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Life in Teaching: Diana Cummings

Life in Teaching: Diana Cummings

Diana Cummings comes from a musical dynasty, and her career spans solo, chamber and orchestral playing. Since 1982 has been a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, where she also teaches on the LRAM diploma course, which she helped devise. She is also a professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music. In this interview she gave me for the Summer 2016 issue of the European String Teachers Association magazine ARCO, she shares her life experience of teaching I was fairly r

Happy Birthday, Ivry Gitlis!

Happy Birthday, Ivry Gitlis!

The charismatic, idealistic, often contrarian and utterly unique violinist is 95 years young today. In celebration, here is an interview I did with him to mark his 90th birthday, for The Strad’s August 2012 issue. The afternoon I spent with him in a Paris café, trying to get him to answer questions rather than turn them back into questions for me, create some intricate wordplay or go into a philosophical reverie, was one of the most exciting I’ve ever spent. On learning reper

‘You have to treat Bartók as you do Mozart or Haydn’

‘You have to treat Bartók as you do Mozart or Haydn’

Bartók’s quartets are often played ‘brutal, fast and loud’, but they should be approached as Classical masterpieces, says Jerusalem Quartet first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky I recently interviewed Alexander Pavlovsky, first violinist of the Jerusalem Quartet, for the programme notes of the group’s next London concert. The players are performing Haydn’s Quartet in G major, op.77 no.1, Bartók no.6 and Dvořák’s ‘American’ and Pavlovsky gave me plenty of insight about the works

Pinchas Zukerman on how to change the world

Pinchas Zukerman on how to change the world

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates its 70th birthday in 2016 and for its commemorative anniversary booklet, I had the opportunity to interview Pinchas Zukerman, its Principal Guest Conductor. He was on fine and articulate form, and happy to talk beyond the RPO, about the current state of classical music and his optimism for the future. One of his key concepts was to create a global coalition for music education, crossing all geographic and institutional boundaries. T

Violin Utopia in Oberlin

Violin Utopia in Oberlin

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 Violin Society of America workshops, here is an article I wrote about my June 2012 visit, originally published in the November 2012 issue of The Strad If I were called on to construct a society, I think I might model it on the Violin Society of America’s (VSA) summer workshops in Oberlin. It would be a community where the drive was towards b

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

Baffling results in Brussels

Baffling results in Brussels

Jury places audience favourite in fifth place at Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Belgium Music competitions get a lot of bad press these days. How can musical talent be judged and ranked? How can any expert jury member be objective? I’ve defended the concept several times before here and here and I believe they can have an important role to play in today’s musical landscape. But yesterday’s results at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition were baffling to me and m

Brave new violin world

Brave new violin world

A new collection of specially commissioned unantiqued instruments offers hope of a new Zeitgeist around modern violins. Will top soloists catch on? This article was first published in the May issue of Classical Music magazine, and is posted with permission. How should we feel for Frank Peter Zimmermann, who has had to give up the 1711 'Lady Inchiquin' Stradivarius violin he has played since 2002? He had it on loan from a German bank which is being wound up by financial servic

Gergiev looks to Asia for string talent

Gergiev looks to Asia for string talent

Valery Gergiev was optimistic about the rise of Asian musicians but sounded a note of caution about the pressure on young competition winners, as he launched the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition Valery Gergiev described the rise of Asian classical musicians during today’s press conference for the International Tchaikovsky Competition, saying, ‘There is a clear tendency that Asian representation is increasing every competition.’ His analysis went beyond the usual rac

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

Is your violin wild, juicy, lingering or tart?

Is your violin wild, juicy, lingering or tart?

Coffee experts and barristas have a whole language for describing their craft. Can it help violin makers? I visited the London Coffee Festival today – my first time at a trade show that had nothing to do with violins. I discovered that barristas are every bit as geeky and obsessed as luthiers. There were plenty of demonstrations of the different techniques and new gizmos and lots of people walking around with samples in their hands looking somewhat wild-eyed. I had no idea th

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

Wine and violins

Wine and violins

Facebook just kindly reminded me that two years ago today I was in Sarasota, Florida, enjoying the La Musica Festival, and tasting wine – in the name of research, of course. Here's the blog I wrote for The Strad, in April 2013: I’ve taken part in a few violin blind tests in my time, but yesterday evening I experienced my first wine one, as part of the La Musica chamber music festival in Sarasota, Florida. It was billed as an Old World, New World exploration, with six wines in

Pinchas Zukerman: violin geek

Pinchas Zukerman: violin geek

In honour of Pinchas Zukerman's performance tonight of the Elgar Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at London's Southbank Centre, I thought I'd republish an interview I did with him while I was at The Strad, as it was one of my favourites. I was interviewing him for a tribute to luthier René Morel for the February 2012 issue, but Zukerman was in chatty mood and said some wonderful and thought-provoking things about violins and musical attitudes: Pinchas Zuk

Violin competitions: participant’s view

Violin competitions: participant’s view

Violinist Benjamin Baker has just been selected for the final rounds of the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition. Such contests are notoriously stressful, so why would anyone put themselves through that? He explains all here Participants were announced today for the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels, Belgium, in May. The only UK player going forward is Benjamin Baker (also representing New Zealand), who is a seasoned competition winner: he came first at

Viktoria Mullova on inspiration, rules and coughing

Viktoria Mullova on inspiration, rules and coughing

The Russian violinist is forthright about Baroque rules, the narrow-mindedness of only listening to classical music, and allowing audiences to cough In my latest interview over at Cozio I talk to violinist Viktoria Mullova about her ‘Jules Falk’ Stradivarius and her Guadagnini, which she uses for Baroque music. Mullova has an eminently sensible approach to Strads: while she believes that some of them have a very special sound, she also acknowledges that not all of them do, an

Isaac Stern on prodigies’ pitfalls

Isaac Stern on prodigies’ pitfalls

A historic letter from Isaac Stern to Henryk Szeryng offers fascinating insight into his thoughts about raising a violin prodigy Yesterday I uploaded a video documentary about Ilona Fehér, the Hungarian-born Israeli violin pedagogue who taught players such Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz and Shmuel Ashkenasi. In the film one hears the young Shlomo Mintz talk and play. We are reminded of his phenomenal sound at that age but he also talks about the pressure that Fehér put him

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 Charlie Chaplin guide to violin playing

The Charlie Chaplin guide to violin playing

Charlie Chaplin was one of the most expressive and popular communicators ever. What can string players learn from his art? Light and heavy Chaplin’s original concept for his tramp costume was of contradiction: tight jacket, baggy trousers; small hat, big shoes. His movements carry this contradiction too. Watch any chase scene (The Vagabond, The Circus, on skates in The Rink) and you see him as light as air, graceful and smooth. Even when he is making a cocktail in The Rink, t

Cello master issues manifesto

Cello master issues manifesto

Bach’s slurs are are a means of expression and not mere technical tricks and we have lost the art of Rhetoric, says Anner Bylsma Yesterday at the Amsterdam Cello Biënnale this mysterious manifesto appeared all over the bar, only for the pieces of paper to be cleared up by the bar staff (and then to reappear). It is addressed to ‘The self-thinking plumber’ and bears the name of Anner Bylsma, so we can assume it is he subverting the norm, as he has done throughout his 80 years.