Movie trailer

Here is a trailer for the French movie I recently played in the soundtrack for. That's me screeching around in the background.
Do not take your grandparents to see this film.....

click here

New Year's Blog

As it is coming to that time of year again, I thought I'd write my very own 'review of the year blog'.
Much has happened for me in 2009. For one, a move to a new country- meant as a brief change of scenery originally but, as the cliche so often goes, when the time came to leave we just didn't want to. We seem quite comfortably installed in Paris now, my taste for nutella and banana crepes not diminishing, and with still a huge appetite for this beautiful city. I'm definitely becoming a little more blaze about the Eurostar than is tasteful- I went to London today just for lunch which was great fun but completely unreasonable.

This year was also notable personally for the relaunch of my record label, with a major worldwide distribution deal and four new albums, one of which was my own first concerto recording. Each of the albums was incredibly well received, thank goodness, and over the coming year we are working on recordings with a whole list of world class artists, from Joan Rodgers to Guy Johnston.

I also started my first teaching post, at the brilliant Malmo academy in Sweden, which has quickly become one of the most important parts of my musical life. The academy is extremely dynamic and forward thinking, and I'm thrilled to be part of it. I have also found a sadistic pleasure in making my students play scales in octaves in front of each other.

Concert highlights have been many but have included some really special ones. Taking part in a wonderful concert at Cadogen Hall, to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK, was one. The evening was promoted by my good friend and partner in Orchid Classics, James Brown, who made the whole thing look easy (which it isn't) and raised £40,000 in one night.
Another was touring Holland with the LSSO, an experience which on the one hand reminded me how glad I am not to be 17 anymore, but on the other made me wish I was. The disco on the last night had to be seen to be believed, and was worth the trip alone. Highlight of that tour- my suitcase getting lost by the airline on the way out, and having 2 hours in which to spend £700 insurance money on 'emergency' clothes, racing round the shops with natural born shopper (and conductor) Peter Ash.

And now I sit with my family, discussing my new year's resolutions, which I never keep any of.

Happy new year to everyone out there.

Recording

Last week I spent a really enjoyable, if totaly exhausting few days recording a new album with two amazing musicians- violist Lawrence Power and pianist Simon Crawford-Philips. The repertoire included Brahms horn trio (with Lawrence on the horn) and Bax trio.
There were times when it seemed we weren't going to make it out alive, as 3 neurotic musicians in a room with microphones can make for a stressful situation, but we were all pretty happy by the end.
Working title for the album is 'Bax Against The Wall' but that might have to change if the grown-ups don't like it.
You can see pictures from the sessions here:
http://www.orchidclassics.blogspot.com/

Last view, I promise

From my room in Kuala Lumpur.
Back in Paris at last, enjoying a few days before heading off again. While I've been away my daughter has learnt German, and forgotten English. She also seems to have learnt the violin which is curious, as when I left she was a pianist.

Malaysia

In Malaysia now, Kuala Lumpur, with an incredible view of the twin towers from my window. It is unbelievably hot and muggy, but raining at the same time. Very strange sensation, walking in the rain but feeling the need to roll up your sleeves as it's too hot.
I have discovered the joys of Skype, which means I can now work on my computer with a live video of my wife cooking in the background. And I don't need to offer to help- surely the perfect situation?

Another view

And this one, just outside the room I was teaching in yesterday. I
taught 10 brilliant youngsters at the Hong Kong Academy, in between
popping out to look at the view.

More like it

I'm rather obsessed with the views from various rooms I get put in, as
you can tell from this blog.
This one was my Hong Kong hotel room.

Hong Kong!

I am looking at Hong Kong from my window, and I've never seen anything like it. I haven't had a chance to go sight-seeing yet as I only arrived 2 days ago and played my concert last night, but I have many plans.....
Last night I ate jellyfish- I have photographic evidence which will come soon.

Welcome to Paris

I'll take two of each.

A room with a view

In case anyone thinks I'm always bragging about my beautiful hotel room views.....this is where I'm staying tonight.

Too young?

If any of the investors that own this violin are worried by the sight
of my 18 month old daughter plucking it, please don't be. She has
great pizzicato control.

(photo: Ian Gillett)


LSSO

Last night was one of the most enjoyable concerts I've played in for a long time, with the LSSO at the Barbican, playing Mendelssohn.
To all the brilliant young people in the LSSO- thank you for having me, and I can't wait to come back for another one.

If you want to read something a little bit crazy, choose one of these:

http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&q=matthew%20trusler

I would like to say, from my point of view, that when I played them I had no idea which of the modern violins were treated with the special fungus and which weren't. My favourite one apparently wasn't I'm afraid.....
And honestly, a Strad is a Strad. At least, that's what I think.

Deauville

This weekend we are having the first holiday we have taken for a ridiculously long time. We have come for 2 days to Deauville for the American Film Festival. There are a million films showing every day, and last night was a special tribute to Harrison Ford who showed up and cried a lot which was brilliant. I was totally and completely star struck just being in the same room.
This is the view from our hotel room- we are in heaven!

We are finally settled into our beautiful new apartment in Paris, and we couldn't be happier. Up on the fifth floor, with no lift, moving in was an amusing experience. 50 boxes, 5 flights of stairs, no help from my wife. Let's just say I don't plan to move out anytime soon.
Only here for a few days now though- we are going to have a 24 hour holiday, in Deauville, where the film festival is taking place, which I can't wait for. Then back to Malmo to make sure my students are practising their scales.....

Summer has finally finished.
So much has happened over the last 2 months I can hardly remember any of it. I wouldn't say I feel rested, but I'm ready to get on with the next season. There are many things I'm looking forward to- for instance moving back to Paris, as we've been homeless and travelling since June. My new album which is about to come out- it's been a long process and I can't wait to see it finished. Teaching in Malmo, Sweden, where I started earlier this week, with my class of fabulous and enthusiastic students. All the new albums coming out on my record label- there will be 4 next month.

I would really like to say a special hello to everyone in the LSSO- a group of amazing young musicians that I went on tour in Holland and Belgium with last month- they, and their chief Peter Ash who is a great, great person, musician and advisor on all things, are an inspiration. I can't wait to see everyone for our reunion at the Barbican on 23rd September.

Some strange guy turned up at my mum's 60th birthday party and started offering my niece cigarettes.
OK, it was me, and they aren't real cigarettes.
The theme was 'what you wanted to be when you grew up' and I wanted to be a policeman. Since it was the early eighties at the time, that would have meant an afro, tash, and frilly shirt.
Maya went as an astronaut. Difficult to say which of us failed more spectacularly to achieve our dreams- I like to think my work incorporates an element of policeman-style danger, whereas Maya's has very little indeed to do with space travel.



Here we are with our one year old daughter, Lily, who went as a fairy, and my sister who apparently wanted to be a tennis player.

See how happy we look...

NEVER WORK WITH YOUR WIFE
One should under normal circumstances never work with one's wife. However, Maya and I have stared logic in the face and played together on many occasions. Actually, it works very well, and we annoy each other suprisingly little when we rehearse.
For this concert in Beaminster last week, we were joined by Maya's sister, Sara, who is a fabulous pianist.

Mine is the one on the right...

THE MESSIAH
This morning was a very unusual morning. I visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and was allowed to spend some time holding the Messiah Stradivari.
For those who don't know, the Messiah is generally accepted to be the most perfectly preserved Strad in existence. It is in absolutely mint condition, due to the fact that it has been owned entirely by collectors since it left the maker's workshop. Made in 1716, it has almost never been played.
The reason for my being allowed anywhere near it is long and I won't bore anyone with it, but I did take a picture of this 'Mona Lisa of Strads' lying next to my own Strad, which was a horrible and unfair thing to do- although to be honest, from a distance, I thought the Messiah looked like a fiddle out of a factory in France, due to the fact it has the appearance of a brand new violin. When you look closer though it has all the beauty, as well as all the quirks, of Stradavari's violins, and the fact it looks so new is a wonder of the world, since it is actually 300 years old.
It was a truly memorable experience, and I am well aware it will likely never be repeated...

2 BEACHES AND A RIVER
This last week has been a long one, but it included 3 brilliant trips.
It started with a weekend in one of my favourite places in France- Deauville. I have been going to Deauville several times a year for a while now and growing increasingly fond of it. Most famous perhaps for the film festival held there, Deauville is a beautiful town on the sea in Northern France. It is also extremely famous for it's horse racing and polo- both of which I have thoroughly enjoyed going to see. The Easter festival is held in a hall which is also used for the auctioning of horses which gives it a rather unique atmosphere. The audiences are wonderful, and the festival in general is one of my very favourites anywhere.
During the concert, we made the unfortunate decision to repeat the final movement of Mendelssohn's Octet for an encore, and we ended up at a pace which we should all have been arrested for. I got confused in the last line and finished 2 notes after everyone else. I have been left severely traumatised by the experience.
After a few days of therapy I was back on my horse and in Brighton to play Tchaikovsky with the London Philharmonic. The orchestra was in amazing shape and played a really superb Sibelius 2nd symphony after the interval.
As I walked along Brighton beach a few hours before the concert I watched the crowds of happy people drinking beer and playing games like volleyball. I felt angry that they were allowed to drink beer in the afternoon when I wasn't. Often, on normal non-concert days, I feel guilty that I am able to sun-bathe if I want, or drink vodka with my breakfast while other people are on the tube to work. I vowed to remember the moment on Brighton beach next time that happens.
From there I went to Dublin, where I watched Anthony Marwood play a fantastic Schumann concerto. He is really a great violinist I think, and I recommend everyone who hasn't to go and hear him.
Perhaps most memorable this week was the fact that my hotel room in Brighton was number 430. In Dublin? 430. What are the chances of that? AND, in Brighton, they told me there were 3 Truslers in the hotel that night..... This must surely have been a lie as I've never met another one. At breakfast I asked the manager to look at the guest list and the best he could do was a Julia Truscott.
Close but no cigar.


On stage with the LPO. I promise I'm there, really...

SPRING!
There are many reasons I like being in Paris. I like that you can walk for just half an hour and already take in 5 of the worlds most beautiful and famous landmarks.
I like that there is a bistro, Chez Janou, literally outside my house, where I am writing this now.
I like that in Paris, even the beggars are stylish. A lady came to me on the street recently to ask for money, wearing the most fabulous sparkly trainers. I suggested she sell them first of all.
I like visiting different worlds, infiltrating other cultures, other industries, anything I know nothing about.
On that note, this morning I went to an early screening of the movie I made a tiny contribution to by playing the violin solos on the soundtrack. At 10am on a beautiful sunny day we sat in a darkened screening room, in the most comfortable seats you never saw in a cinema. The producer, director, composer and several others sat with pens and paper while the film rolled, and everyone made lots of intelligent comments afterwards, except me as I couldn't think of any.
The movie was fantastic I thought- but brutal and violent, so much so that I spent a large proportion of it squeezing the wonderfully cushioned arm rests of my seat.
It was most peculiar, watching these graphic and disturbing scenes through gritted teeth, only to be greeted by the sounds of my violin playing to accompany the misery. It is a nightmare I'm sure I've actually had- witnessing something diabolical whilst my violin provides the soundtrack.
Eerie.

I hope he won't look like this...

MICHAEL JACKSON
I'm not normally a man prone to obsessive behaviour, (honestly) but this morning I got up very early and bought tickets to Michael Jackson. I'm actually slightly embarrassingly excited.

The view from my hotel room in Nyon, near Geneva. That's lake Geneva there. I was slightly worried about sleepwalking out onto my balcony and falling in.

AT THE MOVIES IN SWITZERLAND

Yesterday I got to do something I've wanted to do for literally as long as I can remember- I took part in the recording of the music for a movie. I love the movies, and am usually the last person to leave the cinema as I always insist on sitting through to the end of the credits. I'm fascinated by the process, the sheer number of people involved in the production of a film, and the music is such an integral part of it, so I've always longed to get in on the action.
As with most things that appear to be incredibly exotic and exciting, it was a mixture of great fun and long, long periods of doing nothing at all. We finally started to record our parts at midnight, and went on until 3am when the owner of the studios appeared to be physically assaulting the composer in the sound box, so the decision was taken to stop.
The music for the film, which is starring Gilbert Melki (Largo Winch) and Emanuelle Devos (The Beat That My Heart Skipped), is fabulous- composer Grégoire Hetzel had written some gorgeous solos (some of them horribly difficult) which violist Beatrice Muthelet and myself played, whilst trying not to be distracted by the movie being shown on a screen in front of us. Since the film is about murder, drugs and prostitution I adopted my special 'murder drugs and prostitution' sound. We'll see how effective that was when the film comes out in September.


Beatrice Muthelet playing one of her solos, at about 2am...


Director Frédéric Mermoud trying to put on a brave face at 3am...

MADAME POLIGNIAC

So far Paris is twice as good as we thought it would be. Le Marais makes Hampstead look like a rubbish tip and our local patisserie is so expensive it feels like we've been shopping in Tiffany's every time we pop out for a baguette. Anyway, we are blissfully happy and don't ever want to leave.
Last week I played a concert in the magnificent Salle Poligniac, once the home of Madame Singer-Poligniac, a lady of legendary status in France as patron and supporter of almost every great French composer there ever was. The house holds letters and manuscripts by Ravel, Stravinsky, Cocteau, Poulenc and many, many others. The decor is extraordinary- in the concert hall (which once doubled as Madame's living room) there is an opera house style box built into the wall where the great lady would sit to watch performances by the great and the good of the time. It really is the sort of place which makes you shiver when you look around- which is tricky when you have to play long slow notes.


The box in which Madame Poligniac sat for the concerts held in her home, with her portrait underneath

PARIS!

Bonjour!
I am sitting, unbelievably happily, on the couch in our home for the next half a year, in the beautiful Marais district of Paris.
It is the end of an epic journey, having talked about this for 7 years, but finally we are here.
The plan, in case you wondered, is to learn French, spend as much time with our friends in Paris as we can, and to generally enjoy being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Today, apart from being notable for our relocation, also saw a new US President. This seems slightly less important than the fact that I just ate a whole pack of French brie while Maya unpacked boxes but it is notable nonetheless.
I can't believe he messed up the words during the swearing in. Brilliant. He can make a 20 minute speech without hesitation but got stressed repeating 40 words. I can understand though, I got confused about the words at my wedding.

Go Obama...

RECORDING PHOTOS

2008 was a good year for recording, and there are now two things ready for release in 2009. The first was a children's project, called 'Fairy Tales and Goblins' Dances'. It has on it my wife Maya, (also playing violin) and two of my very favourite pianists in the world, Martin Roscoe and Alex Taylor.
We recorded in Champs Hill, amongst lots of splendid paintings and fattening food...





I think Martin is laughing at my intonation...





And secondly, in June I made my first concerto recording- of Kornglold and Rozsa concertos, both written for or premiered by Heifetz but I'm hoping nobody is going to remember the recording he made of them both...
I recorded them in the amazing Tonhalle in Dusseldorf, with the Dusseldorfer Symphoniker and Yasuo Shinozaki conducting. The sessions were incredibly tiring but great fun- perhaps the hardest part was the walk from the stage to the recording box which included around 9000 stairs I believe, and which nearly saw several members of the team rendered useless due to chest pains. We survived though, and the record comes out in Spring.












I told you the box was high up- this was taken from inside...

ARSENAL 1-0 BOLTON
One of my very favourite places to be is watching the football. As long as it's Arsenal, and as long as they are winning.
Yesterday was the coldest I have ever been, anywhere, in my whole life. (Someone behind me said it was -30 but I think it may not quite have been.)
And it took 84 long, shivering mintues for the goal to come...
I think the cold weather had an adverse effect on the usually good natured, polite and patient crowd. The level of swearing went up several notches where I was sitting- I found myself shouting words I had never previously deemed acceptable for public use.
Brilliant fun.

Hello!

As it's new year, I've resolved to start writing a blog. I can't promise it will be of any more than the lowest level of entertainment value but I'll give it my best shot.
I just came home from Spain, where I spent a week on the beautiful, sunny and absolutely freezing island of Menorca. The fabulous Orquestra de Cambra Illa de Menorca let me loose on them for a Christmas programme, made up of all sorts of things ranging from a Bach concerto to Carmen Fantasy, in front of two of the friendliest audiences I have met in a long while. The first concert was so cold several of us nearly died from frostbite but we pulled through and it ended up being brilliant fun.
Why are the Spanish so friendly? I would be too if I lived somewhere with such nice weather but it's more than that.
I was shown around a wonderful little fishing town by three members of the Felix family, all of whom play in the orchestra. Everything there was tiny- the houses, the steps, the pathways, I was led to believe the people were tiny too but that turned out not to be true.
I miss it already and I can't wait to go back.

Now I'm at home, surrounded by boxes, preparing for our temporary move to Paris.......