Michael Church – International Piano live roundup May 2024 Queen Elizabeth Hall: Marc-André Hamelin Feb 23 Wigmore Hall: Andras Schiff March 3; Steven Osborne March 12; Pavel Kolesnikov and...Read More
Yuja Wang Royal Festival Hall, London Impoverished by Brexit, shunned by a Philistine government, and shockingly undermined by the Arts Council, classical music in Britain is going through unprecedent...Read More
Composer, belle-lettrist, polemicist, novelist, painter, teacher, and failed priest – as well as pianist – the newly-knighted Stephen Hough must sometimes lose track of his multifarious ac...Read More
Lars Vogt remembered, By Michael Church Can one play vibrato on the piano? Since it’s just a box of hammers, with each making only momentary contact with its string, the common-sense answer m...Read More
A new concert series (HP Futures); a new venue (St Martin-in-the-Fields has transformed both its subterranean regions and its artistic programme); and a potential new star in the making: what’s not ...Read More
Sergei Babayan, Wigmore hall Hot on the heels of Daniil Trifonov’s triumphant residency at the Barbican came the man responsible for channelling the young Russian’s talent – Sergei Babayan. And ...Read More
Emerging from a rare sabbatical, Evgeny Kissin – the world’s most acclaimed classical pianist – has just published his autobiography. He has also just married a childhood friend, and he’s ...Read More
In 2011 I published the profile below of the pianist Nick van Bloss in ‘The Independent on Sunday’, at a time when he was taking tentative steps towards a renewed concert and recording ca...Read More