On PhD research and gratitude

I have been really busy these past couple of years working on a PhD on Gordon Green, piano teacher to such international stars as John Ogdon, Stephen Hough, Martino Tirimo, Philip Fowke, Peter Donohoe, Martin Roscoe and many others. I have been tremendously lucky to have had the support of Martino Tirimo and Philip Fowke who urged me to pursue this topic and shared anecdotes and material from their personal archives. I am also incredibly lucky that my supervisor at City, University of London, is indeed another illustrious Manchester circle pianist, Ian Pace.

I also need to express my further gratitude for coming completely by coincidence across such people as the famous violinist Rodney Friend, who was John Ogdon's partner while at Manchester and was coached by Gordon Green in person; but also for Izabela Wagner whose work on soloistic training (Producing Excellence) has indirectly but definitely helped shed light into the inner workings of elite music training. I cannot describe my excitement at the prospect of of further conversations in the immediate future!

While this site is about our concerts, there is so much more that we do in our every day lives, which gives us satisfaction and makes us better musicians by informing our practice as musicians: the colleagues we meet, our collaborations with new music creators (for example see Hugh Shrapnel and Ratko Delorko in our concerts and news for 2018), the hours spent by Peter producing arrangements for our students and our duet, and our continued conversations with and about the past and the future of classical music.

But this would be material for another blog entry...