Culture
essay
Music
Enter the conductrice
Will a new generation of women on the podium perpetuate the tyrannical charisma of their male predecessors or overturn it?
Xenia Hanusiak
essay
Global history
Black King of Songs
His communism brought the great American singer Paul Robeson trouble in the US, but helped make him a hero in China
Gao Yunxiang
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
video
Music
Nick ponders the life of the mysterious girl whose used CDs shaped his teenage years
5 minutes
video
Music
Before the Beatles dropped acid, a BBC workshop was creating far-out sounds
6 minutes
video
Subcultures
Bad puns, regrettable costumes, and other joys of collecting kitschy album art
13 minutes
video
Stories and literature
A musician and a storyteller collaborate in a daily duet of words and music
5 minutes
video
Dance and theatre
Absorb the infectious rhythms of Setapa – a joyous dance from southern Africa
7 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
Honouring the caribou, in dreams and memories from an Innu singer-songwriter
5 minutes
essay
Music
Songs of conquest
From Tallis’s choral beauty to the unnerving bells of Mexico City, early modern power created a whole new world of sound
Thomas Irvine & Christopher J Smith
video
Biography and memoir
Meet the Liverbirds! The bittersweet tale of Liverpool’s all-female answer to the Beatles
16 minutes
video
Music
Take in the sounds of silence via this unique performance of John Cage’s infamous piece
5 minutes
video
Race and ethnicity
Seeking authenticity in a Chinatown built for tourists and Hollywood movies
23 minutes
video
Physics
Water, salt and music form a mesmerising visualisation of sound waves
7 minutes
essay
Music
Music and sex
A song can take you on a journey of ecstatic arousal. Is music imitating sex, inviting it, or something else altogether?
Michael Spitzer
video
Animals and humans
A bluesy ballad tells the story of Old Bet, the first circus elephant in the US
8 minutes
essay
Music
Maestro of more than music
Look beneath the surface of Bach’s music and you will find a fascinating hidden world of numerology and cunning craft
Milton Mermikides
video
Cognition and intelligence
No, Mozart isn’t a brain hack for babies – here’s how music really affects intelligence
5 minutes
video
Home
The rhythms of rural Thailand, where both food and music are sourced from the ground
15 minutes
video
Music
The formidable female rumba group shaking up Cuba’s conservative music scene
20 minutes
essay
Quantum theory
Quantum music
Physics has long looked to harmony to explain the beauty of the Universe. But what if dissonance yields better insights?
Katie McCormick
video
Music
A unique multisensory art experiment that begins and ends with a brush stroke
7 minutes
video
Stories and literature
A trip to Montreal with Leonard Cohen in 1965 is a glimpse into a singular poetic mind
44 minutes
essay
Beauty and aesthetics
A philosophy of sound
From the Big Bang to a heartbeat in utero, sounds are a scaffold for thought when logic and imagery elude us
Christina Rawls