Win a trip to NY

I enjoy being, in trend-speak, an ambassador not just for 'kultcha' but for London, having been born within the sound of Bow Bells and lived in the UK capital all my life. Recently I joined a reviewing team at Metrotwin, a new venture powered by British Airways, reviewing and 'twinning' favourite places in those two mega-meccas London and New York. You'll find it under the site partners section in the sidebar, but meanwhile:

If you register at Metrotwin.com before 15 January you could win a pair of return economy flights to New York and three nights in The Plaza New York. Conditions apply.

http://tinyurl.com/7t9hnr

Enjoy!

Namaste!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE. We are just back from south India. I hope you've all had an excellent Xmas and wish you health, happiness and peace in 2009.

I've put an album of 60 photos from our trip on Facebook. It has been an extraordinary fortnight, packed with fascinating, wondrous, perspective-grinding impressions. Here are just a few:

We saw:
Tiger paw-prints - fresh - in the Periyar national park
Sunsets the colour of a swami's robes over the Chinese fishing nets at Fort Cochin
Sunrise over the tea plantations at Thekkady
A dazzling display of Kathkali dance
Plantation of cardamon, pineapples, tea, rice and coffee
Amid myriad carvings in the 'city of a thousand temples', Kanchipuram, one showing Parvati embracing Shiva, standing delicately on tiptoe
A kingfisher flashing fluorescent turquoise above carmine lotus flowers on a pond
The Kerala backwaters, from a houseboat
Children as young as 4 begging on the beach
Entire families - mum, dad and three kids - zooming along on a single motorbike
A guest house called Pallava
A bus called Melvin

We heard:
Monkeys 'policing' the jungle by whooping from the treetops (="look out, tigers, here come another bunch of those idiot tourists!")
The sitar, Indian flute, the tabla
The rolling of waves on the Bay of Bengal
The call to prayer in Cochin, where 4 world religions have long flourished peacefully side by side
That there are more than 22 languages spoken in south India
That units of measurement include a 'lac' (100,000) and a 'karu' (10 million) - London is a small city in Indian terms.

We smelled:
Jasmine everywhere in Kerala
Crushed leaves from spice bushes - curry, cloves, allspice...
The bark of cinnamon and sandalwood, the sap of incense and rubber
Ayurvedic hair oil (well, I did - Tom doesn't have hair). It works.
Fish, fish, fish
A great deal else, often in places it shouldn't have been

We tasted:
Fresh coconut water drunk with a straw from the shell
Keralan fish curry galore
White snapper and fresh lobster drenched in garlic butter sauce
Too much channa masala (hot spicy chick-peas)
Fresh green peppercorns plucked from the plant
Home-made chocolate
An intriguing concoction that arrived when I requested peppermint tea: a stew of Tetley's, a handful of mint leaves and about 2 tablespoons of black peppercorns.

We felt:
Thoroughly pummelled by Ayurvedic massage, which seems to have sorted out my bad back
An extraordinary bop on the head from the elephant that blessed us with its trunk in Kanchipuram
The aurora of heat that greets you when you leave the airconditioning behind
Intense sun on our skin
Covered in grime after a day's sightseeing
Terrified on the roads: overtaking is a way of life, whether you're a bus, a truck, an ox-cart, a car, a motorcycle, a rickshaw, a bicycle or an elephant, and traffic lights are in short supply.
That we would have liked to stay for much longer than 2 weeks
Humbled by the wealth of ancient artistry, skills and wisdom
Touched by friendliness, non-aggression, kindness, community and family strength: people supporting extended families on 300 rupees a day (= approx 45p) often appear happier in themselves than most Londoners do
Saddened by the plethora of ingrained attitudes that nevertheless seem to hold everything back. India is a succession of priceless gems strung together on a decaying thread. Marvel after marvel, linked by disastrous infrastructure.
Challenged, moved, churned up
Changed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This is my last post of 2008 - I'm taking a break for a couple of weeks. So here's a little Christmas present for everyone: how better to finish this year than by hearing the 95%-cocoa-solids violinist Toscha Seidel play 'Hejre Kati'?

Enjoy.

A bientot!

JDCMB GINGER STRIPE AWARDS 2008

Once again, the Winter Solstice signals that it is time to welcome you to the JDCMB Ginger Stripe Awards!

2008 has been a peculiar year, full of the crunching of credits, the blurring of boundaries and the bouncing of an occasional Czech not to mention a lot of Hungarians. I regret to say that Sir Georg has put his paw down and banned me from presenting musical awards, however much deserved, to Philippe Graffin (who as you know made the CD-of-the-Book), Tasmin Little (who played at my book launch), Andras Schiff (even though today is his birthday! but he kindly endorsed the novel), Vladimir Jurowski (who just kept on and on winning the conductor slot), and several others. When I pointed out that the ban must extend to Feline of the Year, he gave a cat-shrug and said that as he alone can present ginger stripes for stroking, that was "bearly" relevant.

Our Cyberposhplace, being virtual, is still in business. The Canard-Duchen bubbly, being imaginary, flows unabated and our Virtualcelebritychef has made some Hungarian canapes, which are very filling, hence economical. Please help yourselves, but go easy on the garlic sausage... And now let's have a round of applause for every musician who has touched the hearts of his or her audience during the past 12 months.

Thank you...quiet, please. Now, would the following winners please approach the podium where Solti, ensconced upon his silken cushion, will allow you to stroke the ginger stripes and will give you your very own prize purr.

Icon of the year: Vernon Handley, who along with Richard Hickox is among 2008's tragic losses. Our Nods for Tod went sadly unheeded; now it is too late. He and Richard live on, however, in the hearts of their admirers. Please pause for a two-minute silence.

Pianist of the year: Daniel Barenboim for his Beethoven cycle, which mobilised musical London like nothing else in years. I am startled to find that even now, after 10 months, I can remember the way he played almost everything in Op.111 - and suspect I will remember it forever.

Violinist of the year: since Solti has banned me from giving this one to Philippe and/or Tasmin, the prize is divided between Christian Tetzlaff for his Brahms concerto in London and Vienna with the LPO...and that dazzling virtuoso, the utterly gorgeous junior violinist of Taraf de Haidouks.

Singer of the year: the divine Jonas Kaufmann, whose performance at the ROH nearly renamed Puccini's most dramatic opera Cavaradossi.

Youthful artist of the year: Chloe Hanslip, who has grown up from prodigydom to become a really lovely musician. Her CD of Bazzini overflows with joie de vivre. I hope she'll go on to great things.

Conductor of the year: Claudio Abbado, who scooped the JDCMB conductors' poll hands down, so to speak.

Interviewee of the year: the maverick French violinist Devy Erlih, whom I interviewed in July for The Strad (they won't let me put it online until January, so watch this space). His mind-boggling story is the closest I have found in real life to that of Mimi Racz... You can, however, read a special web extra here in which he talks to me about Bach.

CD of the year: Stephen Kovacevich's new recording of the Beethoven Diabelli Variations and Bach 4th Partita. His old disc of the Diabellis on EMI was great, but this one is absolutely breathtaking: musicianship so fiery and profound that it exists on the very edge of bursting its banks. And the Bach - especially the Allemande - found me sinking to the floor and nearly chewing the carpet because I have always dreamed it could sound like this yet had never heard it do so... Enough already - just go and hear it.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Alfred Brendel, who is retiring. Read this beautiful tribute to him from Imogen Cooper in The Guardian; treasure the memories of that deadpan humour in Haydn and Beethoven; and read his book, an Aladdin's cave of musical insight.

Take a bow, everybody...Thank you. Thank you for your moving, uplifting, inspiring, life-enhancing music-making. You're wonderful. We love you.


And a few personal highlights:

Proudest moment: Launch of Hungarian Dances, 4 March. What an evening!

Most affecting moment: Philippe's Hungarian Dances CD becoming real - probably the most touching thing anyone has ever done in association with anything I have tried to do. Saying 'thank you' isn't enough...

Most startling moment: finding myself the foil to Krystian Zimerman's astounding comedy classic at the RFH.

Biggest sigh of relief: successful conclusion of the Hungarian Dances fundraising concert.

Guest star of the year: Sir Alan Sugar.

Felines of the year: I am hoping to meet some large stripy creatures (at a safe distance) on a mountainside in India next week. If we give them a prize now, perhaps they will deign to appear.

Personality of the year: my nephew Luca (age 4), who has developed an obsession with different types of weird and wonderful musical instruments and recently announced that he wants to play the 'doodah'. "How cute, a doodah-whatsit" was the general mystified response - before he told us yesterday that actually the duda is a type of bagpipe and he thinks it comes from Hungary... !?!

Wonderful Webmaster of the Year: this essential prize once again goes to Herr Horst Kolo, without whom nothing would be possible.

Thank you, everyone. Now please relax, socialise and enjoy the music...

Korngold podcast

With the UK stage premiere of Die tote Stadt at the Royal Opera House only about 5 weeks away, things are hotting up - if mildly - for the occasion. The ROH has loaded up a podcast in which a couple of us discuss Korngold's life and work and influence on film music. I haven't managed to download this one to add to our own podcaster, so do have a listen to it here.

Booking is open now for the opera, Willy Decker's much-acclaimed production already seen in Vienna and Salzburg, which stars Nadja Michael, Stephen Gould and Gerald Finlay. The first night is 27 January - the other Wolfgang's birthday. I'll be there on 2 February and will report back after that.