Music Matters Folgen

In this week's Music Matters Tom Service visits Reykjavik to ask whether Iceland is the most musical country in the world?With a population of just 350,000 Iceland still boasts multi-million-selling pop acts like Sigur Ros and Bjork, a world class orchestra, Oscar-winning composers, countless music festivals as well as a vibrant and world renowned contemporary music scene.And all these different genres seem to intertwine with each other effortlessly - so Tom is in Reykjavik to discover what the country's musical secret is.He drops into the Dark Music Days festival, an annual festival of new music which takes place in the darkest period of winter, to ask composers and musicians why their new music scene is the envy of the world.One of their most successful artists is the award winning multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Olafur Arnalds. Olafur blends classical, pop and electonica and the result is sell-out tours - Tom meets him at his Reykjavik studio to find out how he defines his music and why he sees the heart of Iceland's music not in its nature, but in its people.Aside from the country's professional scene, amateur music making is also thriving - particularly in choirs. Tom meets the Karlakórinn Esja a young, local male-voice choir who meet every Wednesday night to sing together - they tell Tom why being in a choir is something Icelanders need to do. And he learns about the folk history behind Icelanders' love of singing from the ancient Rimur.And composers and experts talk about the importance of landscape in Icelandic music - from the early 20th-century composer Jon Leifs to Anna Thorvaldsdottir, one of the country's acclaimed young composers. Is Icelandic music really all about nature or is it all just a marketing scam?

Presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch In the wake of the political crisis that risks breaking up Spain and Catalonia, Sara asks Barcelona music journalist Andrea Romanos how important music is for the Catalans, and how have they've used it in the recent massive street demonstrations, whether in favour or against the region's independence.Sara talks to neuroscientist David Eagleman and composer Anthony Brandt, authors of 'The Runaway Species', a book about creativity in art, music and the brain. Also, what the internet tells us about our musical lives and how we 'consume' music today; Toner Quinn from 'The Journal of Music' reveals the latest findings. And an interview at the piano, including a Mozart improvisation, with the American jazz and classical pianist and composer, Uri Caine.

Tom speaks to Sir Andras Schiff, one of the world's greatest living pianists and also one of the most thoughtful talkers about music. From Hungary but emigrating to Britain as a refugee, he and Tom discuss the changing world and the role of musicians within it, how a concert is more essential than ever and why a whole evening of Brahms is a bad idea.The artist Tom Phillips is a true creative polymath - a painter, gallery curator, singer, quilter, opera composer, set designer and much more. His seminal 1969 opera Irma is all sourced from passages in 'A Humament' - his life's work - and is largely left to the performers to interpret it however they choose. He talks to Tom at his home in Peckham about how he wrote his 'chance opera' and how to decipher the clues found within the libretto. Plus Tom talks to the acclaimed opera director Netia Jones, who is about to stage it in Peckham, about how to start piecing together the puzzle of the opera.The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group are celebrating their 30th birthday and to do so are taking to the city's canals to create a 'Canal Serenade' performed on three narrowboats on the waterways. Tom takes a wander down the Birmingham towpath with BCMG's director Stephan Meier to discover more about the project and meets one of its founders, the cellist Ulrich Heinen, to talk about how the group started.Plus in the week of conductor Simon Rattle taking over at the London Symphony Orchestra, Tom sits down with music journalists Charlotte Higgins and Richard Morrison to ask what he can do for British classical music.