Group A leaving at 5.30am after the concert or group B leaving at 10.25 am. Which would you choose? B. Well done, that is the correct answer, after all, leaving Poland at that ungodly hour would render me incapable of being sprightly dad at half term. So Group B it is, a...
I am currently sitting in Warsaw Frederic Chopin International airport, which is closed because air traffic control is down. I wish they would pull themselves together and think happy thoughts as I'm feeling a little down myself now. I want to go home. We made our debut in...
Last night we were in Cologne, one of my favourite German cities, with its beautiful cathedral and fabulous concert hall where we get free beer after the performance - I think I've told you about that before. We played the Widmann violin concerto with Christian Tetzlaff - a...
I don't know what the French for joie de vivre is, but I left mine somewhere on the Barbican stage on Thursday night after Daphnis and Chloe. Well, really it was after a week which began 2 weeks earlier which had 2 performances of Daphnis, La Mer and a couple of concerti as...
I may have imagined it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I slept in my own bed yesterday, or was it the day before? After the Prom where socks were blown off and Christine Pendrill astonished us all with her fabulous cor anglais playing, we all had a short time to turn...
Two weeks into my holiday, I decided that I could no longer ignore the pile of paperwork and accounts on my desk. It is difficult to relax with a bulging in tray sneering at you, so I woke up one morning and decided to tackle the mountain. It was of course the hottest day of...
I've never actually bought a brand new car, I mean one of those ones where the plastic is still on the seats and the odometer has the delivery mileage only. Being a financially challenged musician and father of 3, the newest car I have ever bought was a year old. It still had...
I think that Daytona Beach fell in love with Kristian Jarvi last night. Anyone who was at the concert we did with him in the Barbican a while ago will know what I'm talking about. The audience wasn't quite as full as other shows here-it was a conductor they weren't familiar with...
[gallery] After a very welcome day off where I personally did very little except move from pool to beach, the second free day saw a lot of us whizzing around at high speed. The organisers of the festival had very kindly organised for us to visit the Daytona NASCAR racing track....
Wednesday 25 March Boston. Two musicians drop in at the offices of Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company (our tour sponsor) to play to 200 employees after a hard days work. The whole event had a truly British theme with bowler hats and British beers in...
