Welcome to BBC Music Magazine's April 2025 issue! Our big interview this month is with global piano superstar Yuja Wang.
The piano superstar tells Clive Paget about managing a glittering career that, in truth, she’d never really planned.
Elsewhere, Rebecca Franks celebrates 20 years of Aurora Orchestra, the ensemble that performs masterpieces from memory. And former dummer of The Police, now composer Stewart Copeland tells Claire Jackson about his new work that incorporates the sounds of nature itself.
Producer Andrew Keener tells Anthony Cheng about a life spent recording music’s best known performers, and.... what is the best way to learn music by heart? We ask four top performers to share their favourite methods.
What are the most memorable openings in classical music? Jeremy Pound and Steve Wright explore 15 of the best known, some of which have entirely outshone the works that follow. And we look at boredom in classical concerts. We rarely admit it, but our minds often wander during performances. Why are we so easily distracted, asks Ariane Todes, and how can we learn to engage?
For our monthly musical getaway, Jeremy Pound explores Barcelona’s thriving music scene, while for Composer of the Month Mervyn Cooke explores the genius of jazz icon Duke Ellington. George Hall selects the best recordings of Cherubini’s shockingly bloody opera Médée for Building a Library, and we end on a high with actor, pianist and recent Wicked star Jeff Goldblum selecting the six pieces of music that have defined his life and career.
Here's a look at our cover CD this month, featuring Mozart's final, great Symphony No. 41, 'Jupiter', in anyone's book one of the greatest symphonies of all time. That gets a luminous performance from the Aurora Orchestra, as does Benjamin Britten's Nocturne, Op. 60. Click here or on the image to see the track details for this month's cover CD.
