Today’s Glasgow Herald has an article about the Scottish International Piano Competition, which starts next week in Glasgow. I’m  on the competition jury.
The board of the competition have made some wise and welcome changes to the requirements, which we all hope will encourage well-rounded and deep-thinking musicians to apply. The finals are now divided into two [...]

What a pleasure to hear the John Wilson Orchestra in their Rodgers and Hammerstein Prom, which I heard on television. John Wilson’s arrangements are simply spellbinding. His hand-picked orchestra, with many individually distinguished musicians playing in it, reminded me of the old joke that ‘the ideal orchestra would have Jascha Heifetz as its leader.’ ‘No, [...]

Walking over Waterloo Bridge the other evening I decided to pop into the Festival Hall. A very good Afro-Brazilian band was playing in the foyer and a large multi-cultural crowd, people of all ages, had gathered to listen. Many of the audience seemed to be South American and were gently dancing to the music. London [...]

The final concert of the Gaudier Ensemble’s Cerne Abbas Music Festival, in which I took part, featured one of my favourite pieces of chamber music, the Clarinet Quintet of Mozart. There was a surprise this time. Clarinettist Richard Hosford has an instrument which he recently had re-built to emulate the clarinet of Anton Stadler, whose playing inspired [...]

I’ve been rehearsing tangos by Astor Piazzolla for a late-night concert tonight. As I don’t play this kind of music very often (more’s the pity), I got in the mood by listening to a number of recordings by Piazzolla himself.
Without the sound of a genuine Argentinian tango ensemble in my ear, I couldn’t make much [...]