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...

Thank you for visiting Elbow Music in 2015. It’s been a bumper year for the site, and I’m planning some developments very shortly, so...

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

Bartók’s quartets are often played ‘brutal, fast and loud’, but they should be approached as Classical masterpieces, says Jerusalem...

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates its 70th birthday in 2016 and for its commemorative anniversary booklet, I had the...

Josef Gingold was born on 28 October, 1909. In celebration of the birth of a universally beloved and respected pedagogue, here is an...

To mark the UK's National Poetry Day, 8th October, here's George Eliot's great poem about violin making and the obsession with which...

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...

Paul Silverthorne has led the viola section of the London Symphony Orchestra for 25 years, working with the finest conductors and...

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

The Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga discusses the fierce competition in today’s music world, how students should spend less time online and...

A recent performance of the whole of Homer’s epic Iliad offered an opportunity to observe actors close up and to understand what their...

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

The British composer John Woolrich discusses the challenges contemporary music faces and the vital role of amateur musicians My interview...

The jury of the Pierre Fournier Award hands out no main prize but two Incentive Grants in the prestigious cello contest at Wigmore Hall...

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...