‘If one day my passion for music fades, I would have done something else!’ the French pianist Cédric Tiberghien told me a few years ago when we first met in a practice room in Hong Kong. Time flies, but the

Being chosen by Leonard Bernstein to sing the boy solo part in Chichester Psalms, conductor Daniel Oren seems to be destined for the opera house from an early age. Indeed, when I saw him stepping onto the podium to conduct

When I heard that Charles Dutoit is performing at the Guangzhou Opera House in July, a wave of nostalgia swept over me – I decided to reminisce about my summer at the Canton International Summer Music Academy in Guangzhou, seven

Sharing the same birthplace, Como, with Cosima Liszt, the daughter of Franz List and second wife of Richard Wagner, tenor Marco Berti is perhaps destined for greatness. After hearing Marco Berti’s debut as Otello at the Festival de Opera de

So, to start with: what does your role as Director of Music actually include? My job as Director of Music covers all the practical music-making aspects of the College. I’m different to the Director of Studies in Music, who is

It is believed that artists who went through pain in life were often able to create work, profound and philosophical; Tchaikovsky and his Pathétique Symphony, Dostoevsky and his Crime and Punishment, Nijinsky and his Le Sacre du Printemps. Despite the

Gustav Holst – The Planets: A Listener’s Guide The Planets, Op. 32 (1916) London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, V. Jurowski Holst called the piece “a series of mood pictures.” The piece The Planets — a seven movement orchestral suite, is

‘I am the ultimate outsider,’ conductor Riccardo Muti told Norman Lebrecht in a BBC interview. After hearing their conversation, I had an image of Muti, wearing shiny armor, riding on a horse, and conquering the world with the sword of