Along Verbier’s main street, between the Arctic Juice Bar, Burton and The North Face, hitched above the télécabine or off the subterranean parking garage of the hotel Montpelier, are a series of almost secret venues into which young people disappear with odd-shaped boxes on their backs. These people are the young musicians of the Verbier Academy, the crème de la crème, and they are gathering for masterclasses, rehearsals and coaching sessions. In a festival committed to their well-being, the classes offered in these spaces are not just in violin and piano but range from Shakespearian acting, sports psychology and tax consultancy, and I have been invited to be the resident mindfulness coach.

I often ask string players if anyone ever mentioned breathing to them in connection with their playing. The answer, usually, is no. In my own life as a cellist I was sometimes encouraged to breathe (catch my breath?) ‘between phrases’, or told not to hold it. Playing the cello was something my fingers did to […]

In my meditation practice recently, I noticed something subtle but revelatory: Even when I believed I was ‘breathing naturally’, I was controlling my breath in the minutest of ways because I was trying to keep it in time. I realized that, once I felt my breath establish a rhythm, rather than letting the breath enter […]

As musicians move out of pandemic-induced hibernation, back into rehearsal and on to the concert platform, there will surely be excitement and joy. An email I received last week from a professional violist, however, made me reflect on what an important transition this is for so many and what else might be lurking in the […]

Reflecting on 40 years of making music – whether in the basement of a Cornish fisherman’s cottage or in prestigious concert halls – it occurs to me that my teachers, my teachers’ teachers, the musicians who have touched me and, in turn, their teachers, all spring from one source: Pablo Casals. My yoga practice also […]

Many people ask me on Breathing Bow retreats if stage presence is something we can practice, if it is possible to find a way to be exactly where we are - in a concert hall with an audience right here and right now, about to share what we love? I believe that the answer is […]