Why do you attend concerts? Is it for the performer or the work being performed, or, is it because it’s the place you need to be to see and be seen? There’s nothing sadder than attending a fabulous concert and

Are you ready for a bit of specialist musical trivia to impress your friends? Here it goes! What is the name of the instrument that you can see, you can hear but you can’t touch? Performing on this instrument has

The Shanghai Conservatory of Music is one of the most competitive musical education institutions in China. The Conservatory’s Vice President, Zhang Xiangping, and Zhou Xianglin, the director of teaching and study affairs, filled me in on how training at Shanghai

‘In this modern world, we are constantly confronted by this question of how best to spend our free time’, explains Sam Bodkin. ‘Are we going to engage with a challenging work of art?’ he asks. ‘Or are we going to

Amongst the wealth of operatic activity in the UK today (as surveyed recently on Interlude), the work of Streetwise Opera stands out as some of the most important. Founded in 2000, they have worked with London’s homeless on a number

The World Orchestra for Peace is a band like no other. Apart from it being formed from the best orchestral musicians handpicked from around the world, it has a loud and clear message: to be a global ambassador for peace.

I am almost certain you have never heard of the Belgian inventor George Cloetens (1871-1949). In the category of quirky inventions, he is known for patenting a special dual-chamber syringe, and claiming a patent for printing advertisements on toilet paper!

We don’t think of instruments as having been “invented” – they just have been there forever. In some cases, though, instruments do have a definite hand guiding them and none more so than the Saxophone.