On the show, she played her own composition, “Dreams,” which was written in memory of her late husband, Phil, to whom she was married for 63 years. Phil was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015 and passed away six years later. 

The finale of The Piano took place in Gateshead, where Newell performed “Dreams” in front of a live audience of 1,600, with almost 3 million watching at home.  

In October, she performed “Dreams” with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and conductor Mark Wigglesworth as part of Classic FM Live at 25 at the Royal Albert Hall. 

This performance, her Royal Albert Hall debut, can be viewed below!

“I first started sitting on the organ bench with my teacher when I was four years old and I just kept going ever since,” Newell said in an interview. “Piano has been with me all my life. It’s music, isn’t it? It’s music you can make for yourself. It’s opened the door for me for so many things.”

“I went into the RAF because there was a band, and I wanted to do music,” she explained. “I had to do an audition and that opened the door for me to carry on with music. My instrument there was a tenor horn though. I met my husband in the RAF … And sometimes we’d end up on the same engagements. I always used to say that he marched to my tune!”

“Because of arthritis in my hands, I cannot play what I used to — Chopin and Beethoven and Grieg. My husband Phil’s favourite piece of music was the Moonlight Sonata, but I have to adapt it to my hands now and it’s not really satisfactory. When he passed away, I went to the piano, because the piano has always been my best friend. I went to play, just to improvise, on the piano.”

“I was used to playing with a lot of people listening, as an organist, and then as piano accompaniment to different groups of singers,” she said on appearing on The Piano. “So it didn’t hit me until we were taken on to the stage in the auditorium, just with a grand piano sitting there, and I was thinking ‘That’s going to be me on there!’ The hosts were absolutely amazing though and made us all feel at ease. I never thought I’d win. I was so shocked!”

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The winner of the 2024 edition was Anna Im. She is a laureate of several major competitions, including the Michael Hill International Violin Competition 2019, the ArsClassica International Competition 2024, and the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition 2024.

​A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, Im has studied with Shmuel Ashkenasi, Aaron Rosand, and So-Ock Kim.

She has appeared as a soloist with the Stuttgart Philharmoniker, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Baden-Baden Philharmonic, and Salzburger Solisten, and has been invited to festivals such as the Kronberg Academy Festival, Ravinia Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, and Aspen Music Festival, among others.

In 2024, The Violin Channel sat down with Anna Im to discuss how she prepares for a major competition and how it felt to win the Stuttgart competition.

She also discussed the challenge of remaining expressive while meeting the technical demands of the competition environment.

"It's easy to view the rounds as just another part of the competition, but it's crucial to see them as opportunities to express your music and believe in yourself, even under high pressure," she said.

"Doubts are natural; dedicated musicians rarely feel entirely ready. We need to do our best and let go of unnecessary worries. Letting go and not adding extra pressure on yourself is really helpful."

You can hear her performing Ysaÿe's Caprice d’après l’Étude en forme de Valse, Op. 52 No. 6 de Saint-Saëns at the 2024 Stuttgart Competition below.

The post Anna Im Plays Ysaÿe Performing at the 2024 Stuttgart International Violin Competition appeared first on World's Leading Classical Music Platform.

The company aims to offer an alternative to the cheaper bows that are often used in schools. These typically have the hair glued in, meaning the hair cannot be replaced. Students can purchase a more expensive bow, but then the rehairing process must be carried out by a trained luthier.

You can see how the bow works in the video below:

Even if the student is too young or doesn't feel able to carry out this process, it can be done swiftly by their teacher, eliminating the cost and effort of a trip to the luthier.

This system is also more sustainable than using cheap bows that have to be replaced regularly, helping slow the deforestation of Pernambuco and other precious woods.

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The pair discussed Ma's new podcast Our Common Nature, which thinks about nature as a force that is "creative but also utterly destructive" and considers humanity's tendency towards those same qualities.

The project has involved a number of outdoor performances in nature, such as Ma playing a carbon fiber cello on a ship in the ocean.

On a light-hearted note, Ma also starred in a TikTok with actress Amanda Seyfried, lip-syncing a sound from the movie School of Rock.

@colbertlateshow Those that can't do, teach. And those that can't teach, go on The Late Show. #Colbert #AmandaSeyfried #YoYoMa #SchoolOfRock #MeanGirls ♬ original sound - colbertlateshow

You can watch Ma's full interview on the show here.

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Performing Liszt’s Les Préludes for 4 hands, Dutch pianist Martyn van den Hoek, who won the competition’s inaugural first prize in 1986, joins pianist Jean Dubé, who won in 2002.

The video of van den Hoek’s and Dubé’s duo performance was recently released in honor of van den Hoek, who passed away in 2022. The concert filmed in the Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn concert hall can be viewed below. 

The 2026 edition of the Franz Liszt Utrecht recently streamed live here on The Violin Channel. First prize with €25,000 went to Alexander Kashpurin, who was also awarded the €2,000 Audience Award. 

Martyn van den Hoek began his musical studies at the Rotterdam Conservatory before settling in Austria. Among his teachers was Josef Raieff, who was a late student of Alexander Siloti, one of Liszt’s favourite students in Weimar, Germany.

After winning the Liszt Competition Utrecht, van den Hoek continued to give concerts internationally, and from 1986 to 1991, served as a cultural Ambassador for the Port of Rotterdam. From 1998, he also served on the faculty of the Vienna Civic Conservatory. 

Jean Dubé, who won First Prize of the National Conservatory of Paris at the age of 14 under Jacques Rouvier, also studied with Jacqueline Robin, Catherine Collard, Vladimir Krainev, Rudolf Buchbinder, Murray Perahia, and John O'Conor. 

Since his win in Utrecht in 2002, he has recorded 50 CDs, with labels including Syrius, BNL, and Naxos, plus featured in several DVDs of concertos for French television and other international broadcasters. He has also been invited as a jury member for many competitions, including at the Franz Liszt Utrecht 2019.

The post Liszt Competition Utrecht Winners Perform at the 25th Anniversary appeared first on World's Leading Classical Music Platform.

Music listening has previously been shown to lower blood pressure. This study, which was led by Vanessa C. Pope, sought to enhance that understanding by investigating whether individuals with high and normal blood pressure respond to music differently, and whether the loudness or tempo of the music plays a role in these differences.

40 subjects took part, half with high blood pressure and half with normal blood pressure. The participants listened to eight different pieces of Western classical music (with a 5-minute silent period between listenings), which had been adjusted to have different amounts of loudness, as well as faster and slower tempi.

While loudness was found to have a minimal impact on the listener, the effect of the different tempi was significant. The sped-up music was found to decrease blood-pressure variability for both groups — a finding that the researchers described as "unexpected," since it is often assumed that slower music will be more relaxing for the listener.

The researchers noted that the study only examined blood-pressure variability for "acute events" (i.e. short-term listening), and therefore, there is further scope for examining the effects of music on blood-pressure variability in the long term.

However, they speculate that the short-term physiological activation effect of music may help to explain music’s long-term cardiovascular benefits.

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Divi:de bows function like normal carbon bows. However, there is a small silver ring on the stick, and when this is unscrewed, the stick can be divided into two pieces. The frog can then be detached from the lower of the two pieces.

At present, the company offers five different models of violin bows, and cello and double bass bows are available on request.

The Violin Channel is currently giving away a Divi:de bow until Thursday, January 29!

"We felt the need to create the divi:de bow and the divi:de flight case, because we saw a very real problem that almost every traveling string player faces: our bows don’t fit into cabin-size luggage, and airlines are becoming stricter every year," Haffner told The Violin Channel. "As musicians, we are asked to be flexible, innovative, and mobile, yet our most essential tools were still designed for a world that didn’t include modern travel restrictions."

"The divi:de bow was born from the desire to give musicians freedom: freedom from stress at the airport, freedom from damaging or checking valuable bows, and freedom to travel light without compromising sound, balance, or playability," Haffner added. "We wanted to create a bow that respects the traditions of our craft, but embraces the realities of our lives today. So the motivation was simple: to solve a problem I personally experienced hundreds of times, and to offer a reliable, elegant, and beautifully engineered solution for musicians everywhere."

“The divi:de bow combines for me the long-awaited and desired seemingly impossible solution of the ‘too long and too heavy violin case’ problem and a great musical instrument,” said VC Artist Sergey Malov. “The response, playability, and weight distribution are excellent. The look is amazing. A visionary concept and masterful finishing. A must have!”

To find out more, visit Divi:de's website.

 

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Reportedly, nearly 40% of those living in Chocó experience extreme poverty, and only one in three people can read. Women and girls are particularly affected by these conditions: Chocó has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country, and domestic and sexual violence are widespread.

The donations will be used to fund the expansion of the Casa Hogar Niña María boarding school, which teaches disadvantaged girls from rural areas. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian girls are offered scholarships to receive an education, as well as a safe place to live.

At present, the school can only teach and house 15 girls, but with the donations, the capacity will be increased to 48 girls in the future.

"This concert impressively demonstrated what music can achieve: it touches, connects and inspires people to spread hope," said Dr Theodor Rüber, founder and 1st chairman of Casa Hogar Deutschland e.V. "I am extremely grateful that this special concert by the Gürzenich Orchestra with Casa Hogar cultural ambassador Anna Lucia Richter and other fantastic soloists has also resulted in a record amount of donations."

"I would like to thank our audience for attending the concert and making donations, which will enable us to support a special social project," said Stefan Englert, director of the Gürzenich Orchestra. "The Gürzenich Orchestra sees it as its duty to bring music to all people and to move them with sound. Music connects people, regardless of social and personal status, regardless of the culture and place that shapes our lives. We want to reach out to those who are not on the sunny side of life with the power of music and enrich their lives."

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At the center of the project is a concerto composed specially for Newman by Lucas Richman. The work aims to translate the stories of unsheltered individuals into music and reflects on the community’s moral responsibility to those individuals.

Both the concerto and the project can be easily adapted to different locations, allowing Newman to cater to the needs of homeless communities in each city he performs in. Each iteration of the project is conceived like a residency, with several scheduled events culminating in a performance of the concerto.

Most recently, the project has been in Bemidji, Minnesota, where Richman collaborated with the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra to put on performances for local provider organizations. These were held at Community Table, Bemidji High School Auditorium, and the New Day Center.

Alongside the performances, the orchestra also collected winter hats, scarves, and mittens to distribute to those in need in the Bemidji area.

You can learn more about the project by watching the trailer below and by visiting the Paths to Dignity website.

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Held every three years, the competition offers not only a monetary prize but also networking, management, public relations, community engagement, and concert opportunities.

A graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Itzhak Perlman and Sylvia Rosenberg, Huang is the Gold Medalist of the 11th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis — where she was also awarded eight of the eleven special prizes.

In 2017, she was the winner of the New York Concert Artist Worldwide Debut Audition. She was also the First Prize Gold Medalist at the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians, as well as a top prize winner at Singapore International Violin Competition and the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition.

The 2026 edition of the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, held at Lynn University, is being streamed live here on The Violin Channel. The competition takes place from January 4–18, 2026, and the first round will take place at the Amarnick-Goldstein Concert Hall. 

You can hear Huang's finals performance of Mozart and Tchaikovsky below.

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Since winning the competition, Yoon has distinguished herself as a laureate of the Indianapolis, Queen Elisabeth, and Tchaikovsky competitions. She was also the winner of the Moscow International David Oistrakh Violin Competition and the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition, and most recently, she received First Prize at the Tokyo Classic Violin Competition 2024.

She has made solo appearances with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.

Applications are currently open for the 2026 Wieniawski Competition. The 17th edition will take place in Poznań, Poland, from October 8–25, 2026. The jury will be chaired by Bartłomiej Nizioł and comprise 11 members.

First prize will include a cash prize of €60,000, while second prize is worth €30,000 and third prize is worth €15,000. All laureates of the competition will receive €5,000, and the special prizes to be awarded will be announced prior to the opening of the event.

For more details and to apply, click here. The deadline for submitting applications and recordings is 9 January 2026 at 23:59 CET. 

The post Soyoung Yoon's Winning Performance at the 2011 Wieniawski Competition appeared first on World's Leading Classical Music Platform.

In all types of music, both the tempo and volume can change to mark phrases and phrase boundaries, which contribute to, at times, predictable patterns we can hear. 

“Like language, music has patterns and phrases which form expressive structures, and this is often what strikes a chord with listeners,” Professor Chew explained. “This research tells us that more predictable music phrase structures have a bigger impact in regulating the cardiovascular system."  

“This study follows our previous research that showed that respiration and heart rate is also influenced by phase structures,” she continued.  “Stronger synchronization was observed for predictable phrases, which are more regular, of duration similar to slow-paced breathing, and in longer tracks therefore having more phrase instances.”

The 30 tracks used in the research involving 92 participants were all original recordings of legendary performances by master pianists, 

For this study, the researchers measured entrainment — the synchronization of physiological rhythms with external stimuli. In 25 of the 30 tracks played, blood pressure was more synced with loudness than tempo. 

Notably, increased predictability of the music’s phrase structures allowed the listener to anticipate phrase changes, leading to higher blood pressure-music synchronisation, which may strengthen the body's ability to regulate blood pressure.

From the playlist, the recording that had the most predictable phrase structures and the  biggest impact on blood pressure was the English pianist Harold Bauer’s performance of Franz Liszt’s transcription of Schubert’s Serenade. 

This study used classical piano music because it was possible to vary the music and simulate a ‘live’ experience in a research setting, but the researchers argue that the methods and strategies used are transferable to any music with phrase indications. 

As the researchers indicated, music is increasingly being recognised as a potential non-pharmacological intervention to regulate the cardiovascular system. 

“Throughout time and across cultures, humans have moved and grooved to music,” Professor Chew said. “There are likely to be biological and social advantages to being able to coordinate our actions to an external rhythm, such as people on a boat synchronising their rowing.

“To coordinate our actions in this way, we need to be able to anticipate the beginnings and ends of rhythm cycles,” she continued. “It is this anticipation that likely influences our cardiorespiratory cycles. It feels good to synchronise to musical structures — research has found that music uses the same reward system as food, sex and drugs.

“This research raises the intriguing possibility that we could design music therapies to elicit specific biological responses in the future. This could be tailored specifically to individuals, bringing us closer to music as precision medicine. In the longer term, one day we may be able to use music to prevent heart disease or slow, arrest, or reverse its progression.”

The post WELLNESS WEDNESDAY | New Study Reveals Music’s Ability to Regulate Blood Pressure appeared first on World's Leading Classical Music Platform.

Prior to this study, comparable investigations into muscle movement required the use of electrodes on the skin. This technique could only measure gross motor movements with large muscles, and also, the variation in anatomy between individuals made it difficult to draw generalized conclusions from these datasets.

The researchers built a deep-learning framework for the task and trained it on a comprehensive dataset using recordings of professional pianists. The new system will offer a low-cost, non-invasive method for analyzing fine motor control,  which will help to optimize rehabilitation strategies, enhance performance training, and inform future developments in human-machine interaction.

Titled PianoKPM, the dataset captures how professional pianists move, press, and control their hands with precision. It includes 12.6 hours of synchronized data from 20 pianists performing seven distinct musical tasks. Each performance was recorded with multi-view videos at 60 frames per second, 3D hand poses, 1 kHz keystroke data, audio, and 2 kHz EMG signals from six small hand muscles. The dataset contains more than five million pose frames and 28 million EMG samples, creating the first detailed map linking visible motion with internal muscle activity.

"Leveraging this dataset, we propose PianoKPM Net to infer high-frequency EMG from pose data," said Professor Hideki Koike, who led the study.

"Together, the PianoKPM Net and PianoKPM dataset create a foundation for affordable access to internal physiological and muscle activity signals, supporting progress in human augmentation and advanced human–machine interaction."

The post Japanese Study Finds that AI can Track Pianists' Muscle Activity from Video Alone appeared first on World's Leading Classical Music Platform.

At the time of his accident, Raine was using a circular saw when it abruptly kicked back from the wood he was cutting and landed on his right hand, severing his index, middle and ring fingers, and completely severing the little finger.

In the hospital, he underwent more than eight hours of plastic replantation surgery to his fingers, but within days, the blood supply to his little finger began to fail. Subsequently, doctors were forced to amputate it in what was described as a huge psychological blow to Raine, SurreyLive reported. 

Following years of therapy, multiple surgeries, and relearning how to play piano with four fingers on his injured hand, he has now successfully returned to playing, almost two years after the accident.

“As I’d lost my little finger, I had to learn new finger patterns for the pieces I’d chosen, but I never thought I’d be able to play so freely and as well again and certainly not such as ambitious repertoire,” Raine said. “The accident was traumatic at the time, but I feel very lucky since then.

“From my neighbour’s back door being open on the day it happened so I could call for help, doctors saving my index finger when it looked like I might lose that as well, then becoming one of Gaby’s patients just as she’d heard about this amazing technique to help me. My recovery has been better than I could ever have hoped for.”

“Stephen initially had three casts that he wore consecutively for a total of nine to 10 weeks,” said Gaby Willis, an occupational therapist who helped Raine’s recovery. “By September 2023, he had remarkable gains in his index finger and middle finger … [following another surgery in December] with perseverance and regular exercises, he was able to achieve an extraordinary outcome and regained finger flexibility required to play to the high standard he had been used to.

“He had to remap playing technique to omit the little finger and we worked on specific exercises with the remaining fingers, including the little finger stump, to maximise the span and stretch between the fingers and the thumb and ring finger in order to achieve octaves. I personally worked with Stephen in hand therapy for about 15 months. Throughout his whole journey he has always tried to remain positive and has used his experience to help and to motivate others.”

“Recovery showed me that resilience isn’t a grand trait, it’s a daily practice, small victories, small decisions to keep going,” Raine shared. “That consistency, even in imperfect form reminded me that momentum can restart from the smallest place, and that creativity can endure and even flourish through adversity. I’ve learned that setbacks don’t erase your path; they rewrite it. 

“At first my injury felt like a huge loss, but over time, I realised it was an invitation to grow in a direction I wouldn’t have chosen,” he added. “I thought recovery meant getting back to where I was before. But I’ve learned it’s not about going back at all. It’s about how we create something new from what’s left. We don’t choose what breaks us, but we do choose what we create from the pieces.”

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Born in California in 1918, Ricci made his public debut when he was just ten years old, and an appearance at Carnegie Hall soon followed. At fourteen, he undertook an extensive tour of Europe and continued with his solo engagements until the arrival of the Second World War, which saw him enlist in the Air Force.

During the war, Ricci performed a great deal of unaccompanied repertoire, since pianists were not readily available. He explored repertoire by Bach, Wieniawski, Kreisler, Ernst, and Bartók, but above all, the caprices of Paganini, and in 1947, he made the first recording of these pieces in their original versions.

These were part of a collection of more than 500 recordings that Ricci made over the course of his career, which were released on every major label. In his seven decades on the stage, Ricci also performed more than 6,000 live concerts in 65 different countries.

He studied initially with Louis Persinger, and his later teachers included Michel Piastro, Paul Stassevitch, and Georg Kulenkampf.

Alongside his performing career, Ricci was a prolific pedagogue, teaching at Indiana University, the Juilliard School, the University of Michigan, and the Mozarteum Salzburg. His pedagogical book Left Hand Violin Technique is published by G. Schirmer.

You can view the recording, which is of Paganini's 24th Caprice, in full below.

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