Wendy carlos

For 60 years, HERBIE HANCOCK has taken the bonnet off music, hacking its valves and gears, forging a future as yet unseen. He shaped jazz and funk and synth-rock; Miles and Joni felt the benefit. Now he's a Polar Music Prize laureate. "I've always been this geek, this nerdy guy,"

Much about Henriëtte Bosmans’s life and music is remarkable. But one event stands out as emblematic of her character and strength. Our scene is Amsterdam in 1944, when the Nazis’ grip was on the Dutch

With his cape and on-stage curry, he defined prog rock excess. Breakdowns, penury and near-death were the prices paid, but somehow the baroque synth lines and droll quips kept flowing… and still do. “I’m my own worst enemy,” laughs Rick Wakeman.

Complete Suites and Other Music for Keyboard Cristian Sandrin (piano) SOMM Recordings SOMMCD0702 61:09 mins In the first complete recording of Purcell’s eight keyboard suites on the modern piano, Roma

Midge Ure, the Live Aid orchestrator and Ultravox synth-pop pioneer, looks back at his trial by fire with Thin Lizzy – and why he told Phil Lynott: “I’m not the guy you should be asking”

Deep inside his London studio, BRIAN ENO is busy bringing “playful” experimental strategies to the studio graft – as his new collaborative albums with conceptual artist Beatie Wolfe attest. But, over pastries, an uncharacteristically digressive Eno finds time to discuss Scott Walker’s voice, communal living with Harmonia, mid-‘60s ‘happenings’ and his deep enthusiasm to create anew. “I’m sorry to be so shamelessly enthusiastic about my work,” he tells Tom Pinnock