Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Saturday Morning guests for 23 February 2008

8:12 Foreign Correspondent: Stephen Zunes on Kosovo

Dr Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco. During the 1990s, he was chair of the board of Peaceworkers, an American NGO which supports non-violent movements and peacemakers in areas of conflict, when its primary projects were in Kosovo. Dr Zunes is a frequent visitor to conflict areas, and returned last week from a visit to Serbia.

8:25 Jody Williams

Jody Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work in banning landmines. Since then she has gone on to form the Nobel Women's Initiative, and last year led a high level mission on Darfur, authoring a hard-hitting report to the United Nations' Human Rights Council calling for an end to the war in Darfur. In 2004 she was named by Forbes Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. She is visiting New Zealand for the Conference on Cluster Munitions.

9:05 Francois Girard

Canadian director Francois Girard is best known for his innovative 1993 film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. His 1998 film The Red Violin won 22 Canadian film awards and an Academy Award for Best Original Soundtrack. Girard is also an accomplished stage director, and brings a double bill production from the Opera National de Lyon to the 2008 New Zealand International Arts Festival on 23, 25 and 26 February. The Seven Deadly Sins and The Lindbergh Flight / The Flight Over the Ocean features music by Kurt Weill set to texts by Bertolt Brecht, exploring different aspects of the American dream. Francois Girard also gives a free art talk at the Festival on Sunday 24 February.

9:40 Art with Dr Dick Quan

Australian art collector and patron Dr Dick Quan has been called one Sydney's ten most influential art people. He is an AGNSW Contemporary Collection benefactor, former chair and VP of the Asia Australia Art Centre, and ambassador for MCA Sydney. His early support for art photography in the 1990s assisted the rise of artists Tracey Moffatt and Patricia Piccinini, and he is an enthusiastic supporter of new media art. Dr Quan is lending his edition of the three-channel video work, Last Riot, by the Russian contemporary artist collective AES+F (one of only three editions worldwide) for the exhibition AES+F: Last Riot at Wellington's City Gallery (to 16 June 2008).

10:05 Playing Favourites with Tony Rabbit

Tony Rabbit is a production, set and lighting designer for theatre and cinema. He designed the Auckland Theatre Company production of Where We Once Belonged, adapted by Dave Armstrong from the novel by Sia Figiel for the 2008 New Zealand International Arts Festival. He is also an enthusiastic promoter of the Segway personal transporter (see below).

11:10 Linda Shaw

Linda Shaw recently set aside a long career in corporate management to commit fulltime to her environmental and conservation message of "mecology" for New Zealand over the coming two decades.

11:35 Ursula Dubosarsky

Sydney-based author Ursula Dubosarsky has been writing prolifically for all levels of child readers since 1989. Her books include the 2003 psychological thriller Abyssinia (Viking, ISBN, 0-670-04109-2), and 2006's The Red Shoe (Viking, ISBN 1-74114-285-7), set in the 1950s. Her latest book, The Word Spy (Viking, ISBN-13: 9780670072279), is a non-fiction exploration of the wonders of the English language and will be published in March. Ursula Dubosarsky will be a guest of the 2008 New Zealand International Arts Festival during Writers and Readers Week from 11-16 March 2008.

Saturday Morning repeats

The Playing Favourites segment of the Saturday Morning programme is repeated at 4.06am on the Thursday morning following initial broadcast.

Music selections from Playing Favourites with Tony Rabbit

Artur Rubinstein: OP9 no 1 in B flat minor
From the album: The Chopin Collection: The Nocturnes
(RCA Red Seal)

Doris Day: Secret Love
From the compilation album: Best of Doris Day
(Harmony)

Jenny Wollerman: He Moemoea (A Dream)
From the live recording by Radio New Zealand of Water of Life at the New Zealand International Arts Festival 2004
(Radio New Zealand)

Craig Sengelow: Mega Mix
From music composed for The Marriage of Figaro
(unreleased recording)

Janet Roddick: Pirate Jenny
From the album: The Songs of Kurt Weill
(Braille)

Other music played on the programme

Duffy: Mercy
Single from the upcoming album: Rockferry
(Polydor)

Glenn Gould: Bach - Prelude from English Suite No 2 in A Minor
From the 1994 original motion picture soundtrack: Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
(Sony Classical)

Glen Hansard and Marketa Inglova: Falling Slowly
From the 2007 original motion picture soundtrack: Once
(Canvasback/Columbia)

Toumani Diabete: Kaounding Cissoko
From the 2007 album: The Mande Variations
(World Circuit)

Tony Rabbbit's unplayed favourites

Sarah Lineham: Fever
(unreleased recording)

Bruce Springsteen: Streets of Philadelphia
From the soundtrack album: Philadelphia
(Epic)

Eva Cassidy Fields of Gold
From the album: Songbird
(Hot)

Van Morrison: Astral Weeks
From the album: Astral Weeks
(Warner Bros)