I’m off to Cerne Abbas in Dorset for another of the lovely chamber music festivals run very successfully each year by the Gaudier Ensemble. Concerts are on 8-11 August inclusive. As far as I know, most concerts are sold out, but if you live nearby it’s always worth asking, as there are sometimes ‘returns’. Last […]

I’m coming towards the end of my week in Fiesole, a week of baking heat during which I have realised that much of the music we’ve been studying must have been written in a cooler climate. In this kind of intense heat we can hardly face playing, or even hearing, some of the more energetic […]

I’m off to Italy to teach for a week on the European Chamber Music Academy course. ECMA is an unusual organisation which moves around during the year, holding courses at a number of ‘host institutions’ in different parts of Europe. It offers high-level coaching to chamber groups – mainly string quartets and piano trios – […]

I’ve been leaping boldly into the world of new media by uploading an audio file to one of the new online music distributors which helps artists to get their music directly to new audiences. (Details to follow when I’ve got to the end of the process). It’s instrumental music by Mozart and I was very […]

I have had a delightful letter from a piano trio in Tokyo, asking for advice about how to perform Judith Weir’s first Piano Trio. The work ends with the pianist banging shut the lid over the piano keyboard, dryly snapping everyone out of the realm of music and back into the real world. The moment […]