Finally the year winds down, and I can find a bit of peace. Wouldn't it be nice if Christmas came more than once a year and people could stop more often to reflect and think? Christmas for me will be quiet: I will just celebrate in London with one friend before moving on to Umbria where I can find an even greater environment for concentration. During the past ten days I have hardly been able to touch the piano--first of all celebrating with my many dear friends in my home in Ottawa, attending to business matters there, having a photo session a few hours after walking off the plane in London for my new Well-Tempered Clavier recording that now will be available next March, and tidying up my London flat which is an endless job. My January concerts contain a huge amount of repertoire, so as soon as Christmas is over I will be busy practising again. But at least I don't have to travel for eleven days. Good heavens, that's not much!

As always at this time of year, I would like to thank all of you who not only come to my concerts and read my website (some 40,000 hits a month now!), but those of you who take the time to write me a message. I can't always respond, but I try to, and it is lovely to have the feedback from so many people around the world. Music is the best means of communication there is and I still have so much that I want to do. My Bach World Tour has been a unique event in my life and one which will be hard to match again, but there is still so much for me to learn and perform, and so many wonderful musicians to work with, that the possibilities are endless. One of my jobs during the holidays is to decide on recital programmes for the 2009-2010 season (which my various agents have been pestering me for already for months). This takes time and reflection, and is extremely hard to do when travelling around incessantly. I hope to come up with some good ideas!

On the Gallery page of this website/Bach World Tour page, you can now find almost 150 photos of my world tour which you might like to have a look at in a spare moment.

http://www.angelahewitt.com/gallery.php?gallery_id=7

The Christmas tree in the photo is the one in the foyer of the Berlin Philharmonic's Kammermusiksaal where I played earlier this month. May all of you have a happy holiday season, and I look forward to seeing many of you again in 2009!

Even though my Bach World Tour has now come to an end, the souvenirs that were produced in conjunction with the tour are still “relevant”! So please visit us at www.bachworldtour.com (click on link above) and browse the online shop where you will find an End of Tour sale with 20-40% reductions on t-shirts, posters, the Souvenir Programme (which is really a retrospect of my career so far), and also my Hyperion DVD, “Bach Performance on the Piano”. Order soon if you want anything for Christmas presents! Any DVDs and/or Souvenir Programmes ordered before December 21st can be personally autographed for you if requested.

My final concerts of 2008 took place in New York and Washington DC, and were in the company of cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott. We returned to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (where we first performed together in 2006) to give the all-Bach programme that had been part of my Bach World Tour. As Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center (the usual venue for these concerts) is still closed for renovations, the concert took place in the Society for Ethical Culture on Central Park West--a venue very similar to many a United Church in Canada with the audience in a half circle around the stage. I very much enjoyed performing there, and the Fazioli sounded lovely in such good acoustics. The masterclass I gave the previous day was, I felt, one of the best in a while given the very high quality of students (mostly from the Juilliard School), and we had standing-room only for the occasion. Harman Hall in Washingon was also very full for the concert (Bach and Beethoven), and it was a pleasure to go from the crazy noise of downtown New York to the relative peace of Washington. Many people who had attended my Trasimeno Music Festival in previous summers attended these concerts, and it was a pleasure to see them again. They become like one big family! The tickets are already selling well for next year's festival, so if you're thinking of coming and want the best seats, book soon!

Last night at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga (Greater Toronto area), I gave a special by-invitation-only concert for the 20th anniversary of Merriam Music. Alan Merriam (pictured with me in the photo) is the new dealer for Fazioli Pianos in Ontario, and I happily performed for him and his guests to celebrate the occasion. Earlier in the day, I visited their music school where 3300 children study an instrument. For many of them who attended the concert, it was a new experience to hear and see a concert pianist at work! It was a long day that started at 7:30 a.m. for me in Ottawa, and ended a 1 a.m. in Guelph (an hour from Toronto) where I came to stay the night with a friend. I must have been very tired, because in the middle of the night, part of the ceiling fell down in the living room next to the bedroom where I was sleeping (a pipe burst in the apartment upstairs), and my poor friend almost got hit sleeping on her sofa. She called the superintendent who switched off the water upstairs and came with the vacuum cleaner to clean up the mess, but I never woke up (thanks to a new pair of earplugs!). Or at least I heard something but thought it was an early-morning garbage truck doing the rounds. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning and heard what had gone on during the night only a few feet from me. I guess I needed my sleep.

Last night I played for the first time in the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonic (see photo) in a concert promoted by Konzertdirektion Hans Adler (who this year celebrate 90 years in the business). As with the Lucerne recital last month, it turned out to be a truly memorable evening, and one of the most important of my career so far. The audience, which surrounds you on all sides in that hall, was already warmly appreciative after the opening English Suite of Bach, and by the end of the concert they were on their feet. I was very moved to have such a reception in one of the most important musical capitals of the world. Thank you, Berlin! I hope to return soon. The concert in Dresden, under the auspices of the Moritzburg Festival, was also a lovely occasion, although quite "homey" in a way. A sold-out audience packed a beautiful room in the Schloss Albrechtsberg where I sat and played my big programme on a smallish Yamaha grand. But I grew up playing such pianos (I still own 2 Yamahas along with my 2 Faziolis), so I felt quite at home myself and enjoyed the concert very much. Both concerts were attended by staff of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin (including the Ambassador himself in Berlin), and it is always nice to have their support.

A week-long tour of Germany began last night in the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf. It was my second concert there (the last one was six years ago), but the first since the restoration that has greatly improved the acoustics and the overall look of the hall. Shaped like a planetarium, if the pianist wants to look up towards the heavens to find inspiration it’s not difficult, because the walls in the cone above are lighted dark blue with stars shining in them during the performance! A warmly appreciative audience took in my programme which was the same as in Lucerne last week. The photo shows me with René Heinersdorff, the impresario whose family have promoted all the great artists in Dusseldorf for generations—and not only classical, but also Duke Ellington, Yves Montand, and Marcel Marceau. So I was in prestigious company! This evening I arrived in Dresden where I am for the first time in my life. It looks absolutely amazing. I practised for a few hours in a rehearsal room at the Semper Oper, and then went inside the Frauenkirche which was destroyed during the war, but completely rebuilt and re-opened a few years ago. It was breathtaking! There is a concert tomorrow night with the Dresden Staatskapelle under Eschenbach, so all the seats for the orchestra were set up in the church, but unfortunately I will be busy giving my own performance in a castle outside of town.

The booking for next year’s Trasimeno Music Festival has now opened! At the moment, we are selling tour packages and subscriptions to Friends of the festival (those who make donations to have priority booking). If you haven’t already done so, please visit our festival website where you will find all the details of programming and booking. And of course all donations are welcome at any time. Without them, the festival would not be possible. Thank you to all those who have already become Friends.

http://www.trasimenomusicfestival.com

Tonight was a very special night. Another city, another country—and yes, another programme. This time the venue was one of the most spectacular concert halls in the world, both visually and acoustically: the KKL in Lucerne. As part of the Lucerne Festival's piano week, I gave a programme of Bach, Beethoven, Fauré, and Ravel in front of a capacity audience. It is not so often that I am called back to the stage so many times (in fact I never play another encore after Ravel’s beautiful Pavane, but tonight, as they were so insistent, I gave them the C major Prelude from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier as an adieu). I was very moved by their appreciation. After trying the resident house pianos, I decided to use a new Fazioli from the Jecklin piano house in Zurich which had such shimmering colours, especially in the most delicate passages. Many pianos are louder, but few are so refined. I also felt a million dollars in my Roberto Cavalli evening gown (it cost me just about that as well!) which I was wearing for the first time. After signing autographs for quite a while afterwards, I went to the reception given by the sponsors, the investment bank Julius Bär, but the food was only sweets, and I don’t eat sugar, so I hoped to get something back at my hotel. However, their kitchen closed before 11 p.m., so I was out of luck. I have almost finished my package of rice cakes—not very glamorous, but it’s all I have.

I had another near-disaster while travelling this week. Twelve hours after leaving the hotel in Reggio Emilia, I got word from my agent in Milan that the hotel there had neglected to hand me back my passport. I couldn’t believe it! I was already in the north of Italy with friends. So don’t tell anyone, but I got into Switzerland by car without a passport (they didn’t stop us at the border). Fortunately it turned up here by courier today, so I can fly home to London tomorrow, and stay put for almost six days.

Another day, another programme: this time a solo Beethoven recital with four Sonatas (Op. 10/2 which I hadn’t played in maybe 10 years, even though I learned it when I was 12 years old; Op. 10/3; the “Moonlight” and the “Appassionata”). A big programme, which took all my energy and concentration. The venue was the beautiful Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where I played some 5 years ago (the Fazioli was brought from PianoetForte in Perugia). It was full to the rafters (almost 1000 people), and there were many young people in the line-up for autographs afterwards. Yesterday, along with Italian journalist Oreste Bossini, I gave an hour-long presentation on Beethoven for school children which they listened to very attentively. That’s the happy part of the story. That’s the part the public sees. Now for the rest: yesterday I travelled here from my house in Umbria, taking 3 different trains, and carrying two suitcases, one weighing at least 25 kilos, and another probably something like 12. Train stations in Italy are notorious for not having any sort of elevators, but rather those awful staircases that are just unmanageable with luggage. But people kindly helped. When I changed in Bologna, one man offered to help me rather too readily I thought, but I was grateful. There were huge crowds on the station platform. I stationed myself purposely in the middle of a throng of people getting on so that somebody would have to help me, otherwise I would hold them up too much trying to do it myself! I threw myself down in the first seat, slightly exhausted. I took my purse to pull out my water bottle, and immediately realized that it was open and that my wallet had been stolen. It was gone. Cash, credit cards, social insurance cards, airline cards, all gone. I was distraught, to say the least. A kind old man next to me sensed my helplessness, and gave me 20 euros out of his own pocket. I immediately got off the train just as it was about to leave in order to go to the police (you have to make “la denuncia” right away). So it was down and up the stairs again, with no help this time (I think the man helping me must have had an accomplice). I found their office on the platform and went in to make the report. And also to start blocking all my credit cards from all over the world. This took quite a while, and I had the student’s concert at 6 p.m., so finally I leapt on another train (they had already closed the doors, but re-opened them for me), and 45 minutes later found myself in Reggio Emilia (and at least was able to take a cab with the money the man had given me). I suppose I am lucky that that is the first time in my life it has happened to me, but still, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I had exactly 20 minutes in the hotel to change and pull myself together.

And then tonight after the concert, and having given so much of myself, I was left totally alone. Nobody even to accompany me back to my hotel. So I became a diva for 10 seconds and asked the concierge of the theatre to find somebody to walk me back (dragging one of those roller bags along cobblestone streets is no fun, and ruins the suitcase). So they found a guy who was a stagehand or something to carry my case back and to accompany me along the deserted streets. I will have to rummage in my suitcases and find something to eat—the sardines I ate beforehand (there is no food in the hotel on Sunday!), but perhaps there’s some oatmeal and soya milk.

But hey: I’ve made it! Many people have written to tell me that on Friday I was in the New York Times crossword puzzle!! 44 Down: the clue was: “pianist Hewitt who recorded the complete keyboard works of Bach” (the answer of course being Angela!). So what more can I ask for?

It was lovely to spend 36 hours in yet another place with a warm climate in November--Palermo, Sicily. I had been once before about five years ago when I gave a solo recital with a terrible fever. The day I had set aside to see something of the city was spent in bed. This time I unfortunately didn't see much more of it, except for the huge Teatro Politeama (photo) where Daniel Mueller-Schott and I performed last night to more than 1100 people. Getting there was another story. We both unfortunately had to go through Rome on the day of an Alitalia strike when the whole airport was in chaos. Finally a flight to Palermo took off, but we arrived 6 hours late, and didn't get to the hotel untl 1 a.m. They also lost Daniel's suitcase (which fortunately turned up an hour before the concert). But all of that was so exhausting. Palermo is another city where the driving has to be experienced to be believed. I'm glad I didn't rent a car there!

Upon my return from Shanghai to London, I spent two exhausting days unpacking three suitcases, attending to business that had piled up in my month away, doing laundry, running errands in town, going to the osteopath, re-packing the next suitcase for an absence of another three weeks, and I also found time to attend the second performance of Michael Berkeley’s new opera “For You” at the Royal Opera House (the libretto was written by Ian McEwan). The drama in that certainly kept me awake in my jet-lagged state! I never got to the piano at all during those days. Then it was off before dawn to Gatwick airport to fly to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands (off the coast of Africa). I played there in solo recital 5 or 6 years ago, so it was lovely to go back and see friends I had made then. They have renovated their theatre and it’s wonderful. This time I was playing in duo with the cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott. Our Hyperion CD of the first three Beethoven Sonatas (cover in photo) is now available. These concerts gave us the opportunity to play the last two sonatas for the first time together, as well as two of the sets of variations which we will be recording next March. All of that was new for me, and I had to learn it extremely quickly, but I made it! The audiences in Las Palmas and Lisbon (at the Gulbenkian) were very large. Last night in Jerez, in the south of Spain, it was smaller. Indeed, the organizers of the concert never even turned up or showed their faces at all. According to Daniel’s Spanish agent, that happens regularly in that part of Spain, and even often in Madrid. There was no CD signing either, and I always feel a bit sad when there is no connection with the public in any way. In any case, the people there seemed to enjoy it. Jerez looked like a pretty place from what I saw, walking around in the dark looking for a restaurant. The streets are lined with orange trees. I didn’t have any sherry, but that’s where it comes from!

Today I did something I had never done before in my life. I rented a car at Rome airport and drove myself up to Lake Trasimeno, a drive of two and a half hours on crowded motorways, especially coming out of Rome. Everybody on the roads seems to be training for Formula One, and I think it’s worse on a Friday afternoon. But I made it, and am feeling very “grown up” (I only learned to drive in my 40s). If only I had more time here. Already in 48 hours I will be packing a suitcase again. There is so much to do (the programme for the next Trasimeno Music Festival will be announced shortly), and so much practising to do for upcoming concerts. It’s an impossible schedule. Somehow I have to make more space in my life. Or else I have to somehow accept to play less repertoire. Now I have two huge solo programmes to prepare, almost entirely different, and only days to do so. Lucerne will have to settle for the Fauré which I played recently at Wigmore Hall rather than the scheduled Couperin Suite which I simply don’t have time now to re-learn. It’s a constant battle to keep on top of it all. I don’t think most people have a clue about that. And of course for pianists we are expected to do it all from memory, and that doesn’t happen by itself. I must get to work right away! No time to sit by the fireplace.