For years I told myself I couldn’t play Liszt – or Rachmaninoff for that matter – because of the relatively small size of my hands. I can stretch a ninth, just about. Any more and it’s painful – and a

How does it feel to play that passage of Liszt or that section of Schubert beautifully? Or the grandest measures of Bach? The tenderest Chopin? The most sensitive, haunting Debussy? To plumb the profoundest, most spiritual depths of Messiaen?

Performing can take many forms – from informal playing at home with friends to a recital at a world-renowned concert hall – and each performance presents its own difficulties, stresses, pleasures and revelations. I believe it is important to perform

The self-help/life coaching section of my local bookshop is full of books on how to learn from the professionals – think like a pro, act like a pro, be more pro. We are encouraged to draw inspiration from successful professionals

Thoughts on How to Introduce the Music Appropriately Before a Performance There is a growing trend amongst concert hosts and performers to introduce the music to be performed ahead of the concert, and on radio for presenters to describe the

Where does inspiration come from, the spark to create? ….even fairly mundane activities can feed in to the discovery of new insight, new knowledge and new means of expressing ideas in all sorts of ways – Professor John Rink

I watched with interest some of the Winter Olympics coverage from South Korea, in particular the snowboarding and skiing. It’s easy to spot the winners – people like Chloe Kim and Redmond Gerard (both from the US team): they display

When considering the piano repertoire, and piano instrumental music, we tend to focus on the big works in the canon – the great concertos and piano sonatas, and large-scale works like the Goldberg, Diabelli or Handel Variations, or the Rhapsody