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Now the last note has died away

The whirlwind that was Music and Beyond has now finished. My final tally was 24 events, pretty much all of them excellent. Perhaps the only disappointing show was Don Campbell's 'Beyond the Mozart Effect', which whilst having excellent musical performances, was rather more an illustrated history of Mozart than an evening about The Mozart Effect. Top marks to Igudesman and Joo for their hilarious 'A Little Nightmare Music' - I highly recommend their online videos! Of the more traditional style concerts, The Jupiter String Quartet were amazing, as was Stéphane Lemelin, who looked and sounded as if he was having a great time. The Music from Turkey concert with Tahir Aydoğdu on kanun was riveting and highly entertaining, as well as the 'tango' concert from Les Violons du Roy and Tango Boreal. From the closing gala, I also really enjoyed Marc Djokic's performance from Richard Mascall's Labyrinth. Reminded me of Nicolas Bolens' Tempus Fugit.

My last mention goes to Rachel Barton Pine and Menahem Pressler. Pine's Classical Heavy Metal show at the Mayfair Theatre was brilliant. She explained some of the links between classical music (especially violin) and heavy metal with performances of works by AC/DC, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Rush and more. Extremely versatile, Pine's two concerts with Menahem Pressler were also first rate, and I think many concertgoers will remember Pressler's lecture about Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor for a long time to come. 

A few days rest before ChamberFest starts... so far I have plans to see the Cecilia String Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin.

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