University reunion tonight. Obviously nobody will be judging, but I have dug out some moisturiser…

Bedtime reading. Written entirely in Europanto - Marani’s constructed language intelligible to anyone (allegedly) who speaks English, French, German, Dutch or Spanish.

Too hot even to be grumpy with each other….

Next little teaser… (full album drops on June 19th).

Make it stop.

Next little teaser… (full album drops on June 19th).

38% of Green voters were too young to vote in 2016.

Our house is roughly 50 meters from where most SatNavs place it. The fact that increasingly people phone in panic thinking they're lost, rather than simply counting the (sequential) house numbers offers a brief glimpse in to the world once we've surrendered all basic cognitive processes to AI...

A Short video about Samantha and our recent recording and Concert featuring Avril Coleridge-Taylor.

My Lord says he cannot endure a merry tune, which is a strange turn of his humour, after he has for two or three years flung off the practice of Fancies and played only fidlers’ tunes.

"Most surprisingly, the Norman Conquest of 1066 appears to have been largely an elite process." Scientists once again riding to the rescue of historians, who had previously assumed 1066 was a largely peasant-driven enterprise. theconversation.com/beyond-anglo...

"Peter Cigleris is a brilliant advocate of this music and the performances are excellent on all accounts. The recording is clear and with an ideal sense of space."

New job #ad: Head of Development, English Touring Opera Ltd, Sheffield. Salary: £45,000 - 50,000. #artsjobs

One of the reasons the British prefer it if their politicians don't "do God" is the hubristic sense of omniscience and righteousness that seems to manifest in those that do.

"Peter Cigleris is a brilliant advocate of this music and the performances are excellent on all accounts. The recording is clear and with an ideal sense of space."

Whilst slightly hilarious, this is now my experience of driving to my parents and in-laws.... (though it's probably not a bad idea that I rest for 20 minutes in a four-hour drive).

So, I seem to have written yet another novel. I really don’t know how this keeps happening.

In a garden shady; two felines take their repose.

Really lovely to speak to @clivepaget.bsky.social at Limelight about this really exciting project!

Sums it up perfectly.

Just finished GOOD OMENS 3; Much as I love the actors, I’m just glad that I will always have the book.

Such an enjoyable listen, and @jkaconductor.bsky.social dies fab work on some joyous oompah arrangements worthy of the Titipu Town Band #rapturerapture

Really lovely to speak to @clivepaget.bsky.social at Limelight about this really exciting project!

Too. Hot.

More gold than corn: María Dueñas’ silky Korngold at the Barbican with the BBCSO bachtrack.com/review-duena...

First teaser has dropped! David in sparking voice 😍

First teaser has dropped! David in sparking voice 😍

On my way to beautiful Dartington for the opening of the English Music Festival with the London Mozart Players. And I can tell you that Trafalgar Square is particularly lovely at 5am.

@leahbroad.bsky.social @henselpushers.bsky.social @donauschwalbe.bsky.social

Excellent news. Congratulations all.

‘Bombshell’ would, I think, imply that any of us are remotely surprised….

Brexit itself is a good example of people saying "We need the legislature to listen to us!" while putting the same party into power over and over for 18 years

Living her Best Life.

It’s a bit of a last scene Animal Farm moment isn’t it. The digital revolution has fully reinvented elite gatekeeping, oligarch ownership and top-down control of information.

*NEW POST* "The language and labels we use to describe musicians matter just as much as which pieces get recorded and published and performed." On Ethel Smyth's legacy and the "woman composer" label substack.com/pub/leahbroa...

In a few years, someone is going to invent the search engine and the world will be amazed.

I was offered condolences by an AI when phoning a bereavement line after my stepfather’s death. I cannot begin to describe my loathing of people who use it for the most obviously human-requiring functions.

Cat; Crochet.

Glyndebourne starts this week (lucky you if you're going!). I have two essays in the programme book, one on Tosca and one on popular opera going in C20th/C21st Britain. If you want to learn more, you can read the full story in my book Someone Else's Music: Opera and the British.

I see we’re doing food again, so FWIW my wisdom on this is at the *top* end, British food now (in the last decades) competes with our continental cousins; but at the *budget* end we still tolerate things that no French or Italian would consider edible.

First Rose of Summer.

BBC Radio 3 Record Review Now Playing Freda Swain, Peter Cigleris, London Mozart Players & John Andrews Clarinet Concertino 'Lumine naturi' (1st mvt)

It gets a good mention on this week's BBC R3 Record Review. 54'45" in. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I know there’s a lot going on, but just checking: do we currently have a Health Secretary?

So I gather someone has posted the 100 best books, but apparently they’re all fiction so I can’t entirely be arsed to look as I won’t have read more than three.

“A Fabulpus Showcase for all players” [ApIvor] “Let me stick my neck out and declare we shall hear a lot more of this Life-Enhancing work.” [Swain] “A significant and most entertaining addition to the SOMM catalogue” (Gramophone, June 2026).

I have a significant university anniversary reunion soon, and the consensus of the inevitable WhatsApp group is that we were incredibly lucky to be undergraduates before the camera phone.

“A Fabulpus Showcase for all players” [ApIvor] “Let me stick my neck out and declare we shall hear a lot more of this Life-Enhancing work.” [Swain] “A significant and most entertaining addition to the SOMM catalogue” (Gramophone, June 2026).

After two weeks basically floored by some post-viral nonsense; I am proud to announce that have made it through the day nap-free.

Trusting that Mancunians won't be *incredibly* disappointed that he's left important work half-done is going to be a very big ask.