Art and Abart

Today is Waitangi Day in New Zealand, and a public holiday. It is day 6 of the music festival and I am pacing myself, staving off exhaustion...

It isn't often at a concert that you discover you are sitting next to someone whose blog you follow. The Scottish (not English, t...

If you look at blogs about recordings of Wagner's music you find connoisseurs discussing which singer is best on which recording. Each r...

This is my favourite photo of Leipzig. It seems to encapsulate the city. Music and musicians are so much part of Leipzig but so is being...

Nena on the cover of Blitz magazine Brava to Nena, still going strong after all these years. This is the current issue of Blitz magazine...

Coffee grinder with (Wagner) music At Art School in 2008 I had a wonderful time in the print workshop. 'Print' as in etching, in...

Yaay! I got my copy of Blue Tulips: A Love Story in the mail today! It is looking good ... quite a hefty tome at 430 pages. Blue Tuli...

Wagner's Music as Love Potion? Blue Tulips: A Love Story is a book that demonstrates how potent this love potion can be. Blue Tu...

"It's a paradox. Music has this incredible power to evoke, but we don't know what it evokes. You can't talk about it as bei...

Dessert with the lutenist I looked through the photos the photographer Dejan Bulut took at the Maribor festival and found one with expe...

Tara Simincec Jaka Stadler Richard Tognetti The Maribor Music Festival is almost over for another year. As always, it was a...

Satu Vänskä plays violin Satu Vänskä's The Woman Project  was packed full of very diverse work and the performers were as diverse a...

Satu  Vänskä plays We have heard some wonderful playing this week at the Maribor Music Festival, not least Satu Vänskä who played us a v...

Musicians in rehearsal The Maribor Music Festival is in full swing and I am making lots of sketches of musicians and of Maribor town. ...

Maribor Castle Maribor is such a pretty place, particularly the old city. The Maribor Castle (left) was built between 1478 and 1483 and ...

The nave of Antwerp Cathedral in full of music, with a row of display boards with old manuscripts and explanations of each of them. Show ...

Harpsichord waiting for Egarr to appear Baroque music. Somehow the name sounds so staid, as if the music might be constrained by tight c...

This is a 'must watch' video. The piece is Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1, for those who are wondering... Conductor at Klara Pre-s...

Turkish music enthusiasts packed the Capitol Theater in Sydney last Wednesday to hear seven virtuosic 'Masters' of Turkish instru...

One women is killed every eight days in Australia by her partner or former partner.  They call it the silent epidemic . Why is it silent? Wh...