sir Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Sir Michael Gambon and Sheridan Smith.

The film marks the directorial debut of Hollywood actor Dustin Hoffman, who describes the story as being about people in their "third act".

Comedian Connolly, 70, talks about Hoffman's skills behind the camera, and how he was made to look older to play the role of Wilf.

Didn't Dustin Hoffman think you looked a bit youthful?

I'm the right age, but I don't look wrinkly and I don't have a comb-over and I'm not bald. Being hairy and bearded, I didn't fit - but, at the end of the day, they put me through the wrinkle machine.

Wilf is a horny old guy, trying to stay alive. He's single and he's randy and he would like a cuddle from time to time, and there's nothing wrong with that, I think.

How did Dustin Hoffman get you involved in the film?

I actually thought we were going to do [Samuel Beckett play] Waiting for Godot. I'd read it and found it impenetrable and then I went to see it in London and loved it, so I couldn't wait. When I met Dustin in LA after Route 66 [TV documentary] he said: 'Are you on the same number? I've got a thing for you' - and I thought 'This is it - this is Godot.'

He was waiting for Albert Finney [to play Wilf] but Albert wasn't very well, so he came to me, which was a great compliment. He wrinkled me up and off we went!

What is it like being directed by an actor?

It's much better than being directed by writers. Most of them rightly think their words are carved in marble, and they obviously think it's important you get all the commas in the right place. An actor doesn't normally think that - he can see shortcuts to making the point. When you get an actor as director you get the best of both worlds.

What is the overall message of the film?

Stay young. Me? I'm 37! I haven't changed my attitude to things since I was 37. I like asking people what age they think they are - some of them are 28, and 34, and some are 40. Stay there! That's when you were happy and healthy. Stay there and it'll do you good. It'll feed you and keep you alive.

Dying is easy. You just lie down, but staying alive is quite difficult - you have to stay interested and stay in touch with everything.

Who do you think will be the audience for this film?

Now that I have no idea. When people hear "old" and "old folks' home" they might stay away from it. That part of the movie company is going to have to work very, very hard to get the audience because the people who come and see it all love it - and they are all ages.

Do you detect a change in the film industry about the portrayal of older characters?

I think it's all about carrying Maggie Smith shoulder high! I think she's going to single-handedly save the old actors of the world.

I think people are getting back to the old way of making movies. If you look at the movies of the 1930s and 40s there's no young people in them. And then in the 50s they invented this thing called the teenager and stuck him in everything.

It became the norm to have that kind of person as the lead - and the more mature actor in the background. But I think they are getting back to making movies that resemble life pretty generally.

Quartet is out in the UK on 1 January 2013.

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VIDEO: A Roman view of new year

1 January 2013 Last updated at 06:54 GMT Help

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What are the big albums of 2013?

Page last updated at 01:37 GMT, Tuesday, 1 January 2013

2012 was about touring for Gaga. Her globe-straddling Born This Way jaunt grossed an impressive £77 million according to figures compiled by Billboard. But she's also been working on her third album, ARTPOP. She says it'll be best consumed as a "multimedia experience". The speed at which James Arthur scored his first no.1 suggests there's a huge appetite for new music from The X Factor 2012 winner. Fresh from being crowned he told us he'll have "complete creative control" over his debut. Jay-Z may be on baby-sitting duties in 2013, as Beyoncé readies her comeback. The star has already pencilled in a half-time performance at the Superbowl in February – a sure-fire hint that she wants to come back in a big way. Biffy Clyro's sixth studio album Opposites hits shelves in January. We say album, it’s actually two albums. An old skool double disc 22-track monster. Recorded in L.A, it could cement them as one of the UK's biggest rock acts. Having taken a break (five years) from making music in the mid-noughties Eminem is set to follow up 2010’s Recovery. His live tours are still few and far between, but he’s still seen by many as one of the biggest rappers on the planet. With rumours abound that Arcade Fire could headline a UK festival or two in 2013, they’ll return with their fourth album. Reports saying ex-LCD Soundsystem man James Murphy is producing make the prospect especially tantalising. Jessie J spent the second half of 2012 writing music for her second album. She’ll be back on BBC1 in the spring as a coach on The Voice but wants to have fresh material out in time for her rescheduled October headline arena tour. Californian sister-trio Haim caught the imagination of many music lovers in 2012 with tunes as bubbly as their personalities. After a couple of critically-acclaimed EPs, they’ll release their debut album in 2013. The very definition of prolific - based on her recent track record (four new albums in four years) you can almost guarantee Rihanna will come back with something new in 2013. She'll also embark on a huge world tour. With or without Robbie – Gary Barlow says he’s itching to get back in the studio to record new music with Take That. The challenge will be matching the record-breaking success that their 2011 Progress album brought them. Tinie Tempah had already named the follow up to Disc-overy by February 2012 (Demonstration) suggesting it would be out before too long. It never came - but that's only served to make his fans even more eager to hear new material. Surely it will come this year? Tips for success in 2013 don't come much hotter than 26-year-old Birmingham singer Laura Mvula. She'll release her debut album, Sing To The Moon, in March. She's already been compared to Amy Winehouse and Adele. The original Suga... sorry, new group Mutya Keisha Siobhan will release their debut soon. Ten years ago they were the first three members of a certain girl group. Now back together, they said: "All the fans wanted this to happen". 10 July 12Music

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BBC Sound of 2013: Laura Mvula

1 January 2013 Last updated at 07:35 GMT By Kev Geoghegan Entertainment reporter, BBC News Watch: Laura Mvula revisits Birmingham Conservatoire

Laura Mvula has come fourth on the BBC's Sound of 2013 new music list, which showcases emerging artists for the coming 12 months.

The list was compiled using tips from more than 210 music critics, DJs and bloggers. We are revealing one artist from the top five in reverse order every day until Friday, when the winner will be announced.

"When you open the paper and read things like 'the voice of 2013', it's a little bit daunting," says Laura Mvula.

The Birmingham singer's complex music compositions and beguiling, soulful voice have drawn comparisons with the likes of Amy Winehouse and Nina Simone.

Listening to her music has been likened by The Guardian newspaper to "hearing Billie Holiday with the Beach Boys".

As well as being on the Sound of 2013 list, Mvula also made the shortlist for this year's Brits Critics' Choice award, previously won by Florence and the Machine and Emeli Sande.

It is a little dizzying for someone who burst into tears the first time she heard her voice recorded as a child because she thought it sounded so bad.

"It's all very surreal for me, it doesn't feel like it sunk in yet," she says of being tipped for great things.

Early recording

Mvula (pronounced Mm-voola) was born into a musical family in Birmingham and was influenced "subconsciously" by a cappella vocal groups and her jazz-loving father.

"I definitely had a desire but it was just nurtured as I grew up," she says, before adding: "From a young age, I knew I wasn't particularly gifted."

Mvula's debut album Sing to the Moon is due out on 4 March

This is a self critical streak that emerges frequently in conversation.

"I recorded my voice on one of those children's tape players," she explains. "We were into Disney music and I sang A Whole New World. I was about eight, singing Princess Jasmine's part and I was literally crying, collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"I couldn't believe how ghastly I sounded."

Luckily, she got over the shock and started singing with her aunt's successful female choir Black Voice while in her teens.

However, she insists again that her voice won few fans, particularly during a tour of Italy and France where her natural alto range meant she performed many of the lead vocals.

"This is a totally true story, you can ask my auntie," she starts. "The French agent for Black Voices specifically asked 'that they not bring back the girl who sang alto because it was so awful.'"

Improvisation

She was nevertheless a talented young musician, learning to play the piano and violin, going on to study composition at Birmingham Conservatoire.

While many singer-songwriters come up with the lyrics and fit them round a melody, Mvula says she tends to work in reverse, improvising at the piano.

"I was surrounded by a lot of amazing composers and students and I felt a little inferior because I couldn't understand a lot of the compositions. In one session a lecturer told us to improvise at the piano and I found it a natural thing to do," she explains.

"Then the tutor said 'that's fantastic, that's what you should do much more of.'"

She admits lyrics are "secondary to me, not because they're not important but because I feel more of a connection with the harmony and the sounds I want to use".

But Mvula gets incredibly personal with her songs - the emotional intensity of her debut single She and its beautiful layering of her own voice is matched by her haunting performance of her song Father Father, which stylistically at least, evokes the spirit of Nina Simone.

She admits spending "hours watching videos of Nina Simone on YouTube".

The comparison is gratefully accepted by Mvula though she says she tends to find comparisons "a bit silly".

But as cool as it must have been to have grown up in a house surrounded by jazz, soul and blues, she admits that she was just as big a fan of '90s girl group Eternal, who - she insists - "were the greatest girl band who ever walked the face of the earth".

Mvula is currently putting the finishing touches to her debut album with Steve Brown, who mentored singer-songwriter Rumer, and Grammy-winning Tom Elmhirst, who has worked Adele and Amy Winehouse, and who she describes as "the real deal".

She says working with seasoned producer Brown "could have easily been disastrous for somebody like me, but with Steve, from the get go, he gave me very simple advice in my writing which was to follow my instincts".

Brown's influence on Mvula extends to her more personal songs such as the aforementioned Father Father.

Her parents split when she was young and Mvula says addressing her feelings in song "was a lifeline, without trying to sound overly dramatic".

She continues: "Without the songs that enable me to express the deepest pain, I'm not sure where else I would have put it all."

Performing 'nightmare'

Singing live is still a challenge for the young artist who has performed just a handful of shows.

"They've been a bloody nightmare but at the same time the most incredible things ever, I can't explain it," she says.

"I feel like I'm going to pass out before I go on and then when I'm on stage, I'll think, 'this is going to be over in a little bit, when are we going to do the next one?'.

"It feels so new to me and sometimes I'm a bit embarrassed because I'm so new and I don't know which way the microphone should go up and I'm rubbish at talking between songs and there's so much to learn.

"But at the same time, this is music that I care so much about and to have the opportunity to perform it live with fantastic musicians, it scares me but I love it."

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VIDEO: Films to look out for in early 2013

1 January 2013 Last updated at 01:04 GMT Help

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Libya rediscovers its hidden talent

31 December 2012 Last updated at 11:43 GMT By Rana Jawad BBC News, Tripoli Listen to Black Devil by The BlackForce

For decades, Libya appeared to be starved of talent. The entertainment industry is still virtually non-existent. But since the uprising that toppled the only man allowed to be famous in the country - Col Muammar Gaddafi - Libyans are leaving nothing to chance.

In a small music shop tucked in a street in central Tripoli, the owner is busily tuning a guitar.

Rows upon rows of instruments line the store's walls. The gleaming, colourful electric guitars are in a league of their own against other instruments, including the traditional darbuka (drum).

This is where a heavy metal band that recently re-grouped meets three times a week after sunset.

In the shop's basement, there is a small soundproofed room lined with many large speakers, and a shiny drum set. It is separated by a glass window from a recording studio.

Nasser, Saleh, Jallal and Adel make up The BlackForce, a band of middle-aged heavy metal enthusiasts now practising what they love.

They generally look like a polite version of stereotypical metalheads. You will not find anyone sporting leather trousers here.

Nasser al-Geedi has a voice ranging from deep and husky to high-pitched anarchy. He is the lead vocalist with chin-length greying hair - not a common site in Libya. His black electric guitar has tiny white skulls along its neck. He abuses its stings with a familiar ease.

Mystery Eyes, written and composed by al-Geedi in the 1980s, is a mix of a soft power ballad and ultra-fast electric beats.

At the end of the practice session, al-Geedi shouts: "Thank you, Las Vegas!" and an infectious round of laughter fills the cramped room.

This band represents a generation that felt it lost its voice decades ago.

Talent show

Saleh al-Khuweldi, the band's drummer, tells me they all met in the early 1980s and formed their group at a time when heavy metal was not really welcomed by people and government alike. They were limited to playing at some weddings and private gatherings.

"We played regularly in the 1980s, until the former regime [publicly] burnt all the musical instruments - that's when Western music became impossible in Libya," al-Khuweldi explains.

Nasser al-Geedi's voice ranges from husky to high-pitched anarchy

After Col Gaddafi was toppled, the band re-grouped and bought new instruments.

Al-Khuweldi proudly points to his drum set that has witnessed as much tribulations as he had.

"That's not new," he says, although its sheen could have fooled anyone.

"I hid it from the former regime when they went after all the instruments. They bothered us a lot, they would even cut off our electricity at home.

"Our goal now is to deliver the music that was buried here for a long time - everything we play was written and composed by us in the 1980s," he recalls.

But without proper distribution channels for local artists and no real music industry to speak of, that aspiration may still be a long way away.

It's not just the nostalgic older generation.

Tripoli's decrepit Soviet-style theatre hall was once known as The People's Hall and mostly used to declare unshakable allegiance to Col Gaddafi.

Earlier this year it was the venue for a public talent show where Libyans went to show off their skills at everything from freestyle football, abstract paintings and portraits of Hollywood and MTV celebrities, to singing about Islam.

The theatre gradually filled up with a curious public of men, women and children, including a young former fighter who told me: "I'm here to forget the war."

The novelty of events like this becomes glaringly obvious with all the system failures - and backstage and on-stage mayhem that drew a few laughs.

It resembled a primary school show with talent in its infancy stages.

Regardless, there was a sense of pride at the mere opportunity and ability to stage an event and showcase young talent like this now.

Art of humour

Suheib Tantoush, 17, studies law in Tripoli university.

His true passion however, lies in pencil and paper, and a tablet computer.

He breathes life and wisdom beyond his years into caricatures highlighting the political and social malaise in Libyan society.

"It's not any kind of drawing - it's what we call the art of humour, putting things in a sarcastic way."

One of the many sketches scattered in his bedroom shows a young boy asking his father:

"Daddy, what does Libya hurra mean? The father answers: "It's something Libyans say when they've done something wrong."

Libya hurra - meaning Libya is free - was the post-revolution mantra on the streets.

Tantoush explains that it is now being used as an excuse for everything.

His recurring theme is the Libyan youth "not accomplishing their goals in life".

"Just hanging in the street, not doing anything productive. Getting bored. I hope that mentality changes," he says in a mixed tone of sadness and optimism.

He says he would gladly give up law to pursue his true passion if mainstream avenues were created for his type of art.

'We had a dream'

Back in the recording studio, The BlackForce play on, seemingly revelling in the beat of a lost generation.

The lead vocalist is as passionate today as he was in his 20s.

"We had a dream - we had to play good music for Libyans and for the world," he says.

"I don't need to play my guitar and sing songs under pressure or under bad regimes, OK? I have to sing freely. That's why we feel now something like this - that's why we're going to start one more time. We like music and we want to play this music, that's all."

Libya does not have many famous voices, artists and poets.

But that could change, as a country that was robbed of creativity and passion for decades starts to rediscover its hidden talents.

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