There is a plethora of classical music applications or ‘apps’ (computer software that can be downloaded to your electronic device) for everyone nowadays, from students to professional musicians to music-lovers. In Part One of this series, we look at some

A new museum in Helsingborg, Sweden, celebrates failure. Yes, you read that correctly – it celebrates failure. The museum displays corporate products which flopped but which paved the way for greater innovation and extraordinary commercial success (for example, Apple’s Newton

As the year approaches its end, it’s customary for the press to list their most impressive musical moments of the year. An old cliché as it may seem, a round up nevertheless offers an insightful glimpse into the chaotic and

What an extraordinary year! Some of the well guarded secrets that have long been circulating in the shadow of the operatic spotlight as sheer “rumours” before, were revealed for the first time to the general public. It followed a Me

We spoke recently with Florentine luthier Lapo Vettori, a third-generation string instrument maker. The Vettori family began instrument making in 1935 and continues today, making violins, violas (Lapo’s specialty) and violoncellos. Over the past 80-some years, the family has made

The life of the pianist is, by necessity, solitary. For many of us, the solitude is not an issue: we crave a sense of apartness to enable us to do our work and to create special connections with audiences when

By 1918, the century-old Franco-Belgian traditions of violin and organ studies, developed at the Paris Conservatoire, had undergone modifications that helped consolidate their tenets, empower their disciples, and spread their influence worldwide, to this day.

On reading concert reviews What do you do when you read a concert review that you disagree with? Do you bristle with ripe indignation because the reviewer did not concur with your view of the concert and then fire off