On the evening of August 9, 1956, a few hundred people crammed into a student union lounge at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, some 130 miles northwest of Chicago, for a musical recital. The launch of the Illiac Suite: String Quartet No 4, composed by a member of the chemistry department, Lejaren Hiller Jr, using […]

In the opening act of the Royal Opera’s new staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto, Titian’s alluring Venus of Urbino dominates the sumptuous court of the greedy Duke of Mantua. Later, it is replaced by the same artist’s Rape of Europa. We know that the 16th-century duke was a renowned collector – and that when Mantua was […]

This article will discuss why does music inspire you. There is no one reason why it does. But I believe there are some key reasons that will hopefully spark ideas on how music can be used. How to use music to inspire people: I have been told by various musicians about how they use music […]