Warmest congratulations to everyone at Spitalfields Music Festival for producing the 50th edition this week. In the past, particularly in the 90s and 00s, I've been intensely involved in the festival in the past as an artistic director and later as a trustee. My first visit to a Spitalfields concert, in its original and immortal venue of Christ Church Spitalfields, was probably forty years ago. Summarising my memories of this long period would be an impossible task. Suffice

There's great excitement that the British Museum have launched their publicity for the visit of the Bayeux Tapestry, which takes place from September until next July. Beautifully rendered images from the tapestry have suddenly appeared in tube stations, and even on huge billboards such as this one, pictured on the Brixton Road. As a BM Friend, I've already this week had the thrill of a 4-hour online wait to book tickets ("There are 16,000 people ahead of you") and, sometime d

On Saturday afternoon (23 May, 4pm) I'll be at The Depot in Lewes, Sussex, to take part in a screening and discussion of Tim Hopkins' film Four Quartets. In his characteristically orginal way, Tim has created a visual counterpoint to a soundtrack composed of four contemporary string quartets (by John Woolrich, myself, Joe Cutler and Helen Grime) played straight through, in their entirety. I'm a big string quartet fan, but in a concert hall, even I would find an unbroken seq