Last week I took part in the Cerne Abbas Music Festival, held by the Gaudier Ensemble in rural Dorset. For the past thirty-two years, the same group of musicians has been gathering in Cerne for a week in the summer, to present a series of chamber music concerts in the...
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I was in Cambridge at the weekend to give a piano recital as part of the events marking fifty years of women as undergraduates at King's College, Cambridge. As well as playing a concert, I was also there to see the opening of a special exhibition: Fifty Portraits, a...
This week I'm giving a recital of music by historical women pianist-composers. I'll be playing an Erard grand piano made at the end of the 19th century by the firm of Sebastien Erard in Paris. (Officially the piano is dated around 1900, but a technician told me he...
I'm off to Scotland for the second concert in my Mozart Series with Erich Hobarth. While I'm there, I'm hoping to visit the newly refurbished Scottish National Portrait Gallery which has been closed for the past two years. It opened again in Edinburgh on December 1....
Today there's an interview with me by Kate Molleson in the Herald, one of Scotland's leading newspapers. The interview was triggered by the interest in my Mozart Series with violinist Erich Höbarth in Perth Concert Hall. The next concert in the series is on December...
Since I wrote about attending a masterclass the other day, several people have told me about their own bruising experiences with ‘masters’ who specialised in devastating criticism. Years after the event they could still recall the words with searing clarity: ‘Shall I...
I've promised to help promote the Conway Hall Sunday Concerts, where I'm playing a recital on Sunday 4 December at 6.30pm. Conway Hall (25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1) is Europe's longest-running chamber music series, and has been going since 1887. The series...
To King's Place to hear the Hungarian piano professor Ferenc Rados teach a public masterclass for several chamber groups. I know lots of people who have had memorable lessons with Ferenc Rados in recent years, though I myself hadn't seen him since I played to him in...
Lots of people seem to have been interested in the Guardian review, (see previous post), so here's another one of the same concert which appeared yesterday in the the Perthshire Advertiser: 'Since the opening of Perth Concert Hall, last Friday evening's concert was...
Blowing my own trumpet, or rather hammering my own Klavier - but it's not so often that one gets a five-star review in the Guardian! Here's the review of my concert in Perth last Friday with violinist Erich Höbarth: 'Some of the most intuitive, candid and affectionate...
I'm on my way to Scotland for the start of my Mozart Series with violinist Erich Höbarth. On Friday evening we're playing our opening concert in the Horsecross Concert Hall in Perth, one of Scotland's newest arts centres. For this series, I've been preparing nearly...
How nice it is to work with young musicians at that interesting crossroads when they're emerging from higher education and developing their own identities as professional musicians. They are no longer dependent on teachers (sometimes they no longer have access to...
I’m off to Vienna to rehearse four programmes of Mozart’s music which violinist Erich Höbarth and I are playing this season in Perth Concert Hall, Scotland's newest concert hall (our first concert is on November 11). We’re tackling twelve of Mozart’s sonatas for piano...
In the wake of the Trondheim competition, I’ve been thinking about the gap between the jury’s taste and the public’s taste in performers. Several times during the competition I happened to bump into members of the public in the coffee shop, or in the foyers of the...
Yesterday on the flight home from Norway, our flight crew announced that the airline had just installed free WiFi on certain planes, including ours. As I had a laptop with me I was able to send my first e-mail from the sky. Even more amazingly, a reply pinged straight...