This article examines the work of the composer Michelle Lou through its affective and formal mechanisms. I propose that Lou’s work has consistently retained a fundamental and specific orientation towards the listener, which I describe as distance or proximity. In addressing three works spanning eight years – Opening (2008), untitled three-part construction (2014) and HoneyDripper (2016) – I show how the idea of distance informs and is articulated through orchestration, gestural and phrasal construction, scenography and form, and thus frames one’s experience of sound, spatiality, memory, time and perception. While the sounds and materials employed by Lou are often formally cold and sonically abrasive, I argue that her work ultimately implicates and invites the listener in as a crucial element of its sonic ecology, even enacting a sort of phenomenological care over the listener.

This re-evaluation of the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen is presented as a dialogue between its authors, conducted by email between July and October 2024. The dialogue takes as its starting point a consideration of the continuing relevance of Stockhausen’s music to music today, but begins by tracing the authors’ engagement with this music over the last five decades. The dialogue moves on to the discussion of a series of key aspects of Stockhausen’s work across his creative life, from Kreuzspiel to KLANG: the relationship between his electronic music and his compositional practice for acoustic instruments; form-schemes in his music and, in particular, the development of moment form; and his use of synthesisers. In conclusion, the authors assess Stockhausen’s influence on their own work and the extent of his significance for younger generations of musicians.

As intelligence technology advances, the boundaries between humans and machines blur, prompting questions regarding human identity and agency. While opera has traditionally explored such existential tensions, contemporary productions often emphasise technological narratives, potentially overshadowing human-centred perspectives. This article investigates music’s expressive potential to bridge these divergent viewpoints, positing it as a distinct form of ‘listening’ to and ‘knowing’ the world. Through a case study of Hao Weiya’s chamber opera AI Variation (2021), it probes how a musical approach communicates intricate ethical and existential questions posed by advancing AI technologies. The findings reveal that music’s non-linguistic nature creates an experiential space to explore, feel and contemplate human experiences. Orchestral voices craft sonic landscapes that invite contemplation on being and perception in an AI-driven world, and music conveys complexities beyond what words alone can express. The article illuminates how music contributes to a humanist response to technological advances, enriching cultural and philosophical discourse.

The letters sent by the English composer Michael Tippett from Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where, a conscientious objector, he spent two months in summer 1943, form a remarkable and important sequence, illuminating not only Tippett's life and compositions but the experience of a gaoled objector to the Second World War. Four prison letters had been thought to survive, documenting in detail his imprisonment, which included turning pages for Benjamin Britten during a recital in the chapel, and conducting the prison orchestra. In 2023 a fifth letter was found, its discovery reported in the national press.1 Its publication is intended to complement the previously released documents, completing what is now a series of five until such time as a collected edition of Tippett's letters, of which only a fifth has seen print, can be undertaken.2