Everyone sees Brexit through their own lens. This is mine. When I was small, playing the piano was my favourite thing. I had heard that Mozart and Schubert came from Austria. Bach and Beethoven and Schumann came from Germany. Debussy and Ravel came from France. And so on. Those countries were just pretty pictures in […]

At a new year party I had an interesting chat with a young man who  likes music and likes to listen to it at university along with his friends. He himself likes classical music among other kinds. Many of his friends are not familiar with the world of classical music, but are open-minded and willing […]

I haven’t written much on my blog recently, for two reasons: 1. My website was hacked (aargh), and I have been struggling to deal with the technical issues that resulted. 2. I have been working on a new book. More of that in the new year! As we come to the end of the year, […]

A little while ago I wrote about my sudden insight that most printed fingering in the scores of piano pieces was probably devised by men, and for male pianists. Yesterday I had some follow-up to that from a doctor who had done some further reading about male and female hand sizes. He showed me the […]

The marvellous National Youth Orchestra Prom concert with Nicola Benedetti last week has set me reminiscing about my time in the NYO (in the photo, I have long fair hair and am just to the left of the middle of the group, playing 2nd violin.) Watching the NYO Prom on television, I realised that the […]