My readers will know that I hate people coughing in concerts. I don’t mean the sudden cough that the person can’t help and does their best to stifle – I mean the self-indulgent barking cough which rings out across the hall and seems to be targeted at specially quiet moments in the music. When you’re […]

Last week I followed the Cardiff Singer of the World competition on TV with great enjoyment through all the rounds. I was so impressed with these singers who, despite a year of lockdown and no opportunities to sing to live audiences, were able to come out and perform so generously to a hall empty of […]

This week I was the guest on a podcast called The Classical Top Five. During lockdown, a group of critics and broadcasters have been making their way through various ‘top five’ categories ranging from the serious to the light-hearted, and this week they turned their attention to trios. There are many different kinds of trios […]

A year ago, when lockdown happened and all my work was cancelled, I spent a lot of time walking around the streets of my neighbourhood – partly for exercise, partly to pass the time, and partly because we were not supposed to be taking the bus so there was no other way to get to […]

This week I came across the video made by cellist Felix Wurman about  Domus at the beginning of the group’s career. We were trying to publicise our concerts in our portable concert hall, a large geodesic dome which the players assembled out of aluminium tubes, putting it up and taking it down in each place […]