“No matter if you’re an artist, a desk jockey, or anything in between – give yourself permission to include regular (dare I say daily?) reinvigoration in your work ethic. Silence. Slowness. Clarity. The machine doesn’t work so well without them.” Kim Pensinger, from Living and Singing on Interest in the WTO Blog

  “You are an extremely valuable, worthwhile, significant person even though your present circumstances may have you feeling otherwise.” – James Newmann, American mathematician

“One must practice slowly, then more slowly and finally slowly.” – Camille Saint-Saëns Cited in: The Piano Quarterly, 1974, p. 24.

“It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.” —Henri Frederic Amiel.  Swiss philosopher, poet & critic. H. F. Amiel, Amiel’s Journal, trans. H. Ward, London, Macmillan […]

Puccini custom built a villa in the seaside resort of Viareggio. Here, Puccini had a “rain machine that sprinkled water from the trees, beneath which he would stand with an open umbrella, cooling himself from the summer heat. Source: Wilson, Conrad (2008) Giacomo Puccini. London: Phaidon Press, p.205.

“All theory is grey, but the precious tree of life is green.” Maurice Ravel to Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, describing Schoenberg’s intellectualism.  Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, Ravel et nous (Geneva, 1945), p. 104.  Cited in:  Nichols, Roger (1987) Ravel Remembered.  London: Faber & Faber., p. 61.

A German proverb says: Bose Menschen haben keine Lieder (bad men don't sing) . It is not impossible that out of a tremendous movement of amateur community music a peace movement could spread over the world. Could it not be supported by our high dignitaries? Instead of the president of the United States solitarily playing […]

When I was 19 years old I joined Columbia Artists in New York.  It was my first management and a momentous event in my life.  All of a sudden here I was, part of what was perceived to be one of the most prestigious such organizations in the country.  It was a big time and […]

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. – Alexander Graham Bell Orison Swett Marden, (1901) “Bell Telephone Talk”, How They Succeeded. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company, p. 38. Digitally archived at https://archive.org/details/howtheysucceeded00mardrich/mode/2up, accessed 11 September 2021.

There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song – but in this […]