I haven’t written anything here for a while because I have been busy preparing for a big solo recital programme last Thursday in the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh (and for several ‘run-up’ concerts in different parts of the country). All went well, and after a very happy evening with a great audience on Thursday I […]

Two recent topics of conversation have come together in my mind to prompt a question. Topic 1: the number of classical concert reviews is shrinking rapidly. Everyone in the profession has noticed it. Many newspapers are reducing the number of classical reviews they print and the number of days a week on which they print […]

A great weekend of music-making in Perth Concert Hall with the Quatuor Mosaiques came to an end yesterday with  fabulous five-star reviews in The Herald and The Scotsman. During the residency we had the privilege of staying in Methven Castle with its delightful and tireless owners, Alex and David Murdoch. Here we are outside the castle. Left to right: […]

Excerpt from a review of my book ‘Sleeping in Temples’, in the newsletter of the London Chamber Music Society (you can download the whole newsletter from their site). ‘I don’t usually ‘judge a book by its cover’, but in this case the cover is a lovely place to start: a reflection? an artwork? water and oil? […]

The news that Alex Ross is now the only full-time classical music critic on an American magazine has got me thinking about the changing status of reviews. Gone are the days when an ‘important’ concert would routinely be reviewed by all the major papers. When I was a young professional I used to walk down to a […]