The prestigious Conservatoire de Paris is the next stop on our Music College world tour. Alexandre Pansard-Ricordeau, the director of communications, talks to me about the strong links this conservatoire has with both the musical life of France, and further

To the city dwellers of Hong Kong, noise has always been, and always will be, an inescapable part of life. If you have ever experienced living here, you will understand just how difficult it is to find a quiet place

Recently, a number of European countries have actively changed, or are contemplating to change, the words and or melodies of their national anthems. Designed to reflect the social and cultural climate of the 21st century, these attempted changes, as you

Last month’s article focused on the impact of the Great War on musicians, artists and writers in France –today I will focus on its impact in Germany and Austria.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Missa Brevis, K. 192 “Credo” Leopold Mozart and his wife Anna Maria Walburga had seven children, of whom only two survived infancy. Being good Catholics and all, they continued to sponsor Holy Masses for their dead children.

The history of musical instruments is full of ingenious ideas that for one reason or another did not enter the commercial mainstream. Take for example the pedal piano, a keyboard instrument featuring an additional pedalboard played with the feet. The

Perhaps the most exclusive of all our institutions interviewed so far, the Kronberg Academy is based in Germany, in the small town of Kronberg in Taunus. The size of the town reflects the size of the student body, devoted solely

2013 saw the celebrations of Verdi’s and Wagner’s bicentennials, the centennial of Benjamin Britten’s birth and of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’. 2014 marks a more somber centennial — of the outbreak of the Great War following the assassination of Archduke