World Routes

In the first of two programmes, Lucy Duran celebrates ten years of World Routes with highlights from a special event recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale studios. There are performances from Senegal, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Peru and Turkey, as well as recordings from around the world taken from the Radio 3 World Music Archive. Producer James Parkin World Routes was first broadcast on Radio 3 in the autumn of 2000 - then on a Sunday night, it proved popular and was soon moved to a Saturday afternoon. Presenting the programme since the beginning, is its anchor, the Grammy-winning record producer, teacher and world music expert Lucy Duran. In 10 years, World Routes has broadcast sessions and live concerts with a complete "Who's Who" of world music artists from Youssou N'Dour, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Khaled, to Mariza, Caetano Veloso and Ravi Shankar. Not just interested in the stars of world music, World Routes is on a mission to travel to the most far-flung corners of the planet to document and - in its own small way - preserve endangered musical traditions. In the past 10 years World Routes producers and sound engineers, along with Lucy Duran and a team of guest presenters, have left the comfort of Broadcasting House in search of real roots traditions. To date, the programme has visited some 51 countries, including 15 in Africa, 15 in Asia , and 9 in the Americas - countries as diverse as Haiti, Iraq, Belize, Vietnam, Georgia, China, Madagascar and Cape Verde. World Routes has recorded at festivals throughout the world including WOMAD (in the UK, the Canaries and New Zealand), the Jerusalem Oud Festival, the Fez Festival of Sacred Music, the Sayan Ring Festival in Siberia, and, in 2010, had its own residency at the Abril Pro Rock Festival in Recife, Brazil.