BBC Radio 3 is to celebrate Red Nose Day on March 15 with ‘Baroque-around-the-clock’ - 12 hours of live Baroque music, sketches and comedy. The marathon is the culmination of a week of special Red Nose Day Baroque programming and forms part of the wider Radio 3 season, ‘Baroque Spring’, which runs from March 3 to April 1, 2013.

From Monday March 11 presenters Suzy Klein, Sara Mohr-Pietsch, Jez Nelson, Tom Service and Sarah Walker will compete against each other for ‘Top of the Baroque’, generating listener support for their favourite Baroque work. The results will be revealed in a special Red Nose Day edition of ‘In Tune’. Throughout the week, actor Simon Russell Beale will also lead a cast of comedy performers in ‘Beastly Baroque’, a series of humorous sketches focusing on five great composers from the Baroque era, broadcast each day during ‘In Tune’ and repeated on March 15.

On the day of the marathon Radio 3’s ‘Breakfast’ will take Baroque requests, while 'Essential Classics' will test listeners with Baroque-themed questions. At 1pm a number of celebrities will take part in 'Dance Baroque for Comic Relief', a live concert from Lyons Concert Hall at the University of York, featuring music performed by the University of York Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir. Later in the day Katie Derham will present ‘Afternoon on 3’, including 'Baroque on Call', featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra in Baroque repertoire at the Open Door Project in Milton Keynes, a homeless shelter supported by Comic Relief. She will also introduce live Baroque comic turns from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 'Misheard Lyrics', live from Bangor.

Red Nose Day raises money for poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged people across the UK and Africa. To find out more about the BBC's Comic Relief coverage click here.