Portrait of the artist

‘I was born twice,’ said the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin. ‘In Kazan I opened my eyes to life, and in Tbilisi to music.’ What is it about music and the Georgians? Some members of that Caucasian

Rachmaninov himself at the piano, recorded in 1929, is bound to remain a benchmark, even after nearly a century. Like many performers at the start of the recording era, Rachmaninov was microphone-shy

Let’s get the inevitable out of the way: Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is one of the most popular pieces in history, and it also made David Lean’s 1945 Brief Encounter into the movie we know and

At a glance, the young pianist appears frozen in time, a still portrait quite at odds with the dancing carnival of sound that fills the KKL Luzern. The months pass by, and February’s ebullience bows t

Since winning the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award in 2016, Clare Hammond has established herself as one of Britain’s most adventurous pianists. A graduate of Cambridge University and t

CONCERT HEAVEN Zosha Di Castri, Jocelyn Morlock, Nicole Lizée, John Estacio Life Reflected National Arts Centre Orchestra Eskasoni, Cape Breton Nation (May 2017) This concert was during one of my earl