Tuesday 16 June 2009

I've established myself a practice discipline which seems to be going well, or would be if there were several more hours available in every day. I need to get my harpsichord playing back up to solo recital (and broadcast) standard, and it's only now I've started working hard on it that I've realised that I chose some pretty difficult pieces to play in a couple of weeks' time. That's what comes of picking a programme off the top of my head when away on holiday, without actually looking at the scores. But I also fitted in 10 miles of cycling today in order to have lunch in town with Chrissy Pritchard, who's currently doing this (although we didn't talk about that at all), managed a quick chat with James Gilchrist before his mobile phone reception went, and had a much longer video call with Suzie in Montréal, programme planning for August. She did nearly all of the work, and the best bit was where she sang adlibs over the Kurt Weill tango song playing at this end. There's still something oddly exciting about transatlantic improvisation.

With the help of Spotify I've been filling gaps in my musical education - today's gap to be filled was Brian Eno's Ambient series. I only heard Discreet Music at the time ...