Terracotta Warriors Group, Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California This is a book I’ve been quite excited to read. I follow Gideon Rachman’s columns in the Financial Times and posts on Twitter regularly as he is one of the eminent foreign policy journalists today. Of course, he is also a Western journalist so even though he has travelled through most parts of the world and lived … Read More →
It took me much too long to write this post, but as they say ‘better late then never’. On December 10th, I was – like almost every week – at Lincoln Center. Beethoven’s 3rd piano concert, which is among my favourite 25 or so pieces in classical music, was to be played by Kun-Woo Paik in the … Read More →
When it comes to technology, I can get pretty geeky. Sometimes, I encounter issues or bugs in software that drive me mad but after going through the roof about them for a sufficiently long time, I am eventually sane enough to realise that this probably just affects me and one other person in New Zealand and … Read More →
Outside the European Parliament. Here, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union on October 12, 2012, an institution currently wracked by crisis but credited with bringing more than a half century of peace to a continent ripped apart by World War II. (AFP PHOTO / FREDERICK FLORIN) Brexit – It seems like no-one expected this to happen despite the various pre-referendum polls that put the odds of a Leave win at about 50%. The financial markets priced Brexit in with about a 10% probability. Then, just before the ballots started to be counted, the pound went up against the dollar, David Cameron … Read More →
Joshua Bell with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, at David Geffen Hall. Credit: Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Every now and then there are those memorable moments. In late March, I was invited to a such a very special musical evening in New York. The day after the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major (Op.35) at David Geffen Hall, there was a small cocktail reception at the … Read More →
Extremely low interest rates and record high stock markets (now returning after a sharp correction in the second half of 2015 and at the beginning of this year) are bringing back a cyclically returning question: Is another financial bubble imminent? The simple answer is, of course, that we have no idea. There are so many … Read More →
The abandoned Jewish cemetery of Diespeck, Germany. Born in 1990, I grew up in a world that was growing ever-closer with unprecedented speed. Every day as a teen when I opened the newspaper I would sure enough find yet another step towards a unifying world. International trade was mostly flourishing, visa-free travel was introduced across more and more countries and the EU … Read More →
The Bach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki. Photo credit: http://www.creatio300.com. Originally, I had planned on publishing this post right after the actual concert on November 7th at Zankel Hall (part of Carnegie Hall, NYC). As it often happens I had to shelve it until now – when I am finally stuck on a plane for 12 hours and due to the simply unfathomable fact that … Read More →
Lessing and Lavater as guests in the home of Moses Mendelssohn. Painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim 1856 Spoiler alert – this book is currently only available in German. This book on the not-so-well-known story of a great friendship that developed between Moses Mendelssohn and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, two giants of the Enlightenment period, had a great impact on me. Beyond their fascinating correspondences and meetings, their very connection and lives themselves symbolise … Read More →
David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center Having just returned home from David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, I had to take a few moments to relax. One doesn’t simply come home after a Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto and goes about daily business. Tonight’s program started off with The Isle of the Dead, which Rachmaninoff wrote with inspiration from the work of a … Read More →
