American pianist James Iman continues to release ground-breaking albums which challenge convention (his previous recording with music by Debussy is a case in point) and which present lesser-known or rarely-performed repertoire written since 1900 and specifically post-1945. He’s one of

When you think of an album organised around the idea of water, the usual suspects come to mind: Debussy and the sea, Ravel and the play of water, but when you start to look beyond that, water has some other

Camille Saint-Saëns’ (1835–1921) long life permitted him to be, as one writer said, ‘both a friend to Berlioz and an enemy of Les Six’. The same writer, Edward Sackville-West also said that Saint-Saëns was ‘an exceedingly clever and cultivated man.

The ensemble Z.R.I. take their name from Zum Roten Igel, or ‘To the Red Hedgehog’, the tavern in 19th century Vienna where Schubert and Brahms went to hear Gypsy and folk music. From their radical re-scoring of the Brahms Clarinet

“Learning about Beethoven is a joyful journey without end” British journalist and newscaster John Suchet has had a lifelong fascination with Ludwig van Beethoven, from the moment he discovered the great German composer’s music in his twenties. Beethoven’s music, in

After the rigorous opening stages and the announcement of semi-final results, the 12th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition took a well-deserved rest. Well, not everybody had that kind of luxury, of course. When I ran into one of the finalists during

At long last, I encountered an international piano competition where I wholeheartedly agreed with ( and applauded ) the jury’s choice of all the finalists. At this 2024 Hamamatsu Piano Competition, it seemed that exquisite musicianship was the vital requisite

I had no idea that chamber music could still draw such a huge crowd. Well, when it is part of the biggest and most prestigious piano competition in Asia, the 12th Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, I probably shouldn’t be surprised.