Author archive: Nick Breckenfield

 The difficult situation that is affecting our country has led to the inevitable suspension of all activities related to the Sanitansamble youth orchestra, from the Sanità neighbourhood, and from the Piccola Orchestra di Forcella, located in the Forcella neighbourhood of Naples. For the students and teachers, it has been a hard time, being in […]

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And the Music Goes …. Online

The MitMachMusik Project in Berlin, an education initiative to introduce children with a migration background to music instruction and foster integration by including local children in Berlin, navigates the Corona Crisis. “Turn it a little higher… right… not too tight… like this,” says the teacher before singing the pitch A through a video call, hoping […]

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Staying in Tune During Corona

Over the past months since the first BBT Communities grants were announced in June 2019, we have been getting to know the five organisations across Europe. Indeed, our chief executive Susan Rivers was to have been writing a blog about visiting all of them, having been to Berlin to see MitMachMusik with our founder Ilaria […]

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Adapting to Lockdown:
Comfortable Classical online

Bas les masques is a French expression from the 17th century with origins in theatre where a mask was an accessory of deception. The idiomatic English translation is ‘no more pretending’. Well, there’s certainly no more pretending about Covid-19 and the fact that coming out of lockdowns around the world will be slow and gradual. […]

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Musing on Masks

A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO FRANCO BUITONI MARKING 15 YEARS OF BORLETTI-BUITONI TRUST The setting was a rain-swept, autumnal Sunday afternoon in the historic Umbrian hilltop town of Perugia in Italy.  The frequent downpours did not deter the hordes of people crowding into the centre for the annual Euro Chocolate Festival – and nor did it […]

Read more about Concert for Franco & BBT’s 15th Anniversary

The following first appeared in the programme book for BBT Celebrated at London’s Southbank Centre, 17-19 May 2013. In ten years the Borletti-Buitoni Trust has honoured a veritable orchestra of musicians. By my calculation, it could have mounted a tenth birthday performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Robin Ticciati (Fellowship 2005), if the 19 […]

Read more about View from the platform: BBT Celebrated