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...
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The other day I was talking about piano-playing with some very good amateur pianists. As it happens, they were all high-flyers in other professions. A surgeon was saying ruefully that people don't realise how much work it takes to be a very good amateur pianist,...
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...
It's hard to keep up with changing perceptions in the world of music. We classical musicians are used to being the butt of complaints that our concerts are off-putting because of their focus on accuracy and daunting accomplishment. Unfortunately there's no way round...
I have been haunted this week by articles about the New York collaboration between 'performance artist' Marina Abramovic and pianist Igor Levit. You can read all about it here. Basically, Marina Abramovic seeks to 'get the audience into a different state of mind' in...
While baking a cake this morning, I listened to an excellent BBC Radio 4 programme, 'The Joy of 9 to 5', about managers. Presenter Lucy Kellaway investigated what managers actually do, and introduced us to some new approaches to management, emanating in particular...
I've just finished reading James Rhodes's book Instrumental. Nobody can put down the book without feeling intense sympathy for him and admiration for the way he's turned his traumatic experiences into positive motivation for life as a concert pianist. No-one can doubt...
I've been looking forward to performing Beethoven's song cycle 'An die ferne Geliebte' with tenor Jamie MacDougall next week at Glasgow University's lunchtime concert series. Admission to this popular series is free by the way! Unfortunately Jamie has had to pull out...
Yesterday's Guardian Review carried a fascinating article by Michael Church, editor of 'The other classical musics - fifteen great traditions', a new assortment of essays by Church and other world music experts published by Boydell Press (who also publish my books)....
One of the highlights of Saturday's 'Last Night of the Proms' was Jonas Kaufmann singing 'Dein ist mein ganzes Herz' from Franz Léhar's operetta 'The Land of Smiles' (Das Land des Laechelns). Oh my goodness, what a song! So beautifully constructed, such clever and...
In the admin section of my website, I can see what search terms people are most commonly using. For months now, the most popular search terms have been 'noisy piano practise in apartment', 'neighbour nuisance from piano playing', 'how to stop pianist practising...
17-year-old Jessy McCabe's petition for more women composers to be on the A-level music syllabus has been in the news today. It has generated quite a lot of interest and discussion, too. Good for her. The Independent asked if I had any comments to add, and some of my...
The news that Alex Ross is now the only full-time classical music critic on an American magazine has got me thinking about the changing status of reviews. Gone are the days when an 'important' concert would routinely be reviewed by all the major papers. When I was a...
I went to a concert recently (I won't say where or when). In the group was an older musician playing quite a prominent role on a string instrument. Unfortunately his control of pitch had become unreliable. He was smiling and concentrating, trying to play the right...
Just back from the 25th anniversary festival run by the Gaudier Ensemble in the lovely old Dorset village of Cerne Abbas (in the photo I'm rehearsing a Mozart piano concerto with (from L to R) Marieke Blankestijn, Lesley Hatfield, Iris Juda, Steve Williams and...