Norman Lebrecht has written twelve books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. His latest, Why Mahler?, is a radical new interpretation of the most influential composer of modern times. Norman’s first novel The Song of Names won a Whitbread Award in 2003. His second, The Game of Opposites, was published in the US in 2009 by Pantheon Books. A third is in preparation.

A collection of Lebrecht columns will be published this year in China, the first such anthology by any western cultural writer. A Lebrecht conversation with the strings professions appears monthly in The Strad. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal.

On BBC Radio 3, The Lebrecht Interview series probes deep into the life and work of such classical legends as Riccardo Chailly, Marilyn Horne, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Joyce DiDonato. Norman Lebrecht also runs an open clinic as The Record Doctor on WNYC, New York.

Norman will be curating a year-long series of events, titled Why Mahler?, opening on London’s South Bank in September 2010.