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.

Cadogan Hall

Finally, some photos from our concert at Cadogan Hall, which raised masses of money for the Lenny Trusler Children's Foundation.

Our Concert, hoping to help some very ill babies

Click here:
Cadogan Hall December 1st video

I don't mean to moan, but.....

As I sit, the victim of another strike, at Paris CDG airport's train station, I am given pause to wonder, out loud and with expletives at certain points, if travelling could be any more of a pain in the proverbials.
I thought I'd ruminate on this until either my train arrives, or due to cold and boredom I strangle myself with the strap on my violin case. Whichever comes first.

The most distressing aspect of travelling is the loss of time. Time you will never get back, time that is spent in a void. You aren't where you were, nor where you will be, so you are, by definition, waiting. Sure you can try to be productive, you can work, read, blog. But these are all things you will do not because you actually want to, but purely because you need to kill time, which is a terrible, terrible concept. Killing time. I don't know what the opposite of killing time is- perhaps giving birth to it?- but that's what we should be doing, rather than hoping it moves even faster so we can be somewhere we want to be.

The next worst thing about the travelling thing is the loss of control. You are driven, flown, pulled around on trains, all at the mercy of other people, and other people's schedules. If one person is late on the plane, we all are. If one group of people strikes, we all lose money and time waiting. And worst of all, I spend an extraordinary amount of time being subjected to horrific music in taxis. Someone told me it is the law in Sweden that taxis must only play 80's soft-rock. I don't believe this to be true, although my experience would certainly suggest it might be.

There are, of course, advantages to spending time in airports and train stations.
I literally can't think of one, so I'll end this here. (To the sounds of Bon Jovi, as it seems French train stations have the same law as Swedish taxis- must be a Euro-zone ruling).

A Strange Bunch

I've just spent the morning recording a lovely version of Carl Davis's music for The French Lieutenant's Woman, with Carl conducting the Philharmonia orchestra. The piece is for string quartet and orchestra, and it got me thinking about musicians.
I got up at 7am today in order to be ready for a 10am start. I had bought Lucozade in order to be fully awake, and I arrived in the dressing room in time to play my scales, before which I made sure my hands were washed and I'd done some jumping up and down exercises to be warm and ready to play.
Then, Lawrence Power, who was playing the viola part, arrived. He got a cup of tea, took his viola out, and pretty much went straight up to the session.
I am jealous, because he sounded fabulous, and he is clearly not a neurotic, so that's kind of annoying on two counts.
Glenn Gould used to have to submerge his hands in hot water before playing, whereas David Oistrakh would play Paganini Caprices before breakfast. Joshua Bell blow-dries his fingers with a hair dryer before going on stage, Martin Roscoe always brushes his teeth.
I guess it's really to be expected, as people are inherently different, but I find it quite fun to watch how musicians all have their own ways of dealing with the generally quite peculiar business of playing an instrument.

Beverley from Wales

Our lovely presenter for tonight's concert. It's amazing what a cranberry juice will do.