Norman Lebrecht (born 11 July 1948 in London) is a British commentator on music and cultural affairs and a novelist. He was a columnist for The Daily Telegraph from 1994 until 2002 and assistant editor of the Evening Standard from 2002 until 2009. On BBC Radio 3, he has presented lebrecht.live from 2000 and The Lebrecht Interview from 2006. He has written twelve books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages. Coming up in 2010 is Why Mahler?, a new interpretation of the most influential composer of modern times. See Books for more details. Also coming back in print is Mahler Remembered (Faber, 1987). Norman Lebrecht's first novel The Song of Names won a Whitbread Award in 2003. His second, The Game of Opposites, was published in the US 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 appears monthly in The Strad, magazine of the strings professions. The Lebrecht Interview will return in July 2010 on BBC Radio 3 and there will be further editions of The Record Doctor in New York on WNYC. A year-long series of events, titled Why Mahler?, will open on London's South Bank in September 2010, curated by Norman Lebrecht. Other works in progress include a stage play and various radio and television documentaries.