Holy Moly! Its Bucharest…I think
It’s quite usual for me to arrive in a city, leave the hotel, which is different to the one we stayed on previous trips, and not recognise anything at all. There are times when I begin to doubt myself...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Juan more concert
From the comfort of the train speeding through the Spanish countryside, you could be forgiven for thinking that it is summer. The sun is high and the deep blue stretches far into the distance, the only...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Gesticulating Tourist
Walking around Beijing, I find it hard to tell whether my lips are numb because of the cold, snow-laden wind blowing in my face, or the Szechuan peppers which were liberally sprinkled on my lunch. If...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Use the Force Valery
I remember walking down the Nanjing Road in Shanghai a couple of years ago and being offered goods aplenty. This week however it seems worse than ever. As I get further down the road, I can always see...
View ArticleThe Ecstasy of Wifi
If an alien life form were to land unannounced backstage at a concert in 2012, they would make some basic assumptions about human behaviour which I once would have thought unfounded. Now I’m not so...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Life is like a box of chocolates
Brussels. The centre of European bureaucracy and, if you read the right newspapers, the enemy of our proud British traditions. Leaving the Euro debate alone for the moment, Brussels has been accused at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Age of Priority
The concert last night was in Frankfurt. Because of the Book Fair there, the publishers and book sellers of the world were using every available hotel room and so at the end of our four hour bus trip...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ambrosia and …er…amnesia
When I was about 12 years old my mother worked at a Catholic school, and one Easter our whole family was able to go on the trip to Rome. Even as a pre-teenager, the ancient splendour of the city...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Aix Episode 7: Au Revoir but not Goodbye
As we reach the end of our wonderful five weeks here in Aix I must take my large, floppy sunhat off to all those you don’t see working behind the scenes but who make our lives here run so smoothly....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bonn to Baden Baden via Beethoven
Concertos – as a musician you spend maybe a decade as a student honing your skills as a soloist playing endless concertos. Then reality hits and you spend the next 30-40 years hearing them played...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Do you feel lucky??
Well it seems only days ago that I was in Austria penning my last tour blog (oh, it was…). Since then we have played three London concerts, (two of them televised for Mezzo and all recorded for LSO...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Made in Madrid
People often ask why I take so many photos on tour, especially of food. I think it started on my first tours when I would be travelling all over the place and eager to show what I was eating to my...
View ArticleInterview: James Gaffigan
We catch up with James Gaffigan, the New Yorker currently serving as Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, after the first rehearsal ahead of his LSO debut on Thursday 13 February. He...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An “in tents” Festival…
It feels an age since I have penned a blog, and in fact it is a couple of months since we have been on tour. Much has happened in our LSO lives. The departing in a tragic accident of Principal Trumpet...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Too many options…
If like me, you spend a large number of days sleeping in a strange bed, that is to say, hotel beds, then you’ll be familiar with the sensation of waking up in the middle of the night and not knowing...
View Article