Blogs

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A Piano Teacher Reflects…
I never intended to be a piano teacher. I worked for ten years in art and academic publishing after leaving university and I continued to freelance in this sector when I stopped full-time work to have my son. But as
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Twistin’ the Turk – Igudesman and Joo Move Mozart to Another Part of Asia
The piano and violin duo Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo have given any number of audience members a new way to hear music that could, perhaps, be too familiar.
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When Touring Orchestras Face Travel Hell
Picture this: A touring orchestra in Travel Hell: one-hundred musicians, a team of staff, a cargo plane full of instruments, sheet music and equipment, unexpectedly brought to a halt. The performance, scheduled years in advance, in a famous concert hall,
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Classical Music for All
With the maturation of recording and streaming technologies, it is now possible to listen to the best of classical music in the comfort of our own places. This tremendous change, from having to dress up decently for “physical” concerts to
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On the Occasion of the Death of Montserrat Caballé – Spanish Singing School
The 1970s were not short of operatic talent. The Met and Covent Garden regularly boasted extraordinary singers such as Luciano Pavarotti, Carlo Bergonzi, Renata Scotto; even Birgit Nilsson was still active. But then Spain exported a string of singers of
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Creating a Musical ‘Scrapbook’
When I was preparing for my performance Diplomas – and indeed whenever I start working on new music – I put together a ‘scrapbook’ of music and other materials (articles, interviews, pictures etc), in effect for reference to help with
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In Memoriam
Claudio Scimone (1934-2018)
On 6 September 2018, we sadly lost another pioneer of the early music movement. Claudio Scimone, a student of Dimitri Mitropoulos and Franco Ferrara, was primarily known as the founder of the string ensemble “I Solisti Veneti.” Together with Neville
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Chets: Inside Europe’s Biggest Summer School for Pianists
A shiny black Schimmel grand piano is stretched across the corner of a classroom normally reserved for French lessons. A small group of people sit in a semi-circle around the piano, some with musical scores opened on their laps, others
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