The recent Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale explored various aspects of the string quartet format, including the many life lessons it...

The internet offers musicians fantastic opportunities to build their reputations and legacies, as well as selling their music. They...

Wigmore Hall’s new photography policy offers a sensible way forward in today’s visual culture and more venues should follow suit There...

Why is music education and pedagogy not taken more seriously in the music world?

Car boot sales offer a brilliant lesson in salesmanship, and for this rookie also raised questions about buying and selling violins I’m...

Alexey Stadler‘s unexpected Proms debut last night was such stuff as careers are made on Performing at the Proms on a day’s notice is the...

I’ve interviewed many wonderful musicians over the year, have learnt much and had my thinking challenged many times. Here are just a few...

I have a theory that musicians write in exactly the same style that they play their instruments. I’m pleased to see it proven, somewhat...

The ground-breaking English folk band has broken up after 12 years, leaving this fangirl sad – but grateful I’m not a mosher. I don’t...

Who are my favourite violinists? A list of 20, which I made for Sinfini Music in 2014, still largely stands, but is sure to provoke a...

The current Southbank Centre slogan offers a lesson in how not to talk to about classical music There are a few obvious rules in...

A trip to the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona offered profound and uplifting insights into the human condition, and interesting...

On what would have been the 71th birthday of Jacqueline du Pré, the words of János Starker sound a provocative warning Jacqueline du Pré...

As Nigel Kennedy goes on Radio 4's Mastertapes programme to be rude about Baroque performance practice, here's a blog I wrote in 2011 on...

The breadth and success of David Byrne’s recent curatorship of Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival demonstrate how the curiosity and...

Great stage actors have an aura of positive energy and openness that musicians can access, too. Acting coach Patsy Rodenburg tells Ariane...

Perfectionism in music is a modern scourge, and Peter Cropper, who died in May, demonstrated that it is a distracting priority for...

As some of the world's finest violin makers gather in the small university town of Oberlin, Ohio, to share their knowledge at the annual...

The best musicians have special powers of listening, as pianist András Schiff demonstrated in a masterclass last week How can you tell if...

As the Tchaikovsky Competition kicks off, we revisit a 2014 interview with the great Irish pianist Barry Douglas, who won the contest in...