Classical music and climate change

Music Matters

Tom Service asks what climate change means for classical music, and explores how cultural organisations, practitioners and institutions can respond to looming environmental challenges. We speak with the American composer, John Luther Adams, as he looks out over a freak wintry landscape of cactuses covered by snow in the Chihuahaun desert. He shares his thoughts about humanity’s relationship with the planet, his faith in future generations, and a lifetime’s work in the service of music. George Kamiya, Energy Analyst at the International Energy Agency, and the researcher and musicologist Kyle Devine, join Tom to discuss the environmental costs to how we consume music digitally. We hear, too, from the CEO and founder of Julie’s Bicycle, a charity which advises the creative industry about how to reduce its carbon footprint, and the leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Margaret Faultless, as they consider the environmental consequences of the classical music industry’s activity and what they’ve learned from different ways of working. And, the director Stephen Langridge shares how he’s put sustainability at the heart of the production effort behind Gothenburg Opera’s Ring cycle. Plus there’s another instalment of our ‘Musicians in our Time’ series with the members of the Castalian Quartet.