I’m back from chairing the jury at CIMCL, the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition. It was won by the Trio Messiaen from Paris, who swept the board with almost all of the available prizes. In 2nd place was the Trio Hélios, also from Paris, and in 3rd place was the Trio Mosa, who live in […]

Tomorrow I’m off to France to spend a week on the jury of the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition. This year the competition is for piano trio – the classic combination of piano, violin and cello. From time to time I come across people who think -very reasonably – that ‘a piano trio’ must consist […]

Last week, when I was in Italy, I went to a concert of a well-known ensemble (I’ll be discreet about who and where). Firstly I should say that the large audience appeared perfectly happy with the performance and applauded enthusiastically, but for me as a professional musician there were signs that the players were demoralised. […]

Recently I came across folders of notes I had made when serving on international competition juries over the past decade or more. Pages and pages of detailed notes on people’s playing. Most of them played for at least half an hour, sometimes an hour, so there was plenty of time to make notes. I did […]

I’ve just returned from the Gaudier Ensemble’s annual festival at Cerne Abbas in Dorset (photo: the last piece of the final concert – the Dvorak piano quintet with (L to R) Marieke Blankestejn, Ulrike Janssen, me, Iris Juda and Henrik Brendstrup). One of the pleasures of the festival is seeing the same people year after […]