I spent the past couple of days popping in and out of the first round of the Concerto Class held each year by the Edinburgh Music Competition Festival. The Concerto Class is strictly for amateurs; those who get to the final are given the opportunity to play their...
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In today's Guardian I was reading about the Japanese tradition of 'listening bars', where customers have 'a deep, beautiful, reverential attitude to listening to music'. High-end sound systems, sometimes dominating a whole wall, convey every layer of a recorded album...
On Sunday of this week I'll be playing a programme of piano music by historical women pianists at the London International Piano Festival at King's Place. Mine is the closing concert of the festival, at 3pm on 6th October. If you live in or near London, please...
Many thanks to everyone who took part in my London masterclasses for playing such a wonderful concert last night! Left to right: me; Perceval Gilles, Pierre-Kaloyann Atanassov, Sarah Sultan...
We're getting closer now to my London masterclasses in 'the art of piano chamber music', this year on 6 and 7 March at the beautiful home of Bob and Elisabeth Boas. Details of the classes are on the 'Concerts and Events' tab of my homepage. It's free to come and...
Went to see the new Coen Brothers' film, Inside Llewyn Davis, the tale of a moderately successful American folk singer in 1961, on the cusp of the Bob Dylan era. After the death of his duo partner, Llewyn is trying to make it in Greenwich Village as a solo artist. The...
Yesterday I listened to a BBC Radio 4 programme about Henry Cole, the founder of the splendid V&A Museum in South Kensington. They were talking to a curator of the David Bowie exhibition, one of the most successful of the V&A's recent exhibitions. The curator...
I've been practising Schumann's 'Papillons', a cycle of piano pieces containing various motifs and references which reappear in his later piano music. It seems that for Schumann, butterflies were associated with the novels of Jean Paul, one of his favourite authors,...
I was doing some teaching at Oxford University the other day, and we were discussing the challenges of making a good entrance on to the concert platform when giving a recital as part of your exams. I was discoursing on the need for calm or confidence, and trying to...
Several people including a lawyer have sent me a link to yesterday's BBC news story about a pianist in Spain whose neighbour took her to court over her piano practising, alleging 'psychological harm' from having to listen to it. Spanish prosecutors had initially...
Here I am talking with a talented young pianist at the very enjoyable masterclass I gave at Bowdoin College in Maine a few days ago. It was enjoyable partly because of the students and partly because of the audience, which included some townsfolk not used to coming to...
Here I am in conversation yesterday with Professor Mary Hunter in the Studzinski Recital Hall during the Klavierfest at Bowdoin College, Maine. We were billed to talk to the audience about various issues to do with performing, but as many conversations do these days,...
Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, who died this week, famously said (tongue in cheek, I suppose) that when you're composing a song, 'one chord is fine, two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz'. I had that quote in my mind last night as I...
City Music Society, which holds its concerts at Bishopsgate Institute near Liverpool St Station in London, is starting its 'early evening' autumn series on Wednesday night, 16 October, with a piano recital by me. Tickets are free for students under 25 with valid ID....
I'm preparing an interesting recital programme at the moment for a concert in Salzburg on October 23. Tomorrow I'm trying it out for an invited audience in London. The programme focuses on Billy Mayerl and his favourite composers. Billy Mayerl, the pianist at the...