Classical: Favourites — a playlist by Bob Braun

About this playlist

This is a classical playlist with a daring twist. Do you need inspiration and focus? Now is the time to dive into this powerful classical journey with some of the most compelling contemporary composers. Constructed along a beautiful and ever-evolving narrative, this playlist kicks off with the amazing Beatrice Dillon and her Percussion Studies, before embarking on a short but calming wave of soft piano tunes to slowly ease you into your mind. Just after teasing you with the electrifying soundscapes of Bob Braun and Max Richter's Orlando, we do take one more step back with genre-bending master Bryce Dessner from The National, serving you Little Blue Something.

Now you're ready to get going. From Pantha Du Prince to Henrik Schwarz and Brandt Brauer Frick, this is when you let yourself carry by the sound waves and feel the power of electronic classical music. Who knew classical composition could make you want to dance in your chair or walk along the beat while listening to these favourites? Experience some of the most experimental, genre-defying female and queer artists with Anna Meredith, Genesis P-orridge and Hannah Peel.

The last chapter of your journey starts with a playful historical interlude by Gabriel Fauré - think palette cleanser to get ready for the last course. After the depths of heavy synth worlds, this is exactly what you need to come back into your body. Allow yourself to have a bit of fun with the wittiness of some of these instrumental masters. But you don't want to come back into reality too quickly. Zoe Keating constructs a beautiful soundscape for you to lose yourself in one more time, before the up and coming Bob Braun preps you for the rest of your day with his compelling track Sometimes from his debut EP Denials.

about the artist — Bob Braun

Bob Braun is a Luxembourgian pianist and composer based in London. His work undulates at the intersections of classical, electronic and pop music. Formally trained as an architect, he seeks to address structural and textural narratives in his work. As a queer artist, Bob is interested in challenging norms to redefine an established system of conformity. By referencing Western music history in a non-hierarchical way, he seeks to embrace ambivalence in order to blur the lines of ‘genre’ as one defining system of categorisation.

\With his debut EP ‘Denials’, Bob Braun dives deep into the complexity of his own lived experience. Drawing from memory, he uses acoustic piano and heavy synth textures to explore imaginative narratives. While these soundscapes evoke ambiguous associations, his musical approach is architectural and, in the sense of Robert Venturi, complex and contradictory. When, in postmodernist architectural theory, the abstraction of material quality can give new meaning to the representation of classical elements, Bob’s compositions aspire to use fragments of the past to create his own present. This approach heightens with BWV 927, a recomposition of a Bach prelude he used to play as a child, as an homage to transgender icon and pioneer of the synthesiser Wendy Carlos.