We might all love Paris in the springtime, but it's not the only French city worthy of your affections in April. Down in the sunny south is beautiful Aix-en-Provence, where golden light bathes the streets and squares, which are lined with elegant buildings, shaded by plane trees and freshened by fountains. When I arrive just before Easter, the sun is already deliciously warm, a welcome change from the cooler UK.
The city is only a half-hour drive from Marseilles airport, but as I saunter, happily half-lost, following my nose, around the cobbled streets of the old medieval heart of Aix, it feels like I've stepped into a different world. It's busy with tourists, and the many shops selling fragrant local lavender are doing a roaring trade, but it's easy enough to slip down a side street and find a quiet café for a coffee.
Even just a few days in Aix-en-Provence is a tonic. The sunshine warms body and soul. It's one of the reasons that violinist Renaud Capuçon loves the place, so much so that he co-founded a music festival here.
He's now its artistic director.
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Discovering Donizetti - Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day
Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day. For most people, undertaking a lockdown project meant learning to bake sourdough bread, getting fit with Joe Wicks, or taking up a language. But Professor Roger Parker, the eminent historian of Italian opera and emeritus professor at King's College London, had something far more ambitious in mind. He set about unearthing songs by Gaetano Donizetti - many of which had been lost since the composer's lifetime - and the enterprise turned into a two-year labour of love.
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Västra Karup Sweden
The spirit of soprano Birgit Nilsson is alive and well in the town of her birth, home to a festival dedicated to her memory
Federico Colli
\"At this moment in time we don't need more virtuosi. We need musicians to engage with the philosophy of music
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What happens when classical music-style levels of ambition, invention and sheer length are brought to pop? The answer, as Meurig Bowen explains, is Prog Rock
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Young musicians may be physically fit, but with age come the advantages of wisdom and experience
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