I've been watching the BBC Young Musician competition on television for many years now. Slowly, the competition has slipped from the major channels and is now shown on BBC4, whose output currently seems to consist of repeats, archive material and cultural things that...
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Tomorrow I'm playing a solo recital at the Lammermuir Festival, a lovely festival which takes place in various locations, sacred and secular, across the beautiful county of East Lothian in Scotland. I have practised my programme to the point of feeling a keen desire...
The other day I came across an article called 'The Pianoforte Recital'. It was published in The Musical Times in 1911 - over a century ago. The author, Frederick Kitchener (himself a pianist), complained that piano recitals had become far too numerous, and that...
I have joined the roster of speakers represented by the Ed Victor Agency. If you are interested in booking me as a speaker, Visit their Speakers' Bureau and scroll down the alphabetical list until you come to T. I've always enjoyed speaking to concert audiences, and...
The other day I went to an orchestral concert, at the end of which the conductor held up a hand for silence and made an emotional speech about how this kind of music needs our support more than ever, because classical musicians feel 'marginalised'. He said that young...
Went to hear a consort of viols playing their own arrangement of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which were written for a keyboard instrument. It's such wonderful music that it has inspired various people to arrange it for different instruments - I have heard it done...
Yesterday I adjudicated a scholarship whose auditions were held at the Royal Academy of Music. Their Josefowitz Recital Hall is set into the ground at basement level. Half way up the wall behind the stage is a large half-moon-shaped window as wide as the room. This...
Went to the Royal College of Music to see their end-of-year student production of Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro'. Whenever I go to see Mozart operas, I'm struck by how one gets to see a side of Mozart not so much in evidence in his purely instrumental music. How to...
On this morning's 'A Point of View' on Radio 4, Adam Gopnik shared some amusing thoughts about how authors deal with negative reviews. He described how many authors write fierce late-night responses and reubuttals, which they're usually dissuaded from sending. He...
Booking for Wigmore Hall's 2012-13 season opens to the general public today. You can browse the new brochure online or download it from here. This seems a good moment to mention that on the evening of Sunday, September 30, violinist Erich Höbarth and I will be playing...
As part of the Cerne Abbas music festival in Dorset, members of the Gaudier Ensemble have been giving masterclasses in the church to some local young musicians. Two years ago I had the pleasure of teaching a talented young Dorset pianist, Max Blass-Laker, and...
I'm down in Dorset for the annual music festival of the Gaudier Ensemble in Cerne Abbas. Last night I finished my rehearsals in time to join a crowd of people walking from the centre of the village and up the hill where the famous Cerne Abbas Giant is depicted. On top...
I don't think I've ever played and listened to so much Brahms as I have this week. The Orion Quartet and I have now done three Brahms concerts this week in Oxford and London, and there's another tonight in King's Place. Every programme has been a mix of Brahms string...
It's just a week now until the first of my three concerts with the Orion Quartet at King's Place. Quartet fans will know that the Orion are, indeed, stars. Our concerts are part of the 'Brahms Unwrapped' series at King's Place in London. They're on May 31, June 1 and...
A very interesting discussion the other day at an event organised by the Worshipful Company of Musicians to find out whether young musicians feel they're getting enough career advice. Many young musicians said sadly that in music the bar is set very high for...