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Dame Emma Kirkby - a big birthday to sing for I was very lucky to record this podcast interview with Dame Emma Kirkby at the Wigmore. The much-loved British soprano, doyenne of "early music", is giving a special 70th Birthday concert tomorrow with a super roster of guest artists. Happy birthday, Dame Emma, and have a wonderful time! Meanwhile, here's the podcast from the Wigmore Hall site. And, of course, some music - what better than Mozart's 'Exsultate, jubilate'?

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Above, conductor Monica Buckland gives a TED talk about the whole point of conducting, from the basics to the fingertips, and what we can all learn from the process even if we're not actual musicians. Translating physical gestures into music, and drawing out the music that's within us all, in real life as much as on the concert platform. This is conducting as empowerment. Enjoy!

Sometimes surprising things crop up when you're writing programme notes. Catch the amazing Marc-André Hamelin on 10 March at the Wigmore Hall in a programme of...Schumann, Chopin, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Fauré and six transcriptions of Charles Trenet songs made by a mysterious piano-playing 'Mr Nobody' in the 1950s - an era in which playing popular music was so frowned upon that the pianist-transcriber elected not to reveal that his name was actually Alexis Weissenberg. Hamelin heard the Mr Nobody recording and, not knowing if the arrangement had ever been written down, transcribed it all himself from the audio. He recorded it on a Hyperion CD called 'In a State of Jazz'. Much later, Weissenberg's daughter sent him some scans of the original manuscript, but it didn't always match the recording. Now both versions have been published together. You'll need to come to the Wigmore Hall on 10 March to read the rest and hear Hamelin in action. Meanwhile, enjoy a ...

I've been reading an interesting book, which I'm reviewing for BBC Music Magazine. It's Good Music: What It Is and Who Gets to Decide , by the American academic John J Sheinbaum . Among many things it does is to articulate a shake-up in the deep-seated ways we tend to think about the music we listen to. Is the idea of "greatness" all-encompassing in our musical judgments? If so, why? Does it have to be? Do we listen to music because it is empirically "great" in some way - or because we think it is because others have judged it to be? And not to other things because they are...not? It's a chewy, academic read, but deep within the texts and analyses are some intriguing ideas and a good few home truths. It's got me thinking... Good Music WHAT IT IS AND WHO GETS TO DECIDE 69 JOHN J. SHEINBAUM 320 pages | 2 halftones, 25 musical examples, 8 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2019 Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of “...

It is Lithuania's National Day today, and for the first time Symphony Hall, Birmingham, is to resound to  The Sea by Mikolajus Čiurlionis , the CBSO conducted by Mirga Gražynitė-Tyla, with live-painted visual interpretations by Norman Perryman (see his recent guest post here ). I'm going up to hear it.  As Norman mentioned the other day, I have Lithuanian roots, or sort of. My ancestors were from a small town now called Skudas, where they lived for several centuries until pogroms in the late 19th century persuaded them to seek a new life on the other side of the world, when they fetched up in South Africa. I visited Lithuania for the first time 15 years ago, in 2004, when the violinist Philippe Graffin suggested I could come out to Vilnius to cover a world premiere that he and the violist Nobuko Imai were giving, of Vytautas Barkauskas's Duo Concertante, and do a spot of roots-finding while I was about it. This seemed like a good idea, especially as there was a heap of int...

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Benjamin Grosvenor Photo: Patrick Allen Imagine for a moment that you are at, say, the Derby. It’s pretty good. But then in flies Pegasus, the mythical winged horse. What happens? We need to talk about these rare moments of almost inexplicable magic in concerts, because unless I’m massively mistaken, that is one crucial factor that keeps us going to them. Perhaps you’ve witnessed one. Something happens. Some might say that a spirit descends. An atmosphere comes to surround us and we all sense it, musicians and audience alike, and we lose ourselves in it together. Welcome to Milton Court’s evening with the Doric String Quartet and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, with a spot of Chopin... An astonishing evening at Milton Court yesterday with Benjamin Grosvenor and the Doric String Quartet in the Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 and Fauré's Piano Quintet No.1. Here's the whole of my review for The Arts Desk (£).  https://theartsdesk.com/classical-music/grosvenor-doric-string-quartet-milton-c...

Last night I was describing the musical work of the painter Norman Perryman to some artistic friends who were young in the 1960s. "That's rock'n'roll!" they declared. It is. And it's also going to rock Symphony Hall Birmingham next Saturday, when Perryman and his projectors join the CBSO and Mirga Gražynitė-Tyla to perform The Sea by the composer and artist Mikolajus  Či urlionis , Lithuania's most celebrated artistic figure, one whose music is hardly ever heard in the UK – though Mirga, herself Lithuanian, is about to change all that.  Či urlionis's  combination of musical and visual artistry makes him the perfect outlet for Perryman, who creates "kinetic painting" live in concert.  Video trailer for Saturday from the CBSO: As I have adored Norman's work for years, yet never before had the chance to see him in action in a top UK concert hall, I thought we should ask him for a guest blog. He has kindly provided one, so here it is. JD SEE...

Many years ago, in another century, in what feels like another lifetime (though was merely the 1990s) I used to edit a piano magazine. It was the UK's first independent piano magazine, named Classical Piano, and its creation, lifeblood and later eventual absorption into one of its fast-springing rivals is now ancient history. While there I published an article by a then-youthful Russian pianist, Rustem Hayroudinoff, about what the Russian School really means. It was one of the most informative and interesting articles we ever ran, I think. So I was more than delighted to log on to Rustem's website and see that he has now revised the article and much expanded it, complete with all mod cons such as recordings from the likes of Rachmaninov, Chaliapin and Neuhaus, to name but three. Rustem is now a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and has made some stunning recordings himself, notably of Rachmaninov. Here's a taster of the article:  A great deal of confusion surrounds th...

Radu Lupu in rehearsal. Photo from New York Review of Books, nybooks.com The chairs were out for the returns queue at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday night. Word was spreading that this might be the last chance for London to hear Radu Lupu play. He has long preferred to avoid the capital's concert halls - whether because of iffy acoustics, acidic critics or other reasons I could not say - and an appearance with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Paavo Järvi for Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto looked almost too good to be true.  Lupu, 73, is tall and imposing on the platform, yet somewhat frail in gait and balance. His Beethoven came through in parts almost as a memory of the concerto. Yet the unique quality of his playing lies in the touch itself. It's the transparency of tone, the cushioned finesse of it, and the way he turns a phrase that, in a matter of a few notes, suggests a deep, empathetic humanity and a profound love for the music. He uses a chair rather t...

The legendary Romanian pianist Radu Lupu is performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4 at the RFH with the Philharmonia, conducted by Paavo Järvi. It's pretty much sold out. But Lupu does not play in London every night. In fact, he hardly ever plays in London. To say this is a rare sighting is not saying enough. And before you ask, the answer is no, I haven't: he doesn't do interviews. The RFH website says he has not given a press interview for 30 years. The best I can offer you is that he used to play bridge with my former piano teacher back in the 1970s-80s; and I met him once backstage in Lucerne, where he was utterly charming, funny and kind. All being well, I'll report back. Enjoy this rare gem meanwhile:

(Image from Lesliekenton.com) This morning I enjoyed a moment of quiet satisfaction, the kind known only to writers of rather obscure biographies. I glanced at my author page on Amazon, as I do about twice a year to see how the books are doing, and noticed something peculiar. My first book, about a then very unusual composer, was published in 1996. It used to have a princely 6 reviews. It now has 5. It's gone. Yes! GONE! The abusive, mendacious, vicious one-star anonymous review that was the first I ever got on Amazon when it opened its "reader review" facility in 1999, is no longer there - after 20 years. When that thing initially appeared, it was a heck of a shock - especially as it was pretty obvious to me who'd written it. After all, there was only a handful of people whom I'd told what I wanted the book to do, and who then might have had cause to go online and write an anonymous review saying that it didn't do exactly that. What is this, I thought. Anony...