What do old opera singers do when they age out? The early 20th-century soprano Nellie Melba did a farewell tour and then another one and then another one, so much that Webster’s dictionary made a verb of it. ‘To do

As nations begin to tentatively emerge from lockdown in response to the coronavirus crisis, conversations are already taking place about how gatherings of people will be managed at a time when social distancing has become the norm to protect people

It can come as quite a shock to encounter a professional musician outside of their natural home of the concert hall. Generally, our only contact with them, as audience members, may be a brief conversation in the green room after

Peer pressure from dead people or following in the footsteps of greatness? Classical music is swathed in tradition and culturally conditioned thinking. The traditions of concert-going, for example, are well-known (don’t applaud between movements, listen in reverential silence), and show

As a young cellist, one of the first things I learned was that a page of music waits, quietly. A musical score, says pianist Jeremy Denk, is “at once a book and a book waiting to be written.” The act

My mother is a phenomenally smart woman – virtually everything she says is correct. Sadly, even after 31 years of listening to her sage advice (read: nagging), I still find myself occasionally having to admit that, yet again, I was

Could virtual concerts become the norm following the COVID-19 outbreak? With economies, companies and groups around the world taking a major financial hit due to lockdown restrictions, some orchestras and ensembles might have to rely upon the virtual world to

As a composer and concert reviewer, I sit in a unique position of being someone who creates music and then has to write about it. Leonard Bernstein was a composer, conductor and educator like few others. Here Leonard Bernstein discusses