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Talk about music

Interview with violinist Regina Carter

Interview with violinist Regina Carter

Regina Carter started with Dont and Galamian but she only truly found her voice when she discovered jazz. She tells Ariane Todes about the journey, and explains how the best way to learn jazz violin is to listen to horn players ‘Who says?’ exclaims Regina Carter. Perhaps my suggestion, to one of today’s finest jazz violinists, that the instrument doesn’t naturally suit the genre, is a little thoughtless. She laughs wholeheartedly, as she does throughout our conversation the d

Never too old to learn

Never too old to learn

How much can an adult amateur expect to develop as a musician in a short space of time? Quite a lot, it turns out, given the right attention and circumstances, as I found out last summer at Burton Kaplan's Magic Mountain This time last year I was cloistered away in the remote and beautiful surroundings of Magic Mountain, upstate New York. Under the tutelage of Burton Kaplan, and alongside students and professional violinists, I was learning how to practise the violin and how

Why you should stop practising

Why you should stop practising

Observing masterclasses can be a brilliant way to learn and find inspiration, and yet students rarely turn up to watch. They may be too busy practising, but have they got their priorities wrong? They say that youth is wasted on the young. In one respect I concur. In the many masterclasses I’ve been to around the world, watching some of the finest players teaching, there’s often been barely a handful of students in the audience. It happened again yesterday. Shmuel Ashkenasi, f

Interview with Shmuel Ashkenasi

Interview with Shmuel Ashkenasi

The former Vermeer Quartet leader and Curtis Institute professor discusses the negative sides of Ilona Fehér's 'tough love' school of teaching, and of violin competitions I recently interviewed Shmuel Ashkenasi for ChamberStudio, ahead of his chamber music masterclass for them at Kings Place on Sunday, 10 May. Conversation turned away from his views on chamber music to his past, and below are some of the other topics we covered. Born in Israel, from the age of eight Ashkenasi

9 ways to succeed in music

9 ways to succeed in music

Today's classical music business may be competitive and tough, but there are also more opportunities than ever. Success lies in knowing who you are, as Ariane Todes explains Last year I was invited to Birmingham Conservatoire by the Head of Strings there, Louise Lansdown, to talk to the string students about life beyond music education – to help them think about their futures in positive and realistic ways. In preparation for my talk, I sent the students a survey to fill out

The violinist’s guide to learning mandolin

The violinist’s guide to learning mandolin

For violinists, playing the mandolin offers instant rewards and benefits, but some challenges, too. I asked for advice from the best in the world – Chris Thile I love playing the violin. Of course I do. But there’s always been a tiny part of me that wanted to play something more (how shall I put it?) hip. At the height of a Beatles obsession, I even bought a guitar and a ‘Teach Yourself the Beatles’ video, and stopped its frames it until I had learnt Blackbird. Then the guita

The future of music competitions

The future of music competitions

Competitions are a vital part of the classical music world, whether you like it or not. They offer many benefits to players and to the music community, but there is room for improvement and maybe even for a whole new model. Key people offer their perspectives Music competitions are much in the news these days, particularly over at Slipped Disc, where Norman Lebrecht is doing excellent work to expose irregularities in some of the less salubrious organisations and their results

The unbearable lightness of being Gary Hoffman

The unbearable lightness of being Gary Hoffman

Gary Hoffman is one of the music world’s best-kept secrets, a fine and uncompromising cellist whose rare appearances mesmerise. For him, being a musician involves a daily struggle, but he wouldn't have it any other way, as he explains I wouldn’t call Gary Hoffman a great cellist. Not after our conversation at the recent Amsterdam Cello Biënnale. He told me in no uncertain terms what he thinks of the expression: ‘These words are thrown around. Everybody’s “great”. Are they all

The return of Kyung Wha Chung

The return of Kyung Wha Chung

The legendary violinist Kyung Wha Chung makes her much-awaited London comeback this December, after more than a decade away. On a recent visit she told me about her absence from the stage, her hopes for the younger generation of violinists, and the secret of happiness There is only one violinist I wanted but failed to get on the cover of The Strad when I was editor there: Kyung Wha Chung. Growing up, I knew her as one of the towering violinists of her generation (a towering g

Everything you need to know about violin playing (but were never taught)

Everything you need to know about violin playing (but were never taught)

Musical timing and closure, hearing and thinking for ourselves – just some of the things that teaching often fails to help us with, according to Burton Kaplan This summer I spent two weeks at the Magic Mountain Music Farm Practice Retreat, run by Burton Kaplan. My article about the experience is out now in the September issue of The Strad, and I've written a blog about the experience of being offered such a learning opportunity as an amateur. But in the two weeks of twice-dai

Charlie Chaplin and his violin obsession

Charlie Chaplin and his violin obsession

The great screen comedian was an accomplished amateur violinist who composed many of the scores to his films At the height of his success, Charlie Chaplin harboured a fantasy about his violin. In 1920, shortly before the release of The Kid, he told a journalist: ‘I once had a day vision. I saw at my feet in a huddled heap all the trappings and paraphernalia of my screen clothes – that dreadful suit of clothes! – my moustache, the battered derby, the little cane, the broken sh

Sheila Nelson and her work in Tower Hamlets

Sheila Nelson and her work in Tower Hamlets

In the 1980s, string pedagogue Sheila Nelson took her seminal teaching techniques to underprivileged schools in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. In 1981, my mother, Lili Todes, a journalist, visited the project, and here, published for the first time, is what she wrote At nine o’clock each Tuesday morning, half-term and holidays excepted, Sheila Nelson emerges from the back garden path of her home-cum-music academy in a tree-lined street on Highgate’s borders, stuffs the

Fritz Kreisler: Four Weeks in the Trenches

Fritz Kreisler: Four Weeks in the Trenches

The great violinist served in the Austrian Army during the First World War. Here he gives a moving and deeply humane account of his time as officer In trying to recall my impressions during my short war duty as an officer in the Austrian Army, I find that my recollections of this period are very uneven and confused. Some of the experiences stand out with absolute clearness; others, however, are blurred. Two or three events which took place in different localities seem merge