I’m back from the 26th annual festival of the Gaudier Ensemble in Dorset. Over the years this gathering of chamber music specialists from around Europe has come to feel quite special. As our lives have become increasingly complicated, it feels remarkable that each year the same people are able to find a week to converge […]

On Tuesday the Guardian had an article about the growing number of stand-up comedians who bring a ‘work in progress’ to the Edinburgh Fringe instead of a fully-developed show. During their run, which could be anything up to three weeks, they ‘develop’ the show, which goes on to tour elsewhere. Sometimes this ‘in-progress’ status is […]

On a night when the brilliant Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov was playing at the Usher Hall as part of the Edinburgh Festival, it was not to be expected that any piano fans would still be available to come to the Edinburgh Book Festival to hear my talk, which clashed directly with the Usher Hall concert. […]

I haven’t written much recently because I seem to have turned into a ‘news junkie’ following the UK’s vote to Brexit. I did write a blog post about Brexit, but it attracted no responses so I went back to reading newspapers and law blogs. Many other music organisations have since published their own statements of […]

Recently I’ve had to memorise various piano pieces by Schubert. I find his music unusually hard to memorise, for a reason that throws light on why it is so profoundly satisfying. Composers often use themes or musical material which they bring back later in the piece. Sometimes whole passages, whole pages of music come back. […]