If you hope to have a career in music sooner or later you’ll have to participate in some sort of competition. Although they can be life-changing for a young person’s career, the preparation is arduous, and an audition or contest

Working as an artist within the Soviet political and cultural system was always a tightrope act. Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1931-2018), one of the great conductors of the last half-century explains, “I lived with communism for more than 50 years, and I

This coming July sees one of the UK’s most stylish ‘small is beautiful’ annual festivals celebrating a ‘significant’ year – the 2018 Petworth Festival is the 40th such event. Founded jointly by Lord Egremont and Robert Walker, the well-known composer

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 all started with a workshop. My then teacher, Mr Pulinkala told me about an Italian conductor who was in Delhi to conduct a workshop concerning opera. Being skeptical as most 14-15 year olds would be, I went there imagining

On a cold windy night of December 2017, I travelled from Shanghai to Nanjing on a secret mission. I was invited by an anonymous patron who would like me to pay a visit to the just inaugurated Jiangsu Centre for

Like many other young cellists, I encountered Julius Klengel through his books of Technical Exercises in All Keys and his Daily Exercises. I wanted to play concertos not hours fixated on scales, arpeggios, and bowing exercises. But my father insisted,

Say ‘Mazurka’ and most people will reply ‘Chopin’. Fryderyk Chopin wrote at least 69 pieces in this form: 45 published during his lifetime, 13 published posthumously, and a further 11, which are known but where the manuscripts are in private