Phew! That was indeed a two-piano marathon at the London Piano Festival. Looking tired but happy after the three-hour concert last Saturday night in King’s Place are, from left to right, Christian Ihle Hadland, Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen (co-directors of the festival), Susan Tomes, Tim Horton. Thanks to Viktor Erik Emmanuel for this photo, […]

At the Edinburgh Book Festival I went to hear Caroline Criado Perez talk about her book ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men‘. The book has just won the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize. The book’s mission is simple but profoundly thought-provoking: it aims to make us aware of how […]

I’m preparing for my two appearances at the London Piano Festival in King’s Place on Saturday October 5.  At 2pm I have a solo lecture-recital on Schubert’s A major Sonata D959. At 7pm I’ll be joining the other festival pianists in a ‘two-piano marathon‘ concert. Most people think of piano duets as two players sitting […]

I’ve been on holiday in Italy and can feel that it has done me good. What can be more cheering than to start each day by opening the shutters to find a golden haze lying over the landscape (again), the hills receding in layers of paler and paler blue? It was very hot. Amazing how […]

After a recent concert a member of the audience was telling me how much she’d enjoyed it. ‘I always say it’s great to hear top professionals playing, because it’s only when people have really mastered the notes that they can think about how music communicates’, she said. Actually, I feel sad when I hear people […]