Blog
I’ve been writing this blog since 2009, but there still seem to be plenty of interesting topics to mull over. You can subscribe (it’s free) to follow the blog by email – each new post will pop into your inbox.
Elite athletes and what we musicians can learn from watching them
I'm enjoying the lull between major sports events - the Euros Football Tournament and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships just passed, and the Olympics which start in Paris at the end of the coming week. I got quite engrossed in both the tennis and the football,...
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Risk assessments
The other day I was part of a coffee gathering where people from various lines of work were talking about their experiences of writing 'risk assessments'. They described the complicated forms that had to be filled in and the efforts to explain what preventive measures...
FT Best Summer Books of 2024
My book on women pianists has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of their Best Summer Books of 2024. Music critic Richard Fairman made it one of his choices. It's very gratifying to find the book being noticed by a wider circle - I suppose because of the...
Perthshire Advertiser review
Lots of people seem to have been interested in the Guardian review, (see previous post), so here's another one of the same concert which appeared yesterday in the the Perthshire Advertiser: 'Since the opening of Perth Concert Hall, last Friday evening's concert was...
Five-star review in today’s Guardian
Blowing my own trumpet, or rather hammering my own Klavier - but it's not so often that one gets a five-star review in the Guardian! Here's the review of my concert in Perth last Friday with violinist Erich Höbarth: 'Some of the most intuitive, candid and affectionate...
Living with Mozart
I'm on my way to Scotland for the start of my Mozart Series with violinist Erich Höbarth. On Friday evening we're playing our opening concert in the Horsecross Concert Hall in Perth, one of Scotland's newest arts centres. For this series, I've been preparing nearly...
November roses
Although the clocks have gone back, the afternoons are growing dark between 4 and 5pm, and winter is clearly approaching, there are still roses blooming in the garden. I'm particularly pleased about one rose, an Ena Harkness, which has taken ages to get established in...
In Oxford
When I was in Oxford the other day to give a masterclass at the university, I visited a friend who lives and teaches in one of the Oxford colleges. To reach his rooms, I had to pass through several interlocking courtyards, or Quads as they're called in Oxford. Each...
Look, no cygnets
In our local park, there's a pond where we've been watching the progress of a spectacular swan family with nine cygnets. Early on in their family life they perfected the art of moving about the lake in procession, their synchronised graceful movements drawing the...
Shredding sheet music
Last week I had to empty my shelves of piano music so that the room could be painted. It took ages and resulted in tottering piles of sheet music on the floor of other rooms. As I carried armfuls of music to and fro, I reflected on how much effort had gone into...
Exploring other ways of doing things
How nice it is to work with young musicians at that interesting crossroads when they're emerging from higher education and developing their own identities as professional musicians. They are no longer dependent on teachers (sometimes they no longer have access to...
Dumplings
Talk on the radio this morning about obesity epidemics in various countries has prompted me to show this photo of a meal I ate a few days ago in an old Bierkeller in Vienna: spinach dumplings with sheep's cheese. A delicious meal, but rather startling to behold when...
‘Mozart’s grave’
One afternoon in Vienna we went out to visit the place where Mozart was buried, in the Sankt Marx cemetery outside the old city walls. Today the burial ground, no longer used since the 1880s, lies forlornly in the midst of motorway flyovers, housing estates,...
Sonatas for piano and violin
I’m off to Vienna to rehearse four programmes of Mozart’s music which violinist Erich Höbarth and I are playing this season in Perth Concert Hall, Scotland's newest concert hall (our first concert is on November 11). We’re tackling twelve of Mozart’s sonatas for piano...
Performing Arts Medicine
To a talk at the Guildhall School of Music about musicians' injuries. 'Suffering for their Art', presented by Helen Reid, explored the complex topic of how performers deal with injuries which prevent them from playing their instruments. It seems that musicians are...