Music knows no boundaries.  In Bethlehem, Merlijn Twaalfhoven and partners create "Carried by the Wind", a spectacular music performance from atop rooftops and balconies, across the Separation Wall that now divides this holy town.

Why do we see so often see only images of chaos and trouble from the Middle East?  The vast majority of its people - as anywhere - simply want to live normal lives.  A music project for Palestinian refugee children in Jordan.

Austria has made a disproportionate contribution to the pantheon of classical composers.  With the help of three musical locals - two of them Australian expatriates - the SBS radio & Television Youth Orchestra explores the musical heritage of Vienna and Salzburg.

The neighbours of the Roma ghetto in Prešov, Slovakia, want to build a wall to prevent Roma children from stealing fruit and vegetables from their gardens. Composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven believes there are other ways to soften the hardened relations between the two groups. With a team of musicians and organizers from Germany, Holland, Poland, and Slovakia he designed a music festival in which Roma and non-Romas performed together. In doing so they touched the tip of an iceberg made of cultural differences and deep-seated mistrust.

The SBS Radio & Television Youth Orchestra plays music of and about Hungary, exploring its connections with Romany culture.  Features young Australian violinist Claudia Zorbas who, at age 11, was the youngest student ever to be accepted into Budapest’s renowned Franz Liszt Academy.

Australia's greatest jazz virtuoso performs his own compositions on flugelhorn, trombone, piano and trumpet, live in concert with the SBS Radio & Television Youth Orchestra.

Explores the events and places behind Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, with music performed by the SBS Youth Orchestra.  

The composer always thought the music too loud and showy to be of any merit, but audiences have begged to differ ever since its premiere...

In Nicosia, the worlds last divided capital, Turkish & Greek Cypriots attempt to bridge no-man's-land with a performance like no other. The film follows their unconventional rehearsals in the UN Headquarters on the island and joins their search for instruments from Nicosia's war detritus - as they prepare for Dutch composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven's outdoor music project, "Long Distance Call".

Following the Moldau River into the heart of Bohemia, the SBS Radio & Television Youth Orchestra take us on a journey through Czech culture and landscape.  Features music by Smetana & Dvorak.

What do you do when your tiny, idyllic coral atoll is a few mere metres above the Pacific Ocean, the waters are rising, and your biggest neighbour won’t acknowledge that it may be a contributor to the cause - or even that there is a problem?  “High Tide in Tuvalu” gives us an islanders’ perspective on Australia’s relationship with the Pacific in light of the most pressing, sink-or-swim environmental issue of our times: climate change. 

Through Tchaikovsky's sometimes intimate correspondence with patroness Nadezhda von Meck, this programme takes us on a musical journey of Italy through the eyes and ears of this great but deeply troubled composer. For Tchaikovsky, Italy was both a source of inspiration and a refuge from a tumultuous existence in his native Russia.

35mm film with Dolby SR audio, 4'00".

We track in and then around what appears to be Man Ray’s classic surrealist image featuring his muse Kiki. Beautiful shapes and silhouettes - including an ancient Greek gymnopédiste - dance serenely in the background. For just a moment before metamorphosis, our violoncelle comes to life to sing us a poem set to Satie’s haunting Gymnopédie No.1. “ Le Violoncelle” is a single-shot micro-voyage into the creative milieux of Man Ray, Erik Satie & Kiki de Montparnasse, and from the beginnings of photographic manipulation to the present era of digital duplicity.

From fandangos to habañeras, from Falla's "Love, the Magician" to Sarasate's "Gyspy Airs", Spanish Music has always had deep multicultural roots. Despite attempts to stereotype it or to pin it down - by composers both Spanish and foreign - ultimately it's the diversity of past and present influences that make it so unique and recognisable. A journey through Spain, her history and music with the SBS Radio & Television Youth Orchestra.

When 650 young performers from a dozen countries combine for a renowned international festival, the only common language is that of music. The Japan International Youth Musicale, held every three years in Shizuoka, Japan, is gaining a reputation for bringing the most varied and exciting talent from all parts of the world.

Australian jazz legend James Morrison gives the world première of composer Judy Bailey's "Four Reasons" suite for orchestra and jazz soloist (trumpet, trombone, flugelhorn and euphonium). The work was commissioned by the SBS Youth Orchestra. James and Judy also talk about their collaboration and the jazz/classical "crossover".

The 60 young musicians of the SBS Radio and Television Youth Orchestra, conducted by Matthew Krel, embark on a musical journey through Estonia and Finland. One is old, the other new, but both are closely related by geography and cultural heritage. It is also a journey through the 20th century music of Estonian composer Heino Eller, Finland's great Jean Sibelius, as well as Darius Milhaud and Zoltán Kodály. The program concludes with Sibelius's stirring Finlandia, performed in the Temppeliaukio (Rock Church) in Helsinki. 

A talented young Australian pianist, Duncan talks about his highly demanding studies in Moscow, and their influence on his performance of the first piano concerto by the enfant terrible Sergei Prokofiev.

Our experience of the world is becoming ever more mediated by the artificial, the virtual, the plastic...  Where else but in Tupperware does the semiotic meet the domestic in a consumer icon with as many different meanings as people who appropriate it?