Recently for work reasons I’ve had to look through the websites of lots of different young musicians and chamber groups. Websites are dazzling! It’s clear that everyone now employs sophisticated media skills and professional designers. Gorgeous artwork, glamorous photos easily mistaken for fashion shoots, web pages that dance about to a mysterious rhythm; video, audio […]

I’ve just returned from a week in Germany, on the jury of the Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition in Weimar (see photo of the splendid Music Conservatory where it all happened). There were groups from most corners of the world. Many of them were living proof of the benefits of cross-European study. Although there were […]

Last weekend I was at a dinner in Christ’s College, Cambridge to celebrate 40 years of women in the college (founded 1505). Women have only been allowed to study at the University of Cambridge since 1869, when Girton College was founded. Newnham followed in 1872, but even for decades after that, women were not considered […]

I seem to have turned into the kind of person who stops what they’re doing in the afternoon in order to tune into live Parliamentary debates about Brexit. Last week I spent several afternoons listening to politicians giving speeches, scripted and unscripted. Being a trained musician is interesting on these occasions. I’m so used to […]

I did some guest teaching at the University of St Andrews the other day. During one of my sessions, a member of the audience asked an interesting question. I didn’t know the answer and am still thinking about it. He said: ‘I have some modern recordings of Baroque music. The orchestra plays with a lot […]