Back to school

Just over four years ago I founded Piano by the Sea, a piano meet-up group for adults in Margate. My then teacher, Graham Fitch, felt it would help me deal with my excruciating nerves. Living in the p

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

It’s generally accepted that provision for music in the UK’s state schools is patchy, varying hugely from one local borough to another and one school to another, according to the importance placed on

Frazzled from what felt like a never-ending year, we booked into South Lodge hoping for a quiet countryside reset – and it certainly delivered. The Reeds is a cluster of eco-lodges set on the edge of

At the age of five, the celebrated children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson attended London’s Festival of Britain – a summer of activities and exhibitions around the South Bank to throw off the postwa

It’s so fitting, so pleasingly right, that if it weren’t true, you’d just have to make it up. The word ‘laul’ means ‘song’ in Estonian; and since Dr Indrek Laul is the maker of a brand of instrument a