I have done an interview for the 'Brainland' podcast, a series 'where neuroscience, the arts and humanities mingle'. An old college friend, doctor and cellist Steve Brown, interviewed me about how I got started in music, how I got into chamber music, what motivates...
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Channel 4's series The Piano began its second series last night. It's always interesting to see the different playing styles of the pianists who put themselves forward to play a station piano in front of a crowd of listeners. Some of them play beautifully. However,...
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...
It was exciting being on Radio 4 yesterday, especially when I looked at my website afterwards and saw there was an enormous surge in the number of visitors – more than a ten-fold increase on the usual number. I had never seen such a number before on my ‘site stats’....
I never used to follow contemporary dance, but a chance encounter with the Mark Morris Dance Group seems to have turned me into an Sadler's Wells groupie. I've gone on to enjoy Pina Bausch, modern flamenco, and on Saturday we relished the last night of Anne Teresa de...
I can't help feeling rather proud of this photo, taken yesterday, of the first tadpole I've seen this spring. He/she/it was resting on a lily leaf under the surface of the water. There was an item on the radio this morning about the big increase in the number of...
I've been trying to prepare my mind for tomorrow's BBC recording of a discussion between me and fellow pianist James Rhodes for Radio 4's Between Ourselves programme (to be broadcast on April 26 at 9.00 and again at 21.30). James has found a way to bring classical...
I woke up early and went downstairs in my dressing-gown to bake a cake, but when I got to the stage of adding eggs, I found there were no eggs in the house. So I had to get dressed and run round the corner to a shop I knew would be open at that early hour. An Indian...
Noriko Ogawa arrived back safely from Japan, and here we are playing piano duets for Woman's Hour. We're also talking about my book 'Out of Silence' which Noriko is translating into Japanese. The broadcast is on Tuesday 29 March sometime between 10 and 11am, and you...
Here's the Florestan Trio on stage at Wigmore Hall at the end of our Monday lunchtime concert. It was broadcast live on Radio 3 and will be repeated this Saturday 19 March at 2pm. It's also available this week on iPlayer. It's always a delight to play at Wigmore...
After coaching chamber music at various music colleges this week, I’m still baffled about how chamber music can attain its proper status in higher education. My visit often begins with students explaining that they have struggled to find time to rehearse together;...
I'm giving three masterclasses this coming week: at the Royal Academy of Music on Monday, at Trinity College of Music on Tuesday, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Thursday (details on the Concert and Events Schedule tab at the top of this page). I...
It’s always so interesting how each audience has its own character, even though each audience is a random collection of people. I have been to see the film ‘The King’s Speech’ twice recently in my local cinema. On the first occasion, nobody moved when the film ended....
I was discussing the challenges of life in chamber music with a fellow musician from one of the big London orchestras. He told me the following joke, or rather 'joke', which orchestral players tell about chamber musicians: Question: How does a chamber musician make a...
There was lively debate at King’s College London following my talk yesterday. I had spoken about the interpreter’s task as I see it, taking as my title a remark of György Sebök’s, ‘Play the contents and not the container’. In my talk I used ‘contents’ to refer to...