The Royal College of Art

For the second programme in John Foxx’s ‘Key Moments’, he takes us to the Royal College of Art in Kensington Gore in the mid-1970s. Here, on the top floor, looking out over Hyde Park, in an abandoned room, John discovered his first grand piano. It was a Bechstein, and he would come up to play and compose on his own in the evenings, with no interruptions. John remembers the moment he opened up the piano lid of a grand for the first time and was able to see the 230 strings vibrating together as he played. It changed his life. The RCA piano has long disappeared, so instead John takes us next door to the Royal College of Music, to the grand piano in the Director’s office. There, he recreates the pieces he composed fifty years ago, experimenting with the sustain pedal and the resonance of the strings. At the end of his time at the Royal College, John formed the band Ultravox and became its lead singer and song-writer, and for a while, his music took a different direction into electronic, avant-garde pop.

Presented by John Foxx
Produced by Anna Horsbrugh Porter
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 3