JDCMB

It is Lithuania's National Day today, and for the first time Symphony Hall, Birmingham, is to resound to  The Sea by Mikolajus Čiurlio...

My friend and colleague Philippe Graffin, the fabulous French violinist, has just released his new recording of the Schumann Violin Conc...

Philippe Graffin. Photo: Marco Borrgreve Hooray for Philippe Graffin, the Anglophile French violinist of London. He has been living her...

UPDATE: HERE IS A FILM ABOUT CONSONANCES Miserable news from Saint-Nazaire, France: the Festival Consonances, which was founded and ...

Two musicians I feel very lucky to know are both celebrating birthdays today. Have a listen to celebrate. First, here is my very special c...

We were fortunate to have such a figure as Nelson Mandela in the world at all. Today everyone on social media seems to have found a pertinen...

It's hot out there. Trying to cool my study down for a hard day's writing with some lovely limpid Chausson: the Concert in D for vio...

Ahh, what it is to be a pioneer. A few years ago, Philippe and I bust all our gut strings on the Hungarian Dances project : a novel (mine) ...

Blazing sunshine, teeming crowds in the Pavilion Gardens, a brass band whiling away the afternoon, cupcakes galore and a crowd of delight...

Gabriel Fauré died on 4 November 1924. Here's a little extract from his Piano Quartet in G minor, apparently filmed in Apeldoorn by some...

Back from France...as I'd suspected, my technotwit tendencies (or inadequate laptop) prevented any blogging en route. My play 'A Wal...

Everyone else is busy writing about Elgar now. His birthday isn't until next weekend, but here's conductor Sakari Oramo in The Guard...

Too Much Mozart , a short story I've written to accompany a new CD of the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, is now available to read online a...

Oh, sod it, I've got a new mousemat & keyboard ridge thing, both with a gel support for sore wrists, and if I don't write this u...

Puzzled as to why the Philharmonia hasn't been shouting about this from the rooftops... here's the link .... Fab reason for concer...

First, here's the feature I wrote about classical music on Youtube for The Independent - out today. Elated yet again after the trio con...

Philippe Graffin is currently in Cape Town coaching the Hout Bay String Project. A report from Jan-Stefan's Kloof Street Blog has some...

Ouest-France ran this smashing photo and a very friendly preview of the evening. Left to right, me, Philippe Graffin , Francois Le Roux an...

And here it is: my first post from anywhere other than my study. Magic, this WiFi business, once you work it out. Here we are in St Nazaire,...

Good news! Next week, more good news: the St Nazaire Festival, where my new 'literary concert' script 'The Song of Triumphant Lo...