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...
Looking for reviews
A friend of ours is in a West End play at the moment, and I wanted to read the reviews. Simply by typing the name of the play into Google News, I had all the reviews lined up neatly before me. Click! click! click! click! click! and I had surveyed the full range of...
Mould on the Christmas cake
I was so pleased with myself this year for baking my Christmas cake six weeks before Christmas. It's an especially moist cake because I soaked the fruit in strong tea overnight before baking. The finished cake was wrapped in four layers of greaseproof paper and foil...
‘Of Gods and Men’
Went to a marvellous French film, ‘Of Gods and Men’. These days I’m often disappointed when I go to the cinema but this was an exception. The film tells the story of a group of Cistercian monks in a small monastery in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria at a time of...
Instant Commentary
Interesting article the other day in The Guardian about the fact that many people now chat online about what they’re watching on TV, while they’re watching it. They don’t wait for the end of the programme, but start commenting on Twitter right away about things that...
A present from Japan
I had a lovely surprise recently, and have been waiting for an opportunity to mention it. The distinguished Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa read my book ‘Out of Silence’ recently, and told me that she would like to translate it into Japanese. She has now been...
Alumna news
My old college has picked up on my book having been included in The Independent's 'Pick of 2010' last Friday. Read the article on the college website, where you can also find some fab photos of the chapel and so on.
Lake in D
The lake in Richmond Park had frozen over for the first time this winter. People were breaking off pieces of ice from the shore line or picking up stones from the paths, and skimming them over the frozen surface of the water. To my amazement, each stone played the...
‘Pick of 2010’
My book 'Out of Silence' has been chosen by The Independent as one of the 'best books for Christmas - our pick of 2010'. I'm told by my publisher that this has led to .... well, if not a surge exactly, then a 'bijou surgette' in orders on Amazon. Hooray! The...
Vaulting ambition
To Evensong at King's College, Cambridge. At this time of year it is quite dark when the service begins at 5.30pm. As the sound of the choir floats upwards, it seems to draw the eye up to the beautiful fan vaulting (see photo). I never get tired of hearing how subtly...
Ear of the beholder
To a viol masterclass given by the eiminent Catalan viol player Jordi Savall at the Royal College of Music. As always happens when I listen to 'early music', it took me a little while to tune in to the quiet sound level favoured by the players. It's so different from...
Frost on the roses
Despite the cold weather, there are still red roses blooming in the garden. But today when I looked out, there was frost on their petals. Somehow the sight of frost on the roses was poignant.
A morning with Goritzki
Went to a marvellous cello masterclass given by Johannes Goritzki at the Royal College of Music. He spent hours persuading the students that playing the cello was easier than they thought, just a matter of applying weight in the right place, not working against the...