I did some guest teaching at the University of St Andrews the other day. During one of my sessions, a member of the audience asked an interesting question. I didn’t know the answer and am still thinking about it. He said: ‘I have some modern recordings of Baroque music. The orchestra plays with a lot […]

I’m preparing for next weekend’s Winterplay, my mini-festival of collaborative music at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. We have a children’s music-and-movement workshop led by Monica Wilkinson, a music and words event with Janice Galloway, a pre-concert talk by Robert Philip and a trio concert. Violinist Erich Höbarth is about to arrive from Vienna and […]

As the Brexit story accelerates, musicians are still in the dark about what will happen to their freedom of movement after we leave the EU. For two and a half years now I have been listening to colleagues and students worrying about whether they will still be able to study here, or if they are […]

The year got off to a flying start with a mention of Winterplay in The Scotsman‘s preview of concerts to look forward to in 2019. After talking about the Edinburgh International Festival, it goes on to say: ‘On a far smaller scale, though just as rewarding, is pianist Susan Tomes’s Winterplay mini-festival, which returns to […]

This Sunday morning, 14 October, ABC radio in Australia is broadcasting a substantial interview with me on ‘The Music Show’, presented by composer Andrew Ford. We were talking about my book ‘Speaking the Piano‘. The interview was recorded with me in Edinburgh and Andrew in Sydney. We talked for a while and apparently most of […]