John cage nick shave explores the nuts and bolts of an avant gardist whose creative genius goes well beyond his famous 4'33" of not-quite-silence

Jan Smaczny is enthralled by Isabelle Faust’s unique approach to the demanding material of Bach’s little-known violin works JS Bach Sonatas for Violin and Continuo Isabelle Faust (violin); Kristin von

Hildur Guðnadóttir is scrolling through her phone. Whereas most people use the device to collect photographs and notes alongside contact numbers, the Icelandic composer records snippets of music. Thes

Music cannot work a magic spell. It can, however, do wonderful things. In recent issues of BBC Music Magazine, we have explored the benefits to mental health of listening and playing music, not least

‘What Americans call safe music bores me,’ declared Michel Legrand in a 2005 interview, in which he reflected on the high profile he had achieved as one of the world’s leading film composers. ‘If you’

In 1984, a truncated version of Maurice Ravel’s orchestral piece Boléro was used to accompany a routine by British ice-dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. The p

I guess my main preoccupations at 16 were just trying to stay out of trouble. I was incredibly unsuccessful with finding girlfriends and things like that. Really, very, very unsuccessful. I think I wa