RIP Aldo Clementi

Composer Aldo Clementi passed away last week at the age of 85. There have been nice tributes at The Rambler , Ravishdears and Boulezian. I came into professional contact with his music only once- we recorded two of his early works, Ideogrammi I and Ideogrammi II, with...

The next king

One of my favorite guessing games this year is “who will be the next Mahler?” The goal of this game is not to decide whether Schoenberg or Shostakovich was Mahler’s true musical heir (it’s likely they both thought they were). Rather, the question is over which...

Getting it just right

I’m a little frustrated that I haven’t had a chance to post in what looked on the calendar like a quiet week. This is often the case- a week without a concert ends up with so much off-the-podium activity crammed in that it feels even busier. Just as by a quirk of...

Guest blog- Nigel Hughes, trombonist

Regular Vftp readers will have read before about my colleague at the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, Nigel Hughes. Nigel is the orchestra’s principal trombonist. He is also blind. (He also designed the orchestra’s excellent website). The fact that someone can play...