Slightly diminish a book: Mr Dalloway

Good news - we've just created a new arts funding hub, which provides links to funding pots in the UK that are currently open for applications 🎉 Hope it's useful! www.alternativeclassical.co.uk/classical-mu...

Northern Ballet, having recently ditched their live orchestra, now crowing about offering a "rare opportunity" to conduct a ballet. Must have own Spotify Premium account.

Perfect timing by the EFL to arrange the Coventry vs Hull match on Larkin’s birthday. The classic Larkin derby, nature vs nurture.

I don't believe in ghosts, but then again, what if the things I don't believe in aren't ghosts?

There should be a hire bike style scheme for music stands. Or Airbnb style: anyone not using theirs can rent it out to anyone in the area who needs one.

My favourite tempo marking in music is 'tempo giusto', ie basically 'the right speed'. I wish there were also a similar marking for dynamics: g, say, instead of mf or pp, etc

Quite an itinerant, varied month with my viola, that. Yesterday in Kent, a one-of-a-kind programme at Stour Music. Previously: Saint-Saens with New Sussex Opera in Worthing and Winchester; recording with Southern Sinfonia in Christchurch; UK premiere of Dan Forrest’s Creation for Vox Anima in Ely...

People in classical music: I’m interested in documenting AI, LLM, ChatGPT etc. use in the workplace - looking at images and texts in particular. If you have any examples, do send them my way x

I'm still looking for a tenor for the MA in Solo-Voice Ensemble Singing at the U of York this September. A year's course, coaching every week from me and top quality singing lessons (not from me...) Please be in touch if you're interested - and do pass on. Current lot (2 groups) pictured.

Not in my name, Toby Carvery, not in my name! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Since Fanny was older than Felix, is there any reason why, to avoid confusion between the two, we shouldn't refer to her as Mendelssohn major and her brother as Mendelssohn minor? Does anyone in fact do this?

Just off to the bank to pay in a cheque. Gasp, right? It has been quite some time since I was paid that way, and I'm wondering if I should phone in advance so they can get together a ceremonial welcoming party.

I wrote about why I hate AI "art" www.theneweuropean.co.uk/emily-herrin...

Pierre #Boulez centenary birthday menu: Tomato sans maitre Pea, sirloin, pea Cabbagesquisse Eclair (multiples)

Does the existence of the Toblerone imply also the existence of the Toblerino, indeed also of the Tobleroncello?

A report on an orchestra that vanished for @londonermag.bsky.social www.the-londoner.co.uk/london-chamb...

Hey! HEY!! Don't tell anyone but we just released more £30 tickets for our opening show #DasRheingold this Sunday at #Yorkhalla (Bethnal Green, London) there will also be a small number of £25 rush tickets on the day, but we're very nearly full don't miss it! Www.ticketsource.co.uk/regents-opera

Life's not a rehearsal, and when you put it like that, neither are rehearsals. Especially when it's a Ring cycle and you're about to do the fourth dress rehearsal in as many days. To Bethnal Green today for Götterdämmerung with @regentsopera.bsky.social. Opening Sunday!

Back home from rehearsing at York Hall in Bethnal Green for @regentsopera.bsky.social's Ring Cycle, the orchestra's first outing in the venue. It's looking incredibly dramatic: the audience really do have ringside seats regentsopera.com/ring-cycle-2...

We're grateful to This Is London's New Year 2025 edition for this preview - TAKE THEIR ADVICE!

Thought I'd try drinking black velvets for my solo Christmas this year. (On the menu: bought-in game pie with home-made bubble and squeak.) Taking it easy though as I'm back in the pit at the Coliseum tomorrow for Boxing Day Nutcracker. Tcheers!

Should we have a Campaign for the Protection of Traditional Sound? Its aim would be to defend the noise of pubs, farms, church bells, sport… from Nimbies who move in next door and then complain about the sounds that have been there for decades and centuries. #CPTS

Since it's St Cecilia's Day, I'm about to sightread my way through the book of viola studies I've just bought. But I'm not letting you hear that! Here's my illustrious forebear instead with some Purcell recorded in 1956 (Michael Tippett conducting btw) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoCj...

Something for #frenchhorn fans in London tomorrow: Nivanthi Karunaratne playing the Gliere concerto with us at St Alfege's church Greenwich, 7.30pm. Also featuring Ina Boyle's Wild Geese and Schubert 9 www.stpaulssinfonia.com

Brandenburg concertos ranking (highest to lowest): 6, 4, 1, 5, 2, 3

In Manchester for the second leg of the Giselle tour, or given the weather so far maybe that should be Driselle

Lovelock's Coffee Shop in Liverpool is just my kind of place and I'm very glad it's so close to where I'm staying this week. www.lovelocks.coffee

Very happy to be in Liverpool for a few days to play Giselle, one of those occasional times in my work where viola playing overlaps with my French lit background. Oh là là, la!

Stop reading your smartphones and trying to walk at the same time. You can't do it! Also, stop dropping them all the time.

Someone asked me once which composer I would choose if I could choose only one. I said Bartok but then had the thought... maybe Tippett??

Heading to Oxford on Friday to play Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. At lunchtime! If you want to join us (for a donation of your choice) in contemplating the fruits of the earth and the passing of the seasons, we'll be at the Wesley Memorial chapel at 1pm. muzikfermata.com/2024/10/01/m...

20th century electronic music

Where would one find Simpkin's Nipits in the UK? Shop, not online. Am I actually going to have to go to Fortnum & Mason or something?

I now see that the term 'sunny intervals', such as were promised for today, actually refers to the intervals between sunny episodes, rather than the sunny episodes themselves.

These Blackheath Halls Community Opera productions are always spectacular events, and I'm very happy to be helping them with this year's show. Opens tonight, runs until Sunday www.blackheathhalls.com/whats-on/bla...

"I’ve never seen morale so low, and I’ve never seen people quite so angry at the way we’ve been treated." I go inside Welsh National Opera's crisis - and meet the incoming CEO who thinks she can rebuild the company www.thetimes.com/article/ba99...

Optimist: the cup is half full Pessimist: the cup is half empty Optimist: right! It's nearly time for the next cup!

How's this for a double earworm! I made it through the wilderness Somehow I made it through But if you want the best ones And you don't ask questions Then brother, I'm your man

Nice to hear Alfred Deller featured on Radio 4's Add to Playlist today, c/o Richard Stilgoe. Raised an eyebrow at the reference to falsetto as not a true voice though!

Over in Cambridge for a few days to play for a conducting masterclass. I can honestly say that each time I do one of these, my desire to conduct decreases still further. Nothing to do with avoiding the responsibility; everything to do with how much work I'd need to put in to do a good job.

Having enjoyed enjoyed playing Alan Menken's marvellous score for Beauty and the Beast live to film this weekend, I'm wondering if anyone has tried something similar with ballet. Filmed choreography with live music, in other words.

Thanks, Feste, I hadn't noticed! www.youtube.com/watch?v=EryG...

One of the quiet times of year for many classical musicians. Time to look after your playing, really get it together.

How about car horns that sound major rather than minor thirds for when the driver doesn't want to sound aggressive or merely wants to be cheery?

Where January began for me playing for Nutcracker, February begins with the Ring Cycle - well, part three at least: Siegfried with Regents Opera at Freemasons Hall, London WC2, and again on Wednesday and Saturday.

The viola is such a mysterious instrument: at once too loud and too quiet, depending on who is conducting.

I've had occasional can't-get-to-the-gig anxiety dreams for a while. The can't-make-it-home type, however, is a much more recent addition.

Having just about surfaced from my first season of Nutcrackers (in Southampton and London; what a fabulous piece to play!) I'm now tentatively preparing for immersion in Siegfried (with Regents Opera in London). Quite glad not to have 39 performances of that ahead of me...