A kind reader in the US (thank you Diana) has alerted me to the fact that my book Women and the Piano is one of Jeremy Denk's choices in this week's New Yorker magazine. New York pianist and writer Jeremy Denk was asked to recommend a few books that deal with the...
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Today, January 27, is Mozart's birthday. 269 years since he was born! His is the only 'composer birthday' I regularly remember, I suppose because he is still my favourite composer despite stiff competition from about 25 others. I remember his birthday for its own sake...
On the last day of the year I have been looking through the list of books I read during the year. This year I seem to have read 36 books. I used to read books from the library, but the pandemic (when libraries were closed for ages) trained me out of that habit, and...
Woman’s Hour, the iconic BBC Radio 4 programme, is to feature an interview with me and fellow pianist Noriko Ogawa on March 29. The interview was originally planned as a discussion between me and Noriko about my book ‘Out of Silence’, which Noriko is currently...
I've just finished reading a fascinating book published in 1944: The Baton and the Jackboot, by Berta Geissmar, the personal assistant of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler during his great days in Germany. After Geissmar had been forced to leave Germany during the Hitler...
I had a lovely surprise recently, and have been waiting for an opportunity to mention it. The distinguished Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa read my book ‘Out of Silence’ recently, and told me that she would like to translate it into Japanese. She has now been...
My book 'Out of Silence' has been chosen by The Independent as one of the 'best books for Christmas - our pick of 2010'. I'm told by my publisher that this has led to .... well, if not a surge exactly, then a 'bijou surgette' in orders on Amazon. Hooray! The...
The third and final instalment of my readings from 'Out of Silence' is aired tomorrow by Canadian Broadcasting's 'In Concert' programme. I'll be reading one short chapter from my book, and I'll also be chatting with 'In Concert' host Bill Richardson. They'll be...
In BBC Music magazine, Rebecca Franks muses on why the musicians who write books about their experience of music tend to be pianists. Read her article. It's a fascinating topic and one I'm often asked about. There are various possibilities: pianists are loners, and so...
The Wimbledon BookFest has asked me to mention them, and I'm happy to spread the word as my own event is one of the first in this year's BookFest. The festival runs from 2-10 October and you can find out more here. On the evening of Saturday 2 October I'm giving a...
A gift arrives from America: a pianist colleague has kindly sent me Barbara Alex’s handsome new book about Hungarian piano professor Gyorgy Sebok, who died in 1999. Like all Sebok’s former students, I love to be reminded of how he spoke. He had a gift for aphorism...
This morning I was coaching a very nice piano trio. We were talking about those ‘abstract’ works of Beethoven where the composer builds his material out of little musical ‘cells’ rather than obvious melodies and counter-melodies. Such works are sometimes more...
Today's Independent newspaper has a review of new books on music, with several paragraphs devoted to mine. Click here if you'd like to read the article by the Independent's literary editor Boyd Tonkin.
BBC Music Magazine is giving away eight copies of my book 'Out of Silence'. To enter the draw, all you have to do is answer the question: of which trio is Susan Tomes the pianist? The answer's easy to find on this website. The draw closes on the 9th August, so if...
Richard Osborne devotes a large part of his Music column in 'The Oldie' magazine (Summer 2010) to my new book. As I don't have a picture of the magazine I've chosen instead an illustration of an real oldie, one of the 700-year-old oaks in Richmond Park. Richard...