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.
Hyperion Records now available on streaming platforms
Hyperion Records, which was recently bought by Universal, has decided to make its catalogue of recordings available on streaming platforms for the first time. The first batch of 200 Hyperion recordings has just gone up on Apple Music, Spotify, iTunes and so on. As the...
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The Gaudier Ensemble’s festival
Last week I took part in the Cerne Abbas Music Festival, held by the Gaudier Ensemble in rural Dorset. For the past thirty-two years, the same group of musicians has been gathering in Cerne for a week in the summer, to present a series of chamber music concerts in the...
‘Fifty Portraits’ at King’s College Cambridge
I was in Cambridge at the weekend to give a piano recital as part of the events marking fifty years of women as undergraduates at King's College, Cambridge. As well as playing a concert, I was also there to see the opening of a special exhibition: Fifty Portraits, a...
Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra
To the Festival Hall this morning with Bob to attend an Open Rehearsal of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra from Venezuela. By the time we got round to asking about tickets for their two London concerts, they had long been sold out. This open rehearsal is our only...
The difficulty of being good all the way through
We went to the Orange Tree Theatre to see the premiere of a play, ‘The Story of Vasco', translated and adapted by Ted Hughes from an original play by Lebanese writer Georges Schehadé. Hughes' adaptation had never before been performed in its entirety; the director had...
A Rolls-Royce of a recording
Our record producer Andrew Keener sends his ‘suggested version' of the trio's newest Haydn disc in the post. He has worked through all the material we recorded over three days in the studio, stitching together his preferred versions of the takes. Now it's for the...
Mozart’s sister
In the Mozart exhibition in Salzburg I learned some new things about his sister, Nannerl. I knew that Nannerl played the piano too - partly because there's a famous painting of the two of them side by side at the piano, playing duets - but I hadn't realised that when...
Salzburg in the Snow
I've just been to Salzburg to play a concert in the Mozarteum with the Gaudier Ensemble. Leaving London in spring weather, it was startling to find ourselves walking through the Mirabell Gardens a few hours later in heavy snow. How strange travel is! One minute you're...
Musicians’ Collective
Went to a jazz gig performed by a group called ‘Way Out West', a collective of about twenty jazz musicians who live in this part of London. Seven of them were there on the night, plus two singers out of the three who were advertised. They explained that ‘Way Out West'...
Splinter groups
I went to the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House recently to hear a double bill of contemporary operas. Looking around the audience of several hundred, it struck me that I didn't recognise a single person, even though I've been going to concerts and playing...
Costume drama
Every year I feel I have to update my wardrobe of concert clothes, which is a pain because each season I have less and less of a clear idea of how I should look. But what I wear has always been noticed by people in the audience, who comment on it enough to make me...
Where are the best reviews?
My trio's latest record came out recently. Friends were soon sending us reviews they'd found, in newspapers and magazines as well as on the web. I read them all and I started to realise something interesting: the best writing was often found in amateur publications,...
The joy of cake
It's a funny thing, but when you spend hours of every day on something as intangible as music, you become very conscious that there's nothing to show for it at the end of the day. You may have twisted your brain into wild unruly shapes (shapes resembling Beethoven)...
Things of note
Welcome to my blog. I thought I wanted a static website, but my website designer had other ideas. As I'm old enough to be his mother I tried to tell him not to be silly, but somehow I found myself agreeing to try a blog. I hope to give an insight into the world of a...