Reggae music has had a profound influence on many aspects of Western culture from fashion to popular music. Across the United Kingdom, the USA and Africa, Reggae secured a strong foothold in the ...

The influence of W.A. Mozart across all areas of culture has been colossal, from the Baby Mozart Project through to contemporary song. You can hardly pass through a day without encountering the music ...

The tambourine is probably one of the easiest and most fun musical instruments to play anywhere in the world. If you have any rhythm at all, and sometimes even if you don’t, you, too, can play a ...

French composer Claude Debussy did not align himself with the movement that became known as Impressionism. Understandably, Debussy resisted this classification as with it could come restrictions, ...

When the world of the moving picture arrived in the early part of the 20th century, it was a revolution. What is often referred to as the silent years from around 1910 to 1927 marked a turning point ...

As a musical genre, Funk has its roots firmly embedded in jazz. Funk incorporates many elements of jazz alongside soul and earlier African-American styles of music. Following on from the immense ...

This first extract is taken from a 2015 performance called ‘Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II’. The remarkable achievement here is that the music is performed live to the cartoon that plays on a gigantic ...

One of the most engaging and inspirational areas of music is where Eastern and Western cultures intersect. Over hundreds of years of cultural history, fruitful exchange of ideas and artistic ...

In a recent article, I gave a broad account of the evolution of the violin with a particular focus on the work of the Cremona luthiers. At the head of this revolutionary group of innovators was the ...

With the distance of one hundred and ten years between us now and the premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring, it can be difficult to understand what the fuss was all about. Several things ...

We could say that most indie music is alternative, but not all are indie. Let’s unpack this statement. Many alternative rock bands in the 1980s signed with independent labels, but later moved to one ...

Another twist in the tale is that it was not until 1960 that the pianist Artur Rubenstein discovered a manuscript of the ‘Fantaisie-Impromptu’ in an album owned by the renowned Baroness. The ...