Michael Thallium

When Sebastian Beck was on his way towards Charlesbath with his prince Leopold in order to play along with other musicians, he did not know that, hardly a month later, on his return home at Cothenfort, his wife Barbara would lay dead and buried at age 36. The news hit him suddenly as [...]

I first met Mikhail Pochekin on a cold Sunday morning of snow in Madrid. It was back in February 2018 and I had to cover for the Spanish music magazine Scherzo —actually my first collaboration— Pochekin’s recital accompanied by the great pianist Yury Favorin —his Prokofiev’s interpretations have no equal— at Fundación Juan [...]

Let’s be clear! Cristina Gómez Godoy is not a friend of mine. In fact, we have met and spoken just once after a recital at Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Spain, when she played along with cellist Pablo Ferrández and pianist Juan Floristán (see El mago, el cisne y la encantadora del viento) back in [...]

“Awards are wonderful. One loves to get them, but the most important thing is I hope that my legacy will be to have written music that will mean a great deal to people. And also, since I’ve bee a teacher for so long, I’ve been blessed with the most talented students imaginable. I’ve [...]