Classic FM

25/09/2025

During an operation to remove a brain tumour, this brave musician played his guitar.

His doctors monitored his hand movements throughout.

25/09/2025

Happy birthday, Shostakovich! Born on this day 119 years ago. ❤️

25/09/2025

Research shows that musicians have lumpier brains. 🧠

Harvard neuroscientists Marc Bangert and Gottfried Schlaug found that musicians whose playing involves intricate finger movements have an extra ‘bump’ or fold on the area of the motor cortex associated with movement of the fingers.

This bump was found to be more pronounced in professional musicians, who practised for many hours a day, than amateur musicians who played for around one hour a day.

Read more: https://clssicfm.co/4pYbynR

25/09/2025

Two Harvard neuroscientists showed that musicians have an extra ‘bump’ on the brain, for this reason...

Two Harvard neuroscientists showed that musicians have an extra ‘bump’ on the brain, on an area associated with movement of the fingers.

25/09/2025

Happy birthday to the late, great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. ❤️

24/09/2025

'Wicked: For Good' includes two new songs, and a never-before-released musical number from composer Stephen Schwartz 💚🩷

Wicked: For Good comes out this November

24/09/2025

Happy 80th birthday to beloved composer and conductor, Sir John Rutter! ❤️

Celebrate by listening back to the special concert he conducted for Classic FM at St Martin in the Fields, and hear his conversation with Zeb Soanes: https://clssicfm.co/4pB34mb

23/09/2025

RNS Moves, Royal Northern Sinfonia’s inclusive ensemble featuring professional disabled and non-disabled musicians, made its London debut at Kings Place on 21 September.

Clarence Adoo MBE co-founded the ensemble after a car accident left him paralysed from the neck down, ending his career as a trumpeter in Royal Northern Sinfonia. So that he could continue making music, composer and inventor Rolf Gehlhaar created the Headspace, a MIDI wind instrument controlled by breath and head movements. Other accessible instruments in the ensemble include the LinnStrument, a touch-based MIDI controller played by Charlotte Bott.

The ensemble performed a programme that paired contemporary works by Caroline Shaw, Philip Glass, James MacMillan, Julius Eastman and Terry Riley with Renaissance and Baroque pieces, including Tallis’ If Ye Love Me and Purcell’s Fantasia upon One Note.

23/09/2025

The priceless collection included 61 violin bows. 🎻
Read more: https://clssicfm.co/4mqu9Wp

22/09/2025

Ilan Volkov's arrest came just two weeks after he publicly condemned Israel's actions in Gaza.

Ilan Volkov spoke out against the war in Gaza while conducting Brahms’ Symphony No.2 earlier this month.

22/09/2025

Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov has been arrested while protesting near the Israel-Gaza border.

Read more: https://clssicfm.co/4gx5aPS