So, enough of my solo soapboxing – on with the interviews. I had the huge pleasure of speaking to Lucy Schaufer and Christopher Gillett, both highly regarded performers in their own right (amongst many other skills, as they will reveal imminently). They are also the creators of the production company Wild Plum Arts, which recently hosted its second ever residency at the Red House in Aldeburgh, providing composers with a chance to spend a week working, thinking, talking… and eating the fantastic food that Lucy and Chris provide for them. There is no ‘goal project’ for composers: no performance ..read more

No, don’t worry, this is not a post about Rule, Britannia! or Land of Hope and Glory. Plenty of other people have already written, posted, tweeted, shouted or sat pensively on the fence about that particular chestnut. This is, in fact, a post about singing. If, like me, you watched the First Night of the Proms on BBC 2 on Friday – or indeed listened on Radio 3, or caught up with the thing after the fact – you’ll know that the programme brought together the inevitable Beethoven (the ‘Eroica’ Symphony) with a world premiere by Hannah Kendall called Tuxedo: Vasco ‘de’ Ga ..read more

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be part of a filming project at the Wigmore Hall. I hadn’t been to any live music (indoor or outdoor) for months, let alone inside a concert venue. We arrived at the front door as agreed, masks on. The door was locked of course – the house manager came to let us in, explaining the routes we could use and how to stay safe whilst we were in the building. The lights in the foyer were off. We basically only took the masks off to be in front of the camera. And sitting in that beautiful auditorium, one of a mighty audience of two whilst our colleagues pe ..read more

With every passing day, we’ve grown more aware of the plight of performing musicians, composers, and organisations such as concert halls and festivals. But today we turn to a different part of the musical world – one with a very particular skill set, which helps to ensure that there can be performances of music in the first place: music libraries. Katharine Hogg is the President of the UK and Ireland branch of IAML. If you’re wondering what the heck that is, allow Katharine to explain: ‘IAML is the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres. So it represen ..read more

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password ..read more

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password ..read more

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password ..read more

How tired we all are of crises. We’ve been living in a seemingly perpetual mushroom cloud of crises for so long now, we can as likely remember the state of not being in crisis in roughly as much detail as the sight of ourselves in proper grown-up work clothes and shoes. Time is either whooshing past or dribbling, depending on your personal circumstances, but from both ends of the spectrum, people seem to agree, it feels as if it’s ebbing away as we’re going nowhere fast. And yet the exhaustion of the moment, the desperation with which we may seek a return to normal, is also the moment of grea ..read more

Back in 2014, I started this blog because something happened which made me so overwhelmingly frustrated and annoyed that I felt I couldn’t not say something. (If you’re wondering what it was, you can read all about it here). For almost a year now, the blog has been silent – a combination of dwindling time between a heady rush of exciting projects and performances, and not having a clear sense of what it was I actually wanted to write about. But here we are, in June 2020, and silence just won’t do any more. So for this week, at least, ladies and gentlemen, I’m back. What, you might ask, has pr ..read more

One of my favourite stories to tell students of nineteenth-century music history concerns Edward Elgar’s trips to hear new orchestral repertoire. As you may know, Elgar grew up in Worcestershire, where there was no permanent orchestra. The best place to go to hear new orchestral pieces was just to the south of London, at the Crystal Palace, where Sir August Manns conducted weekly concerts including the British premieres of much interesting British and continental music. So off Elgar would go to London. Not, as we might now, hopping in a taxi to the station, sitting in air-conditioned comfort ..read more