On entering a room containing a piano, what pianist doesn’t turn white at the command, ‘You can play – let’s hear you!’ You thought you were visiting friends, not giving a performance, so of course yo

Picture the scene: you’re about to get up on stage to give a presentation or performance. Something feels off – you look down, and realise your shirt is missing; in fact, you have no clothes on at all

‘We’re going to have a tonal centre and tap our feet, and that’s the way it is.’ Steve Reich is in full flow, talking to me from his home in New York. ‘The big break, the knife down the line, was betw

Let’s start at the peak of the price list. In October last year, Steinway & Sons released the Ultra Black and Ultra White Limited Editions. Produced at the Steinway factory in Hamburg, just 52 instrum

It is the best of times! It is the worst of times! Charles Dickens didn’t do headlines, but if he did, the current debates about AI (Artificial Intelligence) in our lives and culture would be made for

Andrey Gugnin (piano) Hyperion CDA684712 83 mins This album of Russian ballet transcriptions sparkles like a glass bauble hanging amidst the fairy lights. Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky wrote so colourful