A good honours day for musos

It's a bumper year for classical music and opera in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for the Diamond Jubilee. As if perhaps someone suddenly realised there were all these amazing people who deserved honours and hadn't yet got them, so they're having a little catch-up? Arise, Sir David McVicar, just for starters. 

Violinist Tasmin Little has been awarded an OBE (and about time too!). ENO's own lightning conductor, Ed Gardner, also gets one; so does pianist Joanna MacGregor. Harry Christophers, conductor of The Sixteen and more, is given a CBE, as are composer and broadcaster Michael Berkeley and TV choir supremo Gareth Malone. Andrew Jowett, chief exec of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, receives the OBE just in time for that fabulous venue's 21st birthday and one also goes to Elaine Padmore, formerly director of opera at the ROH. Nor has ballet been left out: OBEs for Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, founders of BalletBoyz. Conductor and composer Douglas Coombes is given an MBE; so is Katie Tearle, formerly head of education at Glyndebourne and now on board as opera and ballet specialist at Peters Edition; and Ernest Tomlinson, that usually undersung composer of "light music". Meanwhile, down under, pianist Piers Lane has received an AO - Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia. 

As it's not easy for classical musicians to be noticed and honoured in this day and age, etc etc, they all deserve a big cheer! BRAVI, FOLKS!