At the KKL in Lucerne! Great to see Maestro Valery Gergiev again. Really enjoyed spending time with Alexander and Kir, who came from Moscow to work with me this week on a really exciting new project! Huge thanks to Markus for your great hospitality and welcome to the team!

Last weekend I was in Madrid for a recital where I performed a number of pieces including one of my favourites by Bach, Prelude & Fugue No.2. It was great performing in Madrid again, a really interesting and beautiful city! Vladimir Ovchinikov (winner of Tchaikovsky competition!) also gave a wonderful performance here, so inspiring!

After the concert I had a couple of free days so enjoyed a great time in the city with my brother Josh and my favourite family the Maninis. Thank you for the wonderful hospitality! Looking forward to seeing you again soon!!

Spent the last couple of days in Vienna watching Maestro Teodor Currentzis and his orchestra MusicAeterna, recording Beethoven Symphony number 7 at the Vienna Konzerthaus. My favourite Beethoven symphony! I have learnt so much about the recording process over the last couple of days and I’m really happy to have been invited to watch such brilliant musicians!

MusicAeterna are based in Perm in Russia, created by Maestro Teodor Currentzis who hand-picked the best musicians he could find, mainly from Russia, to create this incredible orchestra.

The engineers recorded on digital as well as analogue, so this is a very exciting project. I am looking forward to its release, I am sure it will be outstanding!

Photographers Alexander von Busch and Kir Simkov just sent me some great photos from a Moscow. These were taken at The Bolshoi Theatre. Huge thanks to Alex and Kir and also to Katerina Novikova for arranging everything.

The renowned Russian artist and actor, Ivan Skladchikov, created a wonderful illustration of me this week. You can see more of his work here. Thank you Ivan!