I've been remembering a little conversation which happened years ago when a fellow musician was giving me a lift to the Tube station in London. I was on my way to play a concert. As I was getting out of the car, he said to me: 'Have you got your music?' 'Yes.' 'Have...
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I have been going to events at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. There seems to be a lot of overlap between the audiences, because I keep seeing the same faces. It's interesting to observe the effects that different performers have on the audiences. Some performers banter...
A friend and I have been discussing the career of a mutual friend who died recently. He was a fabulous musician who wasn't as well known as he should have been. Writers and visual artists can stay put in the place where they choose to live, and create their work...
Thank you to everyone who sent me a nice message after last night's streaming of the latest concert in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's digital series - on this occasion, a programme curated by their principal cellist Philip Higham and presenting two piano quartets by...
It's now a whole year since concerts started being cancelled in anticipation of the pandemic. I remember very well that I had been to a birthday coffee party where the extended family sat around a big circular glass-topped table while our reflections ate scones and...
After a long winter in the deep freeze (in more ways than one) - at last! - a concert to tell you about. It won't be performed in front of a live audience - that long-awaited moment is probably still months away- but it will be broadcast on YouTube and Facebook on...
This week we watched Amy Berg's 2015 documentary about Janis Joplin, 'Little Girl Blue', which tells Janis's story with the help of letters she wrote to her family while on tour. It's an absorbing watch, full of great footage, excellent interviews with her family,...
I keep coming across articles about the importance of revising our approach to international travel. For the sake of the environment as well as public health, we're told, we should be working towards the possibility of doing everything in the places where we live....
The other day I was listening to a ballet dancer reminiscing on radio about the time when, as a girl, she took part in a ballet masterclass given by Dame Margot Fonteyn. Dame Margot, it seems, was more terrifying in person than the students had expected. 'She hardly...
I was half-listening to the radio this morning when they were talking about fishing rights. The concept of 'zonal attachment' was being explained. I learned that this was a new and scientific way of approaching the issue of fishing rights. Fish move around; from year...
At last there is more commentary about the challenges facing freelance artists. Yesterday there was a strongly-worded cry for help in The Observer from several leading musicians, warning that if the UK's musicians are not supported, we could lose them for ever. I have...
In response to yesterday's outrage about an HM Government ad showing 'Fatima', a young ballet dancer as an example of someone who might switch to 'working in cyber', I'm posting an excerpt from 'J is for Job (not a proper)', from my book A Musician's Alphabet (Faber,...
So the UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has suggested that musicians and other creative artists may need to re-train and look for other opportunities as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “I can’t pretend that everyone can do exactly the same job that they were doing at...
On Monday, cellist Philip Higham and I played one of the first post-lockdown concerts for a socially distanced live audience at Wigmore Hall (see photo). At first, we had been told that only 56 people would be allowed in the audience, but the rules changed and we were...
On Monday, 14 September at 7.30pm, cellist Philip Higham and I will be stepping in at short notice to play a duo recital at Wigmore Hall in London. We're replacing two artists caught up in quarantine rules. With countries hopping on and off the quarantine list, the...