Today is 'World Piano Day' (as if every day wasn't piano day!) and Yale University Press has been tweeting a little clip of me talking about the French pianist-composer Hélène de Montgeroult. De Montgeroult is one of the pianist-composers featured in my new book Women...
Interested in what Susan has to say about all things classical music? Subscribe below and whenever Susan writes a new blog post you will be notified by email. Simple!
On Monday there was a report in The Guardian about the benefits of being involved in music. This time it was, 'Playing a musical instrument or singing is linked to better memory in older age'. To my delight the next paragraph began, 'The piano was especially...
During the Christmas holidays we watched The Sound of Music on television. Some parts of it will forever be charming, while other parts have not worn so well. No matter - it's still a feast of nostalgia for those of us who remember the film when it first came out. Bob...
Suddenly lots of baby birds have appeared in the nests we've been watching for weeks on our local pond. A few days ago, everything was still quiet as the mother birds sat on their nests. Now there are six gorgeous cygnets on the lake, and three baby coots in their...
Through a fog of jet-lag I nevertheless enjoyed watching the finals of the Piano and String categories in BBC Young Musician 2012. The level of technical mastery in these young players is quite astonishing. I'm constantly amazed at how they manage to combine...
This blog is taking an Easter break while I go to Cuba with my daughter, leaving Bob peacefully at home to write his book on orchestral music. Oh yes, I agree: it's hard to imagine me in Cuba, even for me. I'm a bit scared of the tropical mosquitoes, but I'm...
More depressing reports about Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart being used to deter gangs of young people from hanging around at bus stations and the like. Once again it's not clear what is really being said about classical music. On the one hand, transport bosses say...
Last night we saw 'Once upon a time in Anatolia', Nuri Bilge Ceylan's haunting film which won the Grand Prix at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Reviews and viewers' comments had suggested it was either a masterpiece or a shocking waste of two and a half hours. Both...
The press has been reporting recently on the successful use of music during surgery in a couple of different hospitals. Apparently it can 'lessen fear' and reduce the heart rate of patients who are played 'easy listening' and 'chart classics' while having...
It's three years today since I started this blog, three years in which I've thoroughly enjoyed corresponding with readers around the world. I've also learned to use a camera (well, a bit). I looked at the website statistics to get an overview. The number of...
King's Place, the building behind King's Cross which houses two concert halls and also the Guardian offices, was heaving today for the first Guardian Open Weekend (see photo). It was great to see the place so full, and full of such interesting-looking people too. I...
This morning I managed at last to get a photo of one of the green parakeets which live in Richmond Park. They're usually too quick for me. The parakeets have been a feature of the park for some years, but still strike an exotic note with their vivid green plumage and...
Bob made a gorgeous tart using blood oranges and lemons (see picture). The colour was quite lovely, a deep golden yellow which reminded me of Renaissance fresco paintings. I started to search around on art-history sites and paint history websites for a description of...
Noriko Ogawa has finished translating my book 'Out of Silence' into Japanese, after more than a year's work. As Noriko zooms about the world, she and her editor in Tokyo have been corresponding about the precise choice of words and the appropriate tone, and I have...
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...