Theft and other festive activities

I have been absent from the world of blog for a while. Let's call it a sabbatical, or time off for good behaviour.

I feel it's time now to return, and continue my intense debate, with myself, on all things that don't really matter to anyone.

Preparing for Christmas is the theme of the week, as that has been my focus over the past few days and I like to think I've excelled.

I also had an adventure fairly typical for anyone living in Paris, which involved chasing gypsy children down the streets of the Marais after they stole my phone. Luckily a plain clothes policeman intervened and put a stop to my chase. I say luckily as I'm fairly certain the two 11 year old girls I was chasing would have beaten me senseless had I actually caught up with them. Which I wouldn't have.

Anyway, a happy ending there, although not for the gypsy children as they were arrested and almost certainly guillotined.

But back to the Christmas tree.

Red lights were accidentally purchased due to a lack of understanding between myself and the supermarket personell, so after dark from outside our living room now looks alarmingly like a brothel in Amsterdam's Red Light District.

In an effort to negate this and limit the number of confused late night callers to our door, we have added some flashing white bulbs along our bookshelves, which make me feel slightly dizzy whenever I look directly at them.

We have no music of a Christmassy nature, so we have been listening to Chausson's Poeme, which is about the most depressing piece of music ever written, and this combined with the bordel-like appearance of our apartment has created an unusually festive atmosphere.

Much discussion has been had on the subject of the Christmas lunch, which for the first time is to be held in our own home with only ourselves to blame for the results.

Since we have English, German and Japanese blood, the decision on what to cook has not been an easy one. A dish combining sushi, sauerkraut and turkey seemed such a horrendous thought I would have cancelled Christmas before I agreed to it.

The idea of a goose was floated at some point, but I'm glad I managed to steer around that one, as I'm scared of geese.

We've arrived finally at a set of courses described to my wife by her French teacher, in French, none of which either of us have ever heard of, and allowing for the possibility of a badly translated ingredient to cause any number of distressing outcomes.

I shall update everyone after the event, hopefully.

Happy Christmas, and good luck.

Thomas Carroll gets badly misinterpreted.....

I attempted to use the dictation app on my iphone to transcribe Thomas Carroll's lovely review off Radio 3's CD Review programme.

I held it up to the speaker and it came out with the below paragraph, which is possibly the funniest thing I've ever read in my entire life.

Maybe more relaxed at the swelling of the planet letter straight 5 min… Project with Thomas Carroll's cellos realistically balanced gets there Williams carpet and it contains a cleaning entry to relax and so was the best ever ends their recital browsers F major site begins and in between there is the heartfelt passion and regretted Schubert opportunism after which carol sings moving the audience is beautiful and really enjoyed the piano at the corporate site putting from Orchid classics.

Lost in translation

I'm sitting on my bed looking out at a beautiful view from the window of my hotel room. I'm in Siegen, Germany, where the countryside is spectacular and beautiful in the way German nature always is.

I've been studying French this morning.
Language is a strange thing. A few days ago on a train in Germany, a ticket inspector was staggeringly rude to me because I spoke English to him. I honestly thought he was going to punch me in the face, despite the fact that I was sitting down and it would've meant his leaning over a large suitcase.
To an extent it's fair enough to be angry when someone comes to your country and expects you to speak their language, so I apologise for that. But it would be impossible for me to learn conversational skills in the language of every country I end up in, so in that sense I guess I'm lucky to be English, as my native language is spoken or understood all across the world.
I can see that that must be seriously annoying to those who aren't English though.

But there are different types of travellers. I was in Mexico a few years ago and was constantly impressed by the behaviour of my friend who ate local food from street vendors, (the orchestra had actually advised us not to), insulted local taxi drivers in Spanish when they overcharged us, and seemed to have an intrinsic knowledge of Mexican culture. I've heard he's like that everywhere he goes.
I like to think I have a level of curiosity, I am interested to find out about the places I visit, but I'm also a man of home comforts. I have CNN on the telly. The further I am from home the more I like to drink Starbucks coffee, and read the Guardian on my laptop. There's enough to think about when you're travelling, so those things you know to be a certain way, even if they aren't the best, provide me with great happiness.
Actually, I do speak some German, but I forgot nearly all of it whilst being insulted by the chap selling me my train ticket.
But it has reinvigorated my desire not to be the English guy who only speaks English.
I have a French lesson booked for next week, and I shall in future be ready for anything.

What I could have...

I'm sitting at the edge of the water, admiring other people's boats. I'm thinking I could have a boat. By that I mean I would like to have a boat- obviously it would be terrifically impractical to park, living in paris.

I start to feel increasingly the appeal of living closer to nature. The sound of the water. The birds. It's all so calming.
Alex Taylor, my dear friend who is a wonderful pianist and who runs the orchestra here in Kristiansand, gave up life in London to come here.

Now he works very hard but owns 2 houses and a kajak (Norweigen spelling).

I could do that.

But I can imagine taking it further.

I could find an uninhabited island, 1000 miles from anywhere, and set up a new life there. Away from everything I'm convinced I need.

I would build a wigwam for a house. Or one for me, one for my wife, and a little one for our daughter.
I would cut my own hair, with a sharpened American Express card.

I would harpoon fish with my bow, which my wife would eat raw as she's half Japanese, while I would cook mine thoroughly on a small fire I'd built.
I would use my iPhone exclusively for short games of Angry Birds in between hunting, and once daily access to Norman Lebrecht's blog, just to stay informed on the life I'd left behind.

And my violin? I would play songs around the camp fire, as out of tune as I pleased. They would mostly be requests from my daughter, such as the theme to Peppa Pig and the elephant song from Jungle Book. (I might leave a fish dangling on the end of my bow, just for comedic value, as laughs could be in short supply.)

I would learn patience.

I would learn to be grateful for what we had.

Until then, however, reality calls. I will now go and search for expensively packaged and environmentally horrific hair products, as mine were confiscated by a Frenchman at airport security, and I have a concert to play tonight.

New Festival!

I'm very excited about my new project. The brilliant Malmo Academy, where I teach, has let me out of my padded room and allowed me to programme a new mini-festival, over the last weekend of May. To be held in a lovely hall in Malmo, there will be concerts, masterclasses, lectures and more. Some of my favourite musicians are coming, including Anthony Marwood, Lawrence Power, Martin Roscoe, Guy Johnston, Yuri Zhislin and my old friend and piano brother, Alex Taylor. Alex has long ago moved to Norway to pursue his passion of seal clubbing, and I can't wait to see him.
We will be filming things so everyone can watch on the website too.
I'm not going to lie, there is a casino just by the hotel so it was easy to get these guys along. Especially that Johnston, he's unstoppable at the roulette table.

Mozart and McDonalds

I'm sitting in a taxi driving over the famous bridge that crosses from Malmo, Sweden, to Copenhagen, Denmark. I know this because I get friendly texts from Vodafone every time I cross this bridge, welcoming me to whichever side I'm arriving on and explaining how horrifically expensive it'll be for everyone involved should anyone dare to call me.

I've spent the last two days listening to auditions for the music college in Malmo where I teach, hearing the next wave of students auditioning for places. I think we heard at least 20 Mozart concertos, which is tiring, whatever you say about the man's music.

In my break today I went over to the local McDonalds, and was berated by the man behind the counter for ordering a salad. Apparently they only serve them because they have to, but no sensible McDonalds customer ever actually orders one. I felt embarrassed so I added fries and a milkshake to my salad order, just to save face.

And now back home, where unfortunately I have to practice Mozart as I'm playing it next weekend. I am, however, looking forward to introducing my wife to the winning salad and chips combination.

Kids in Jersey

Just came back from a really enjoyable weekend in Jersey.

Guy Johnston, my cello playing musical father/sister, was an inspiration as always. I love playing with Guy, rehearsing with him, drinking with him, even travelling with him is fun- although that may actually be because we didn't sit together, which always helps.
Watching Guy deal with the moody and incompetent British Airways staff member who tried not to let his cello on board was glorious. He was twice as effective as I ever am, without swearing once.

A lesson.

On Friday I played a concert for 200 children. There were facial expressions I have never seen before in an audience, either at my concerts or anyone else's. They ranged from unbearable boredom through to great excitement, with very little in between.
I love the raw reactions of children. They don't feel the need to make you feel warm and cosy on stage- if you come on and tell them a joke they don't think is funny, they won't laugh. As I did, and they didn't. But I think they enjoyed it overall, and I loved the whole experience.

I will definitely be trying to do that more often.

Run, Forest, Run

So the running's going quite well thanks. I have a Nike+ app on my iphone which allows you to 'challenge your previous run' by trying to run faster or longer. It shouts recorded messages of American men screaming encouragement at you as you reach a certain distance, hopefully ahead of your previous time, so you know you're winning. I say this having never heard such shouting as I seem to be getting slower with every run, so my iphone stays deafeningly silent.

Also the writing in the app is all in French so everything involves a certain amount of guesswork.

Anyway, luckily I travel quite a bit so I always have a reason to get out of the groove with exercising. This weekend it's back to London for a bunch of meetings and some rehearsing.
Some of the meetings are for our new venture- in November we launched a new foundation, to go alongside the record label, which will hope to provide grants for certain brilliant young musicians to make and promote recordings. It has a group of incredible trustees so I have high hopes for it.

You can check it out here: www.orchidtrust.com

I am now being regularly 'chased' by my own manager to see if I've been running enough. This blog is nothing but trouble.

New Year!

Another new year arrives, and with it a collection of new resolutions which will be embarrassingly failed over the next 12 months.
For the record, I plan to be a multi-lingual, piano playing super-dad by the end of this year. And a stone lighter too.

Still, I can't wait to get 2011 started. Sitting in the snowy hills of Germany as I am now (slightly hurting from an earlier sledging accident) it feels appropriate that the first release on our record label this year will be called 'Winter Sketches'- an album of Russian miniatures from the incredible accordionist Bjarke Mogensen. You have to hear it, it really is amazing. In fact you can have some of it for free, if you click here.

My next big project is preparing for the release of our children's album, to raise money for the Lenny Trusler Children's Foundation. It's been a long time in the making, but is finally planned for release in spring. Recording Clive Owen reading The Jabberwocky was one of the highlights of last year for me. If anyone is cooler than Clive Owen, I don't want to meet him. I don't think I could cope with such an experience.

Speaking of highlights, I'm filled with amazing memories of our concert at Cadogan Hall, which raised a fortune for the foundation. That whole experience made me very aware of how generous people can be. It completely restored my faith in humanity, and left me with a staggeringly long list of people I now owe favours to, which was the only downside.

One at a time please.

Happy new year.