Twenty 12-minute works have been commissioned for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad as part of the PRS for Music Foundation's New Music 20x12 project. Each commission will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and will tour the UK as part of the celebrations of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London.

Some of the UK's leading composers will contribute pieces to the project. They include Sally Beamish, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Graham Fitkin, Howard Skempton and Richard Causton. For one of the commissions, the Coull Quartet will collaborate with composer Joe Cutler and several table-tennis players. The resulting piece, Ping!, aims to explore intricate cross-rhythms generated by the quartet, the table-tennis players and an accompanying soundtrack.

Scottish fiddler and composer Aidan O'Rourke, who plays with Lau and KAN, and was a founding member of Blazin' Fiddles, has also been commissioned for the project. His piece, TAT-1, is inspired by the first transatlantic telephone cable which ran from his hometown of Oban on the west coast of Scotland to Newfoundland.

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