“I just got back from yet another visit to the Verdi Festival in Parma. I highly recommend it if you love Italy, its culture, its food and wine and its greatest composer. The foundation of my love of music was laid at Stowe, where I learnt the cello (not very well), played in the orchestra and studied harmony. At Keele University I studied string quartet, playing with the then newly found Lindsay String Quartet (which went on to become the finest in the country). This piece of luck more than compensated for failing to get into Cambridge (as a result of oversleeping and missing the German dictation when I went to Pembroke College for the entrance exam).”
