Let me tell you a fairy tale. It’s probably familiar. Once upon a time, there was a talented musician. Their family was almost certainly poor. When they were a small child, their parents noticed with astonishment that they could sing back entire complex melodies before they could even really walk.
If you clicked on this link because you were expecting to find something about music, research, education or all of the above, and are now slightly alarmed by the mention of unicorns, don’t panic. I promise that this is the website of the Katy Hamilton who does those things for a living.
If you were watching this website a fortnight ago, you will have come across a post I wrote called ‘Tale Spin’, and the challenges (so-called) of writing a biography for someone like Brahms who, in comparison with some of his wilder contemporaries, did not really live the kind of life
One of the great buzz phrases of commerce and indeed education, as anyone who has ever worked in either will know, is the need to ‘manage expectations’. Put to particularly brilliant effect in the BBC’s hysterical 2012, the idea of managing expectations can cover everything from carefully choosing publicity shots
Those of you who follow these scribblings with any kind of regularity will know that it’s standard practice for me to post something on a Sunday. And those of you who are good at days of the week and things of that kind will notice that today is not, in
The sun is shining, the blossom is out… and as the Easter holidays pitch into view, I have just finished my script for another ‘Building a Library’ on Radio 3, which I’ll be recording in a couple of weeks. For those who heard my slot last year (or indeed anyone
Dear Santa, It’s been a while – hope the reindeer are holding up after all this year’s adverts suggesting you’re travelling by minicab. I’m sure the folks at FIFA have been bothering you about it, too [ed.: Festive Institute of Flying Animals]. Still, at least the whole NSA scandal seems
On Saturday evening, I had the pleasure of returning to the city where I spent five happy years as a university student – Nottingham – to give a pre-concert talk about Brahms’s First Symphony. As the train rumbled north out of London, I spent a bit of time staring out
This week, it was my birthday. I’m not going to tell you which birthday – but suffice it to say that, if were attempting to follow in the footsteps of a certain bearded composer I much admire, I should have published a Horn Trio and be well into the planning
Well, here we are in the middle of the summer holidays. There’s time off to go walking, visit new places, watch too much telly, drink beer with friends… and start noticing things you don’t tend to pay much attention to the rest of the time. As I sat on a
