Front Row

Recorded at the Hornby Library inside Liverpool Central Library, in front of a live audience, as Liverpool gears up to host The Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine. Two novelists from The Big Eurovision Read, a list of 12 books from The Reading Agency and BBC Arts talk to Nick Ahad about the unifying power of music: Pete Paphides on his autobiography Broken Greek, A story of chip shops and pop songs, and Matt Cain tells us about his novel The Madonna of Bolton.Yemeni British poet and activist Amina Atiq performs her poem Daifa, commissioned for the Big Eurovision Welcome concert.Former conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Vasily Petrenko is one of the city’s Citizens of Honour. He’s returned to the city for a concert with the orchestra. He explains how music can be a unifying force and why he has suspended his work in Russia. There’s music from the Liverpudlian electro pop band Stealing Sheep, along with local singer songwriter Natalie McCool, who open the EuroFestival with Welcom