Everything We Do is Music

The worlds of pop and rock owe a much greater debt to the classical canon than we realise. A direct and fascinating lineage draws from the experimentalism of Pierre Henry to The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows', from Stockhausen to Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' and from Bruckner to Sonic Youth via Glenn Branca. In Everything We Do is Music, Elizabeth Alker highlights the innovators of classical music and their fans and collaborators in pop who challenged the notion that such musical worlds were mutually exclusive. Alker shines a light on the rich tapestry that exists between their borders through exclusive interviews with Sir Paul McCartney, Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Nils Frahm, The Blessed Madonna, Jonny Greenwood, Soweto Kinch and Jean-Michel Jarre among others.

Elizabeth Alker is a presenter for BBC Radio 3, where she hosts Unclassified and the afternoon show, Classical Live. She joined the BBC as a researcher in 2005 and soon became a reporter and presenter for Radio 6 Music. Born to classically trained pianists, she grew up learning the clarinet, recorder and piano, and later worked as a talent scout for Universal Classics and Jazz. She has written for the Guardian, Sunday Times and Dazed and Confused, and is the curator and host of a series of cross-genre concerts at the Southbank Centre with the BBC Concert Orchestra.