In the summer of 2017, I had the uniquely rewarding experience of attending the Prague Summer Nights: Young Artists Music Festival (PSN). Produced by Classical Movements—the premier concert tour company for the world’s great orchestras and choirs—Prague Summer Nights is

It’s one of the great romantic images, isn’t it? The solo performer, alone on an empty stage, faced with that huge black beast of a full-size concert grand piano, armed with nothing but his or her memory and willing, well-trained

David, first premiered in a concert version on 1 June 1954 in Jerusalem, is Darius Milhaud’s longest and most extensive work. The opera was composed at the suggestion of conductor Sergei Koussevitzky who was organizing a Festival to mark the

Think of a series of riffs on an idea, in a variety of styles, moods, rhythm and tempi, and you have the basic framework for a Theme and Variations. As the initial theme is presented in a different way, so

For a number of scholars, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge (Song of the Youths) is “the first masterpiece of electronic music.” It was premiered in the large auditorium of Cologne’s Westdeutscher Rundfunk on 30 May 1956. The subject of the

As musicians we can and should call upon our imaginations to enable us to create the myriad sounds we desire from our instrument, and to communicate the story or image of the music to the audience. The first teacher I

When Léo Delibes (1836-1891) was asked by the head of the Paris Opéra to compose a 90-minute ballet score, he leapt at the opportunity. For Coppélia, premiered on 25 May 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial l’Opéra in Paris, Delibes crafted

As a concertgoer in Hong Kong and avid listener of contemporary music, I am sometimes disappointed with the programmes of orchestras in Hong Kong. Mahler, Strauss, Wagner… These names, which are part of the so-called “core repertoire” of orchestras, can