To Cardiff for Tosca. (Me? I know! & I wasn't even reviewing.) Fabulous, especially Romaniw. But what made the tears flow? Just seeing the words "Welsh National Opera" at the final credits. They mean so much to so many. Why is this glorious musical beacon being destroyed? @welshnatopera.bsky.social

I've been immensely privileged to have spent the past 24 hours in the company of Jane Glover. She is truly a National Treasure. A musician of global stature, a first-rate musicologist, a powerful role model, but also generous and kind like virtually no-one else I know in the music professions

Only one day left to book one of the very few spots still available at Oxford's Meeting Minds 2025 Ertegun Lecture with Oxford and St Hugh's alumna, Professor Dame Jane Glover! @oxfordalumni.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk 20 Sep, 11 AM, Lecture Theatre 3, Math Institute www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/event/meetin...

Dark, desolate, terrifying, humorous. Outstanding production and performance of Beckett's Endgame this evening at Ustinov Studio @theatreroyalbath.bsky.social

Check out this profile of Professor @jonathancross.bsky.social! Learn more about spectral music and find out what Professor Cross gets up to as a musicologist, combining research, public engagements, and interdisciplinary teaching. @ertegunhouse.bsky.social

Just in case you'd like to join in the fun I had yesterday reimmersing myself in Mussorgsky's magical musical world, follow the link, starting at 30:00 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Joyful Nikki de Saint-Phalle sculptures dancing in the sunshine at Hauser & Wirth

Peak Bristol

What are the chances of that? 🤣

Applications for SHAPE Involve and Engage 2026-27 will open on 1 September. This innovative public engagement programme requires UK researchers to work in partnership with a gallery, archive, library or museum (GLAM organisation). Find out more: buff.ly/efUOSoL

Stefan Zweig, 1937, Austrian-Jewish refugee who found sanctuary in London

Stefan Zweig occupied a relatively modest house in Lyncombe during his brief exile in Bath. But I love the idea that the city was for him a Salzburg substitute

One of the greats www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

RIP the great Alfred Brendel. Your late Schubert is still unsurpassed. I had the great pleasure of being in conversation with you in 2013. I read out one of your poems about a sheep; you contributed the final words: "Baaaah, I said"

You really do start to feel your age when the Bodleian Library describes CDs and DVDs as 'heritage formats'

Fantastic news. What a relief. I'm sure there will still be difficult times for the department, but Music continues at Cardiff. Quite right www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

As Britten is to Moonrise Kingdom, so Stravinsky is to The Phoenecian Scheme. A joy for lovers (like me) of Wes and Igor, but rather more baffling!

She's back!

Sketches by Natalia Goncharova for Bronislava Nijinska choreography of Stravinsky Les Noces (1923). All up for discussion this Sat at 15.00 on BBC Radio 3 Building a Library

A great pleasure to be invited to share my work today with students in Geneva: séminaire "actualité de la recherche sur la musique". Also blue sky over mountains and lake!

Thank you Richard Morrison @thetimes.com for bringing this wonderful audio resource to our attention, and to Stuart Fowkes for curating it. Evocative immersive soundscapes citiesandmemory.com/heritage/

Hockney in Paris. The Normandy room is breathtaking - the joy tinged with melancholy of lockdown spring

I've just realised that "Chat GPT" translates directly into French as "Cat, I farted". You can't imagine the pleasure this gives me

It will soon be Sunday's Boulezathon! All day at the Barbican and on Radio 3. Including talks. Do join us! www.bbc.co.uk/events/e6zv9r

Hugely looking forwarding to talking all things Boulez with Tamara Stefanovich & Kate Molleson on Wednesday's Front Row www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A great loss of a great figure

A privilege to have known Bojan Bujić. A gentle man and a scholar of penetrating intelligence

Dreadful news for such a historic and distinguished music department. Let's unite in solidarity

Sad news of the death of Elgar Howarth, a great champion of new music. I was privileged to meet him decades ago at Glyndebourne when Sussex Uni gave Birtwistle an HonDMus (he was conducting The Second Mrs Kong)

For the latest Opera with Opera News I spoke to composer Mark-Anthony Turnage about his new work 'Festen' to be premiered at Covent Garden on 11 February

Live earlier today and on BBC Sounds. This was a fun one to do. Crazy piece. Can't believe how any pianist can get their fingers round it!

Schoenberg Chamber Symphony op. 9 in rehearsal with London Sinfonietta. Those rising 4ths on the horns seem to have triggered an eruption of blue smoke

Arnie, serial offender: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

RIP Sandy Goehr. The last of the Manchester generation, and a hugely influential voice in British music. I had the great pleasure of being in conversation with him in 2019. Full of tales of encounters with Messiaen, Boulez and many others!

That's it. TwiX is no more for me. Strangely liberating. Let's all be kind to each other over here. To celebrate, here's a pic of Blue Sky over Oxford

A lost past. Eric Ravilious, The Oyster Bar, from 'High Street'

In the light of the terrible news of the closure of the Music Dept at Oxford Brookes Uni, tomorrow I reflect on the place of music education in UK society www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...