Tom Service celebrates the musical legacy of British band leader Ivy Benson in the company of former band members Joyce Terry, Claudia Lang-Colmer, and Carol Gasser, as well as the author Janet Tennant whose new biography, Sax Appeal, is published this month. Ivy rose to fame in the 1940s with her All Girl Band. She and her band members risked their lives entertaining Allied troops in war-torn Europe and battled the inequalities between male and female musicians back home.

Tom speaks to Alan Gilbert, the chief conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, about musical performances during the pandemic.

And Tom hears from the multi-media musical entrepreneur ThatViolaKid, otherwise known as Drew Alexander Forde, who has made viola practice, conservatoire training, Bartok and Shostakovich, and covers of Alicia Keys and Gnarls Barkley into musical YouTube phenomena.