Featured
Chinese tech giant Huawei recently announced its latest smartphone had composed a completion of Franz Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony No. 8. But away from PR stunts, new technological developments are making a real impact on the way we interact with classical music. Published in Askonas Holt, The Green Room Magazine
Ksenija Sidorova is a leading accordionist, who is widely celebrated for her eye-watering technique, and has done great things for the Squeezebox’s sex appeal. Published on The Cusp.
Hailed as the ‘bright young thing’ of British contemporary music in the 1990s, composer, conductor and performer Thomas Adès burst on to the scene whilst still a student.
The curators of a new exhibition on Julius Eastman, a recently rediscovered composer from the New York experimental scene in the 1970s and 80s, think he was far more than a political provocateur. Published on The Cusp.
The piano is the ultimate celebrity instrument. American pianist Liberace, one of the 20th century's best-loved virtuosos, was the highest-paid entertainer in the world from the 1950s to the 70s. Many kinds of keyboard instrument existed in earlier times but the piano as we think of it was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori.
Daniel Barenboim inaugurated last month the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. The most interesting feature of the hall lies not in its flowing architecture, but rather in its name: the Pierre Boulez Saal. One year after the French composer's death, what is his legacy? Published on Bachtrack.
Kaija Saariaho is one of 20th century modernism’s most well regarded composers, with her mystical and enrapturing orchestral soundscapes winning admiration outside the avant-garde establishment.
The composer and artist Claudia Molitor challenges the idea of music and how we engage with it. Her work uses sound to explore locations and physical objects. Published on The Cusp.
When Judith Weir was announced as Master of the Queen’s Music in 2014, it was not only in recognition of her delicately crafted narratives that have earned her a reputation as one of contemporary culture’s foremost musical storytellers, but also of her tireless commitment to making music engage with contemporary society.
One of 20th century music’s most influential and popular artists, Terry Riley created the purest and most enduring expression of minimalist style in In C, which arguably changed the course of contemporary classical music.