Music has long stirred the spirit. Since time immemorial it has allowed us to soar to other realms mitigating heartbreak, offering solace, and encouraging optimism. But can the musical instruments themselves bear witness? Imbue future generations with sentiments from a

To her close friends she was simply known as “Babette,” but everybody else referred to her as Princess Anna Louise Barbara Odescalchi. That, of course, was her married name as she had wed Prince Innocenz Odescalchi in Pressburg, currently called

Performance itself is a ritual – it happens in a special place, at a special time, for which the performer wears special clothing to distinguish him or herself from the audience, and the audience observes particular customs during the entirety

In his 1853 collection of stories for children, Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen told the story of the Princess and the Pea, or, as in his title, The Princess ON the Pea. He had first told the fairy tale, which

In November this year, the first Birmingham International Piano Chamber Music Festival took place at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. In my role as founder and artistic director this involved months of planning, complex preparations and a few deep breaths too.