I have been keeping half an eye on the 2025 Van Cliburn piano competition in Texas, partly because when I was writing Women and the Piano I did a fair amount of research into the gender disparity one can see in the lists of piano competition prizewinners around the...
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A new series of Channel 4's 'The Piano' has begun. Judge Mika is still there, but Lang Lang has left the show and in his place is the multi-talented American musician Jon Batiste. For anyone who isn't familiar with the show, this is the concept: an upright piano is...
Recently I visited my old college in Cambridge to give a recital. While I was there, I took the opportunity to attend two services of Evensong in the college chapel. As always, hearing sacred music sung in those glorious surroundings (see photo) was a striking...
Our discussion at the Guildhall on Friday, about talking to the audience, turned out to be unexpectedly interesting. It would take too long to report on all the facets of the discussion, but here's one of them. All the performers agreed that talking to the audience is...
Back in the seventies, a friend told me he was reading a book by Marshall McLuhan on how technology was beginning to intrude into everyday life. 'Apparently there is no activity which human beings will not interrupt in order to answer a ringing phone', reported my...
Here I am working with the Trio Paul Klee, from Paris, at my London masterclasses last weekend (I was pointing something out to the audience at the moment the photo was taken). I thoroughly enjoyed working with the eleven young professionals (three trios and a duo)...
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in Silk St, Barbican, is running a seminar and 'round table discussion' on Friday 9th March from 5.30-7pm. The topic is 'Talking to the audience'. It's part of the 'Understanding audiences' series. Is talking to the audience a...
On Saturday I played the third of my Mozart Series concerts in Perth Concert Hall with Erich Hobarth. We were both very struck by the quality of the audience's attention. In any winter season, there are often outbreaks of uncontrolled coughing in the audience, but it...
I'm on my way to Perth in Scotland, for the third of my Mozart Series programmes with violinist Erich Hobarth. We'll rehearse today, and the concert is on Saturday evening at 7.30pm in Perth Concert Hall. Please come along, Perthshire music-lovers! Mozart popped up on...
It was lucky I didn't have to play the piano much while I was in Austria, because I have been nursing a small injury to my right hand. It happened back in December when I was playing a solo programme including Ligeti's 'Musica Ricercata'. In the second piece, as the...
Here are all the winners of the Graz Competition on stage at their Gala Concert on Thursday evening. Two piano trios, three Lieder partnerships of singer and pianist, and three string quartets (not all of whom are visible in the photo). For details of who won what,...
The final of the Graz competition ended last night with no first prize being awarded. We had been following jury rules which obliged us to give our scores anonymously, and to refrain from discussing the competitors with one another. Consequently the result of every...
We have now arrived at six finalists for the piano trio competition in Graz. Each group has to play a contemporary work, plus one of Schubert's late, great trios in the Final on Tuesday. This will be the first time I have ever had to sit and listen to six consecutive...
I'm in Graz, Austria, on the jury of a piano trio competition, 'Franz Schubert and modern music'. Graz is a beautiful city and even more so in the snow. The competition has several parallel categories: piano trio, string quartet and Lieder. The idea behind it is that...
Some years ago I recorded 'Loose Elbows', a CD of Billy Mayerl's piano music. It features some of the sparkling, good-humoured pieces Billy wrote when he was the celebrated pianist at the Savoy Hotel in London in the 1920s and 30s. My disc has been in and out of print...