Lucette Descaves (1906-1993) was a student of Marguerite Long’s at the Paris Conservatoire, her students, in turn, were equally distinguished, including the young Michel Legrand, and, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Pascal Rogé, and Katia and Marielle Labèque. After she retired from the

French pianist Gaby Casadesus (1901-1999), like her husband, Robert Casadesus, studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Marguerite Long and was awarded the first prize in piano at age 16. Also like her husband, she knew the best composers of the

Andrei Gavrilov was a teenage superstar of the Soviet Union! In 1974, aged 18, he won the prestigious Tchaikovsky piano competition, and in the same year made his triumphant international debut at the Salzburg Festival. A protégé of the extraordinary

As with many pianists from France, Jean Doyen (1907-1982) attended the Paris Conservatoire, ending up as a student of Marguerite Long. He made his solo debut in 1924, but returned to the Conservatoire in 1926 for lessons in counterpoint and

As a young Chinese man, I have encountered many ancient superstitious beliefs, such as fortune-telling, Feng Shui and palmistry. The Chinese Zodiac assigns an animal to each birth year in a repeating twelve-year cycle, while in Western astrology, it’s based

French pianist Jeanne-Marie Darré (1905-1999) took the works of Chopin and Liszt as her hallmark, being known for her lyrical and elegant style. After first taking lessons from her mother, she studied at the Paris Conservatoire, first as a preparatory

The Summer of 2014 proved to be a wholly exciting and life changing time for Darwin Leonard Prakash, a young Indian boy living in New Delhi who has a fascination with the human voice and the Western idiom of singing

The Casadesus family produced a number of outstanding musicians: Henri (1879-1947), a violist and music publisher; Marius (1892-1981), a violinist and composer; Gaby (née Gabrielle L’Hôte, 1901-1999), pianist and teacher; and Jean (1927-1972), a pianist. The one we’re going to