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. […]

Two recent topics of conversation have come together in my mind to prompt a question. Topic 1: the number of classical concert reviews is shrinking rapidly. Everyone in the profession has noticed it. Many newspapers are reducing the number of classical reviews they print and the number of days a week on which they print […]