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Saturday Live: Chi-chi Nwanoku

Chi-chi Nwanoku

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Live, Chi-chi Nwanoku

Singer David Gray, writer and artist Louise Allen and Korean War veteran Burley Smith.

Musician and Chineke! Orchestra founder Chi-chi Nwanoku joins Richard and Nikki along with singer David Gray, writer and artist Louise Allen and Korean War veteran Burley Smith.

Chi-chi Nwanoku is a double bass player and founder of Europe's first professional majority black and minority ethnic orchestra, Chineke!. Chi-chi is the eldest of five children, born to a Nigerian father and an Irish mother. Early on, she discovered two competing passions: playing the piano and 100 metre sprinting. She explains to Nikki to Richard how at 5ft tall, she has managed to find success playing the largest orchestral instrument.  

Musician David Gray is best known for his folk inspired songs which have netted him multiple Ivor Novello awards and Brit nominations. He’s also played the Royal Albert Hall and toured around the world. He celebrates nearly 30 years in the charts with his new album ‘Skellig’.

Louise Allen was adopted as a baby and suffered abuse throughout her childhood  but found solace in art and writing. The artist now fosters her own children and has written the best-selling Thrown Away Children series based on her experiences on both sides of the care system.  

Burley Smith was Junior Third Mate on the “Ship of Miracles” – a US ship that rescued 14,000 North Korean refugees at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. It was referred to as “the greatest rescue operation ever by a single ship” by the US Maritime Administration. He joins us discuss his role in this extraordinary rescue.

And we hear the Inheritance Tracks of Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

Producer: Laura Northedge
Editor: Eleanor Garland

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