Composer Gabriel Fauré, once called Marguerite Long, “a shameless woman who uses my name to get on.” Nonetheless she became the foremost woman pianist of France during the first half of the twentieth century, performing and teaching at the Paris

I always had issues practising when growing up. I hated the idea of anyone being able to hear me practice, no matter what stage I was at with a piece. Standing in our living room playing scales terrified me for

Piano courses are the “in thing” right now, in part thanks to Alan Rusbridger’s book Play It Again. For many years, Alan was a regular at what he described as “piano camp” – Lot Music, based in the Lot-et-Garonne region

We are familiar with instruments made of wood and metal, but there are also some instruments made from the far more fragile material of glass. Some instruments were more showpieces of a glass-maker’s art, but instruments such as glass trumpets,

I’m going to face up to a harsh reality here. The clarinet repertoire is small. Admittedly, it’s not as meagre as certain other instruments’ (which I will not list here for fear of opening up innumerable cans of worms), but

The Southbank Sinfonia (SbS) may be an unfamiliar name to Hong Kong, but in Britain it is a much sought after orchestra that every fresh graduate of music wants to be part of. Founded by British conductor Simon Over, the

24 & 25 August 2015 City Hall Concert Hall, Hong Kong You hear about the Hong Kong Festival Orchestra well before ever going to one of their concerts. Their publicity materials almost rival that of the professional orchestras in Hong

Who’s on your banknote? We took a survey of European bank notes and found a gratifying number of women singers and one composer who’ve appeared, past and present. Between 1996 and 2003, the Swedish Riksbank produced the Jenny Lind 50-kronor