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 sort of thing that features in students’ nightmares (probably with no clothes on), but 25-year-old cellist Alexey Stadler handled last night’s unexpected debut at one of the world’s most prestigious music festivals, in place of an ill Truls Mørk, with poise and guts – even performing a movement of Bach as an encore, spurred on by a delighte

Yo-Yo Ma turns 60 on 7 October, 2015, and to celebrate one of the world's best-loved classical music heroes, here is an interview I did with him for the November 2011 issue of The Strad. At that point his Goat Rodeo CD with mandolin player Chris Thile and bass player Edgar Meyer had just come out, but typically for his lateral-thinking mindset, the conversation ranged far and wide over many of his other passions Yo-Yo Ma tells me he’s no good at improvising: ‘It’s not my stre

Last night's Proms concert with the Budapest Festival Orchestra was ravishing, but raised an uncomfortable question I have a friend who travels to Budapest annually specially to hear the Budapest Festival Orchestra and conductor Iván Fischer. I always thought it was a little obsessional, but after last night’s BBC Proms concert, I understand why. What I listened to was possibly the finest orchestral playing I’ve ever heard. They played two Brahms symphonies – nos. 3 and 4 – w