Ivan Hewett is a writer on music for the Daily Telegraph, broadcaster on BBC Radio 3, and teacher at the Royal College of Music.

He studied music at Oxford University, went on to study composition at the Royal College of Music, and spent a fascinating year in commercial music, where he rose to the dizzy heights of scoring the music for a TV cat-food advertisement. After an abortive attempt to set up a music festival, he started working in arts television, researching Granada TV’s ‘Man and Music’ series, and helping to bring Jonathan Miller’s dramatisation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to the screen. By then he’d already started presenting on BBC Radio 3, and in 1993 was entrusted with Radio 3’s weekly magazine show ‘Music Matters’. Through the 80s and 90s he was a regular contributor to the Musical Times, Prospect and other magazines. Since the late 90s he’s taught at the Royal College of Music, and in 2003 published a very personal view of 20th century music, entitled Music: Healing the Rift (pub. Continuum). 

Nowadays he writes on music and culture for the Daily Telegraph, and recently presented ‘Key Matters’ On BBC Radio 4.