Music Matters Folgen

Sara Mohr-Pietsch speaks to German-born Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger ahead of his upcoming performance at London's Wigmore Hall. Known for the brilliance of his Beethoven playing, he talks about why the composer's music embodies the very best human ideals, why pianists need to learn to breathe and why he's removing himself completely from the internet.Benedictine monks in monasteries all over the UK and around the world structure their whole day around the singing of plainchant - five or six times a day they gather together and sing the psalms. Sara visits Downside Abbey in Somerset to experience first hand the musical life of monks.People often have a very traditional view of brass band music, yet composers from Harrison Birtwistle to Hans Werner Henze not to mention young contemporary composers have all written for bands. The composers Edward Gregson and Lucy Pankhurst reveal the cutting edge of brass band composition.And Viviana Durante - former Royal Ballet principal and mentor on BBC4's BBC Young Dancer programme - talks to Sara about the show and the prospects for young dancers today.

Tom Service talks to conductor Daniel Barenboim as the new Pierre Boulez Saal opens in Berlin, and the conductors Marin Alsop and Sylvia Caduff meet in Lucerne and compare notes on their lives on the podium.Tom meets Daniel Barenboim in Berlin, as the city's newest concert hall, the Pierre Boulez Saal, opens its doors to the public. The hall will host up to 100 chamber music concerts a year, and is home to the Barenboim-Said Akademie, which Barenboim and the philosopher Edward Said created to train young musicians - mostly from the Middle East - and whose public face is the world famous West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. He's a musician who is always interested in the wider world and Barenboim talks to Tom about the middle eastern conflict, world politics, music education and whether or not music can change the world.And looking ahead to International Women's Day, the American conductor Marin Alsop meets Sylvia Caduff in Lucerne. Caduff, who is now in her 80s, was Leonard Bernstein's assistant at the New York Philharmonic and was mentored by Herbert von Karajan. She became one of the first women to conduct the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1960s when it was virtually unheard of for a woman to conduct a top orchestra.Marin was also mentored by Leonard Bernstein and a generation later has similarly broken new ground for women in conducting - becoming the first female conductor of the last night of the Proms, and with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra the first to hold a music director post of an American orchestra.The two conductors compare notes on their lives in music, their roads to becoming conductors and breaking down barriers for female musicians.

Tom Service asks conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla about her plans for the City of Birmingham Orchestra, looks at the slave trade with composer Thierry Pécou, and explores the rarely-performed opera-oratorio, Le vin herbé.Tom visits Symphony Hall to talk to the exciting young conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla about her ambitions for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and music education in Birmingham. He also discusses the challenges faced by the CBSO with Chief Executive Stephen Maddock following recent funding cuts from Birmingham City Council, plus an update from Julian Lloyd-Webber, Principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire, on the progress of their cutting-edge new building which is due to open its doors to students in September this year. Tom also talks to the French composer, Thierry Pécou, about Outre-mémoire, written for his friend, the pianist Alexandre Tharaud, which delves into the heavy history of the Carribbean island of Martinique and its slave trade, from where Pécou's own family is descended. Plus, as Welsh National Opera prepare to stage a performance of the rarely-performed opera-oratorio, Le vin herbé, Tom finds out why this work was pivotal in the compositional career of its creator, the Swiss composer Frank Martin, and puts forward a case for why we should hear more from this unique voice of 20th Century music. He talks to Nigel Simeone, who is an expert champion of Frank Martin's music, plus the director and conductor of Welsh National Opera's production of Le vin herbé, Polly Graham and James Southall.