sun 31/08/2025

Classical Features

First Person: Royal College of Music Director of Programmes Diana Salazar on a transformation in learning and teaching

Diana Salazar

I wasn’t the only one who felt emotional when I left our beautiful building in South Kensington for the last time before lockdown. By that stage in mid-March the corridors had become quiet. The sense of loss was palpable: no concerts, no playing together, no conversation, no sound.

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theartsdesk Q&A: horn player Sarah Willis

graham Rickson

Horn player Sarah Willis joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001. She juggles her position with spells of teaching, interviewing soloists and conductors for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall and hosting an online series of Horn Hangouts, interviews with musicians streamed live on her website and archived on YouTube.

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'She spoke through her violin': Steven Isserlis on extraordinary meetings with Ida Haendel (192?-2020)

Steven Isserlis

So Ida has left us – a legend has departed. What a violinist! What a woman! Magnificent, unique, incorrigible – she was a law unto herself.

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‘We are still standing and planning for the brightest future we can’: Svend McEwan-Brown on the survival of a festival

Svend McEwan-Brown

They say that you discover who your true friends are when you find yourself in direst need. East Neuk Festival, our success story on the Fife coast, which should have been happening this week, faced the deepest crisis in its 16-year history this spring when, due to the pandemic, 2020’s festival was cancelled.

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'Composing supports children to understand music from the inside': educator Nancy Evans on a revolution in primary schools

Nancy Evans

Next month (July 2020) marks 20 years since I started work at Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, initially as their first Education Manager and then in my current role as Director of Learning and Participation.

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'We must channel the energy and pain that is being expressed right now': Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE on time for action on diversity in classical music

Chi-chi Nwanoku

The worldwide reaction to the horrific murder of George Floyd via the renewed focus on the Black Lives Matter movement is not a minority issue. It concerns people of all ethnicities, education and economic backgrounds who want a better, fairer world.

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The power of resilience: flautist Noemi Gyori on positive ways to face adversity

Noemi Gyori

The magnitude of challenges that the entire classical music industry is facing due to the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented. In the twinkling of an eye, cultural life became suspended. Many of us, mostly freelancers and entrepreneurs, smaller organizations, but even employees of large orchestras across the world are now dealing with stark financial and psychological pressure.

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'This experience has revealed just how much I love music': pianist Paul Lewis on life in lockdown

Paul Lewis

As an instrumentalist, you can sit down and play music and escape from the stress. It’s a privilege to be able to do something that takes you to a different place – you’re removed from everything that’s happening.

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The music of isolation: conductor Ian Page on 18th century 'Sturm und Drang'

Ian Page

My latest recording with The Mozartists is the first in a seven-volume series [reviewed by Graham Rickson in his Classical CDs Weekly column] exploring the so-called “Sturm und Drang” (literally translated, “storm and stress”) movement that swept through music and other art forms between the early 1760s and the early 1780s...

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First Person: Gabriel Prokofiev on 14 years of his Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra

Gabriel Prokofiev

For most people a turntable, or record player is used to play back old vinyls bought from a market or second hand store, or perhaps a carefully packaged reissue of a classic album. We gently place the needle at the beginning of the record and are careful not to scratch the vinyl when we turn it over. But for a turntablist or DJ it is a musical instrument, and they handle it with much greater confidence and familiarity.

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