Articles

The Rhythmic Discipline
The Rhythmic Discipline: How an Ancient Indian Drum Can Sharpen a Modern Musician’s Focus
We’ve all been there. You pick up your guitar or sit down at the piano, ready for a great practice session. Ten minutes later, you’re checking your phone, thinking about…
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Poiesis Quartet Takes Top Honors at 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition
Against the breathtaking backdrop of the Canadian Rockies in Banff National Park, the 15th Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC) brought together nine quartets, seven judges, and more than 500…
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Three Days at the 2025 Romsey Chamber Music Festival
The Romsey Chamber Music Festival goes from strength to strength, and this year’s events explored music belonging to endings, transformation and the force of the human spirit. From Schubert’s ‘Death…
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A Tanglewood Diary 2023 – July 7-16
I spent ten days at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home, which brings performers, teachers, and students together, enabling music lovers to experience a wide range of musical activities…
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Romsey Chamber Music Festival 2023 – May 30-June 4
Held annually since 2018, the Romsey Chamber Music Festival is one of Hampshire’s best-kept musical secrets. This year’s six-day festival, comprising ten events, featured repertoire given by an international group of conservatoire-trained musicians…
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A Conductor’s no-nonsense response to a tempo dilemma
We are all influenced by our first exposures to greatness. Whether it is a person, structure or work of art, those initial contacts inform us for the rest of our…
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The Cleveland Orchestra in South Florida, January 2023. Franz Welser-Möst conducts Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ & Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’; Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Intensity, Respighi’s Feste romane & Lisa Batiashvili plays Tchaikovsky
Venues: Dreyfoos Concert Hall, Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, West Palm Beach, January 23; Knight Concert Hall, Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, January 27 The Cleveland Orchestra’s annual residency…
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A Tanglewood Diary 2022 – July 7-16
I spent ten days at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home, which brings performers, teachers and students together, enabling music-lovers to experience a wide range of activities and also…
Music for the End of TIme
Music for the End of Time – BBCSO Total Immersion – Theresienstadt
It is impossible to take in the scale and thoroughness of what happened in Theresienstadt (Terezín in Czech), the fortress town in Moravia that Nazi Germany recreated as a ghetto…
Cumbria Opera
Cumbria Opera Festival – Roderick Williams, Trouble in Tahiti, A Hand of Bridge, and Così fan tutte
Here are three reviews (the first two from Jane Bagot, the last from Colin Marston) of concerts that took place as part of Cumbria Opera Group’s first ever Cumbria Opera…