Over half a decade since Nas proclaimed its death, Peter Rosser asks if hip-hop could, in fact, be the only music able to present an honest picture of our time.

Peter Rosser attends Nest, Belfast's contribution to the Cultural Olympiad, which uses donated everyday objects to build an oratorio and an installation.

Peter Rosser listens to jazz trio the Bad Plus' take on The Rite of Spring, and wonders what more can be done with Stravinsky's beloved work.

Since its invention in the eighteenth century, the string quartet has proved one of the most resilient forms, continuously reinvented and repurposed for changing times.

The twelfth century Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen is celebrated as a visionary composer and writer, inspired directly by God, but there's an alternative history that paints her as an egotistical megalomaniac, for whom music w

A new collection of essays suggests that Punk is best described as a cultural movement that doesn't move: it is a moment, a punctuation mark, an animal urge, occurring without unity of purpose or logic.

Musicians need to think carefully about the impact of technology on their music, writes Peter Rosser: they must resist when technology threatens to dehumanise music, to deprive it of its most essential features.

An unlikely combination of sound-detritus and the craft of composition, the music of Ed Bennett makes strong statements about taking on, and overcoming, our contemporary challenges.

A double CD entitled Music from Ireland 2011 will be given to the visiting parties of Queen Elizabeth II and President Obama during their state visits to Ireland in May. What does this collection say about contemporary Irish musical life?

Peter Rosser finds how American folk music revivals have been bound to the country’s social history

What have music impresarios Sergey Diaghilev, Malcolm McLaren and Simon Cowell got in common? – and what sets them apart? asks Peter Rosser.

Where did it all go right – and wrong – for Michael Jackson, asks Peter Rosser.

Obama and the music of Chicago become the vehicle for a writer's guilt

The inanity of commissioned music today is shocking, writes Peter Rosser, and for the radical, questioning artist, freedom means being cut adrift from employment. How did we arrive at this point, and what can be done about it?

What is rock, really?

What role does metaphor play in music?

Peter Rosser on the intimacy and ritual of live music

'Access' is now a guiding principle across music and the arts, but what does it mean in practice?

In Belfast, culture has been ditched for something much easier to handle: events. But the tenth Open House Festival was able to do both.

Peter Rosser looks at a new model for music production hatching in Northern Ireland.

National Chamber Choir, Paul Hillier (conductor)Harty Room, Queen’s University, Belfast11 June 2008Faced routinely with the deepest sentiments, sacred and profane, where do singers position themselves emotionally?

In a new series of columns, Peter Rosser writes on changes in the music scene in Northern Irelad