I’ve just finished reading a wonderful Irish novel written at the close of the 19th century. ‘The Real Charlotte‘ was written by Somerville and Ross, a pair of female cousins who co-authored a number of books including one of my all-time favourites, ‘The Memoirs of an Irish RM’ (‘RM’ meaning Resident Magistrate). The title sounds [...]

A young musician friend has been telling me about a fully-funded chamber music group based in Denmark. Each member of the group, which is supported by the Danish Government to expand the reach of chamber music across the country, is paid a full salary and has accommodation provided. They also have a full-time manager who [...]

                      Many thanks to everyone who took part in my London masterclasses for playing such a wonderful concert last night! Left to right: me; Perceval Gilles, Pierre-Kaloyann Atanassov, Sarah Sultan (Trio Atanassov); Giuseppina Coni, Giulia Cerra, Valeria Sirangelo (Trio Eclettica); Vashti Hunter, Veronika Kopjova (cello [...]

We’re getting closer now to my London masterclasses in ‘the art of piano chamber music’, this year on 6 and 7 March at the beautiful home of Bob and Elisabeth Boas. Details of the classes are on the ‘Concerts and Events’ tab of my homepage. It’s free to come and listen to the main classes, [...]

I’ve been taking sneaky breaks from other tasks to watch the Winter Olympics from Sochi. This is partly in homage to my Dad, a keen skater, who imparted to the wider family a love of figure skating and ice dancing which still gets us gathering round televisions whenever there’s some good skating to watch. And [...]