“It would be foolhardy to count on the conscience of the world.”
Tonhalle Orchester Zurich at Tonhalle MAAG
It's October 2019 and Beethoven and Schumann are on the program... the good old days This blog post has been sitting and waiting for a while and with…
The End of Venture Fueled "Blitzscaling"?
It goes to show us how quickly things can change. A little less than 2 years ago, Reid Hoffmann published his book 'Blitzscaling'. While his thesis is actually…
Do We Live in a New Gilded Age? - Income Inequality and the Stability of Societies
On rising income inequality, the concentration of wealth at the very top, and what it means for the stability of societies.
Yo-Yo Ma Plays Bach in Montréal
Johann Sebastian Bach is NOT overrated. While it's difficult to pick favourites among the greatest composers of classical music, when pressed, I just love Bach…
The West-Eastern Divan in New York
With the classical music season 2018/2019 in full swing, I already listened to a lot of wonderful concerts in the last couple of weeks and months. As always…
Cities versus Country
Around 700 days since 51.9% of the participating UK electorate voted to leave the EU and around 500 days since Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as 45th…
Leonhard Euler: Mathemtical Genius in the Enlightenment
From the first moment it all sounded very promising. A biography about a mathematical genius in the enlightenment period - thus checking off three of my…
And now for a world government - What has changed since
In December of 2008, the FT's columnist Gideon Rachman wrote a controversial article titled " And now for a world government" . Rachman outlined that, for the…
Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson
Henry Kissinger is one of the architects of our current political order. First sworn in as fifty-sixth secretary of state on September 22, 1973, he received the Nobel Peace Prize that same year, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Medal of Liberty in 1986. This was a world away from Fürth, Germany, where he was born in 1938 as Heinz Alfred Kissinger to an Orthodox Jewish school teacher. With the election of Donal Trump and rising nationalism across the world, we are looking into the next chapter, a new New World Order. As ever, it helps to understand the past to make predictions for the future, which is why I was looking forward to reading Dr. Kissinger's new biography by Niall Ferguson.
Politics, Coffee and Music
Post by Dr. Angelica Kohlmann - While overlooking the wide coffee fields, interrupted only by some palm trees, it became clear that this was a moment I…
Holocaust Remembrance Day
This post came about in the light of Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Trump administration's recent ban on immigration to the US for people of certain…
'Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century' by Gideon Rachman
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…
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3
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.…
Apple Should Popularise End-to-End Email Encryption
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…
Graduation Speech IE Business School - Madrid July 21st, 2016
Watch video Transcript: Buenas tardes estimados estudiantes, en la última clase, después de un año en Madrid y antes de recibir el diploma del Master, me…
Brexit, the Threat to European Peace and a Lack of Human Ambition
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…
César Franck's Sonata in A Major
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…
How to arrive at E=mc2
It only needs four thought experiments to get you from the fact that the speed of light is always constant to the famed formula E=mc2. youtube
Is another financial bubble imminent?
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…
1929 vs. 2008: Thoughts on two history-shaping crisis
In 1930, Senator Carter Glass proposed several versions of a bill which aimed at the separation of investment and commercial banking. It was the beginning of…
Thoughts on Europe and the 'Migrant Crisis'
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…
Teleporting Bach - The Japan Bach Collegium in NYC
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…
Moses Mendelssohn and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing by Vera Forester
Spoiler alert - this book is currently only available in German 1 1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448795026&sr=1-1&keywords=mendelssohn+lessing+freundschaft . This book…
Lincoln Center - Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto
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…
Carlo Strenger: The Fear of Insignificance: Searching for Meaning in the 21st Century
A new species is born: homo globalis - and we are defined by our intimate connection to the global infotainment network, which has turned ranking and rating…
MET Opera: Alban Berg's Lulu
Photograph of the facade of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, New York. Taken on 12 March 2004 by Paul Masck and released with a Creative Commons…
Review: Reinventing Bach by Paul Elie
At this point I should probably disclose that I am a big fan of the baroque composer's music. In fact, that doesn't quite do it justice. To me, Johann…
Review: Moses Montefiore by Abigail Green
This book sw r tw dp 3Yfhwb1YWV1KQ was not a serendipitous purchase. I have always liked biographies for several reasons. Many argue that life still produces…
Remuneration Policies and Incentives in Banking After the Crisis
Leading Up to New Regulation Leading up to the 2008 financial crisis lay a period of unprecedented growth for the industry. This was accompanied by an…
Reinventing Henry Ford - My take on tomorrow.
Foreword Other than the economics courses I took in high school, I didn’t receive any further formal education on the subject. This text is entirely motivated…
Europe's Place in the World
Europe is a pretty small continent - the second smallest to be exact - and home to 11% of the world's population. Most of all, it is also a pretty bloody…