BBC Radio 3 will broadcast a series of The Essay in January focusing on five seismic moments in new music.

The station has asked five presenters to each tell the story of a musical event that changed the course of modern sound and culture – or not, as one of the five suggests.

The series begins with Robert Worby discussing the first performance of John Cage’s 4’33”; Sara Mohr-Pietsch looks to the fall of the Berlin Wall and a new appetite for Eastern European composers in the West; Ivan Hewett selects the release of Brian Eno’s 1978 album, Ambient 1: Music for Airports; Sarah Walker focuses on the 1973 concert when Carnegie Hall played host to Four Organs by Steve Reich; and finally, Tom Service presents a talk on musical creativity and the lack of seismic shock in the twenty-first century.

The programmes will be broadcast each evening at 10.45pm from Monday 4 January to Friday 8 January.  

Listen online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3