A new music exam syllabus is always eagerly anticipated by teachers and there’s a great deal of pleasure and excitement in browsing the new selection of music and considering which pieces will appeal to our students and which ones we

“Do not find yourself in the music, but find the music in yourself.”– HEINRICH NEUHAUS (1888-1964) An outstanding Ukrainian pianist and pedagogue in the early 20th century, Neuhaus was born in a musical family whose parents were both music teachers.

The tradition theremin, developed in the early 20th century by Léon Theremin and patented in 1928, looks like a box with antennas. It’s not stylish, it really only has one sound and it’s not even something you want in your

Artists are taught tradition in order to innovate. While there are some discussions about tradition and innovation, they are both essential to the wellbeing of art, to progress and continuity. I like to think that one looks at the past,

While it has been fashionable to separate the art from the artist—just think of Caravaggio, Woody Allen, Benjamin Britten, Richard Wagner and countless others—music and politics have always been intricately connected and entwined. As the great Isaac Stern famously said,

Athletes and experts in peak performance understand very well the concept of “tapering” – a significant reduction in training load in the days before a competition which is, paradoxically, thought to have the effect of optimising performance. This often involves

A large aspect of an orchestral wind player’s life can involve playing auxiliary instruments – instruments that you learn alongside your main instrument, for example the bass clarinet, cor anglais, piccolo or contrabassoon. Not everyone specialises on auxiliary instruments: firstly,

It starts quietly, a haunting nostalgic hymn-like sequence of gentle chords in both hands. A few bars in, the bass accompaniment changes into a gently undulating pattern of broken fourths, anchored by a low F. In this opening section, Glass