Guitarist Pat Metheny, Budget news for the arts, Translation

Pat Metheny has won 20 Grammy Awards, predominantly for his work as a jazz guitarist, but also for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and Best Instrumental Composition. His latest work is as a composer. The album Road to the Sun has two major works for classical guitar. Four Paths of Light is a four movement suite for a solo instrument, played by Jason Vieaux, and Road to the Sun, a piece in six parts, performed by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. Metheny himself plays his arrangement of Arvo Pärt's piano piece Für Alina, on an extraordinary 42 string instrument. Pat Metheny tells John Wilson about this ambitious work.

We've reaction to today's Budget Statement from the Chancellor. Rishi Sunak has added £300m to the £1.57bn Cultural Recovery Fund, £90m more for museums, and £18m for cultural community projects but will the newly announced extension to the Government's Self Employment Income Support scheme really help struggling arts freelancers? And how can the festivals industry plan for the summer without the government-backed insurance scheme many were calling for? Chairman of the DCMS parliamentary select committee, Julian Knight MP and Paule Constable from the Freelancers Make Theatre Work campaign join us to discuss.

And Poet Amanda Gorman became famous around the world when she read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Biden’s Inauguration, and now her work is due to be translated into multiple languages. Publishers Meulenhoff have been criticised for appointing a white writer, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, to translate Gorman’s poetry into Dutch, and now Rijneveld has stepped down amid the furore. Activist Janice Deul explains why she was so disappointed with the publisher’s original choice, and writer and translator Khairani Barokka describes the complicated relationship between writers and translators.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Julian May

Main image: Pat Metheny, credit: John Peden