I’m giving three masterclasses this coming week: at the Royal Academy of Music on Monday, at Trinity College of Music on Tuesday, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Thursday (details on the Concert and Events Schedule tab at the top of this page).
I didn’t really intend to have such an intensive week [...]

It’s always so interesting how each audience has its own character, even though each audience is a random collection of people. I have been to see the film ‘The King’s Speech’ twice recently in my local cinema. On the first occasion, nobody moved when the film ended. We all sat through the long credits, talking [...]

I was discussing the challenges of life in chamber music with a fellow musician from one of the big London orchestras. He told me the following joke, or rather ‘joke’, which orchestral players tell about chamber musicians:
Question: How does a chamber musician make a million pounds?
Answer: Start off with two million pounds.

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There was lively debate at King’s College London following my talk yesterday. I had spoken about the interpreter’s task as I see it, taking as my title a remark of György Sebök’s, ‘Play the contents and not the container’. In my talk I used ‘contents’ to refer to music itself, and ‘container’ to mean all [...]

I’ve been in Germany, where I attended a christening in a lovely old Baroque church in Bavaria (see photo). Music was provided by friends and family members playing various instruments in the gallery of the church. The baby’s grandfather had composed a Pastorale for four wind instruments and organ specially for the occasion, and played [...]