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1928 – Annus Mirabilis of the Christmas Carol

Jeremy Summerly and the St Luke’s Carollers make a case for 1928 as the year in which the Christmas carol went viral.

Freedom Song: The Fisk Jubilee Singers' Story

A choir of ex-slaves, raising funds to build their University, toured America from 1871, suffering discrimination and hardship.

Exporting Russia: Diaghilev’s Beginnings

In this lecture we follow his early years, when he published The World of Art, a provocative Russian journal, exhibited Russian visual art in Paris, and then brought Russian music there, culminating in his production of Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov.

Prokofiev's War and Peace

Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1953) was an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel begun during WWII. He saw it as a personal interpretation of the novel.

The Unacclaimed Accompanist

Graham Johnson examines a problematic profession that continues to attract many gifted young pianists to its ranks and asks why.

Deep Listening: Quiet Music and Quieter Audiences

As music gets quiet, so too must listening. But what do the contexts and ideologies of quiet music and quieter listening mean?

Music Made of Listening: John Cage and 4'33"

Musicians make sounds - that much, you’d have thought, is obvious! Yet more than the sounds they make, it’s the choices that musicians are making about how and when to play that really matter - choices that are made through listening.