The diabolical pianist—that’s what I called Jon Kimura Parker in 2013. During the last six years Parker has become a force in many genres of music, and, as an entrepreneur, he has blossomed into what one can only call a

You might think that this is a crazy question. To quote Wikipedia, Hip Hop is a “stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted”. That doesn’t sound like classical music does it? Of

“what I feel is very deep. I need to have a total connection with the music” – Maria João Pires One of the finest musicians of her generation, pianist Maria João Pires brings exquisite refinement, profound emotional depth, and intellectual

One of the most dramatic scenes in an opera is the announcement of the hero or heroine’s death. It’s a striking point where histrionics come to the fore and emotions run rampant. These scenes were present even in the earliest

Escaping Nazi oppression, Bohuslav Martinů and his wife Charlotte arrived in Lisbon on 11 January 1942. Roughly two months later they boarded S.S. Exeter with destination Hoboken, New Jersey. As with other artists who arrived in similar circumstances, life in

Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit (Ivo Pogorelich) I will never forget the first time I heard Croatian concert pianist Ivo Pogorelich live in concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The concert, in 2015, had been heavily trailed, hinting that this

In 1943, William Grant Still wrote his Suite for Violin and Piano, which took as its inspiration three sculptures: Richmond Barthé’s African Dancer, Sargent Johnson’s Mother and Child, and Augusta Savage’s Gamin. Each of these works was created in the