This conversation is based on the original article, Music Only Exists When Someone Listens, published in the Big Issue in May 2027. The original article can be found on the Workshop page of the website.

David Chesworth is an English-born, Australian composer, sound artist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work spans experimental music, electronic music, post-punk, opera, installation art, and contemporary classical composition. Born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1958, he moved to Melbourne as a child and became one of the central figures in Australia's experimental music scene. His career is unusual because he has never confined himself to a single genre. Instead, he has explored music as part of a broader artistic experience, combining sound with visual art, architecture, performance, and public spaces. Much of his later work has been created with his artistic partner, Sonia Leber, producing large-scale sound installations exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and the Sydney Biennale.

Mark Wigglesworth (born 1964) is one of Britain's leading orchestral and opera conductors. He is widely respected for the intellectual depth of his interpretations, his meticulous rehearsal technique, and his belief that music is fundamentally an act of communication rather than simply performance. He studied music at the University of Manchester and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. His international career began after winning the Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in Amsterdam in 1989. Since then he has conducted many of the world's leading orchestras and opera companies, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is currently Chief Conductor of both the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.