I was moderately surprised this morning to read about the trials of my old mate Bill Cooper, trumpet player extraordinaire and key member of England’s Barmy Army, currently stationed in Brisbane for the first Ashes test. Bill was chucked out of the Gabba ground just after lunch on Day 1 having been warned by the […]

I am…

In Copenhagen.
Tired.
Hung over.
Full of cold.
In need of doing some laundry. Have been wandering around the area for half an hour in search of a launderette which I’m sure wasn’t where the hotel receptionist told me it was. Maybe I was just too tired, hung over and full of cold to comprehend.

I’m on tour with […]

Forgive me for I have sinned. It has been THREE MONTHS since my last post!
Many things have happened since then which were certainly blogworthy, but for one reason or another I didn’t get around to writing and the moment passed. The main reason for this is a project I have been working on, more of […]

From the current Private Eye:
The other week (Tessa) Jowell (British Culture Secretary) accompanied Condoleezza Rice (US Secretary of State, and an accomplished pianist) to a concert by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, after which there was a dinner…
..Ms Jowell asked one of the Philharmonic’s principal players: “Are you paid for playing in the orchestra?”

Is this […]

As I start to think about a redesign for this site, the first and most obvious question is: what is it for? I always intended to produce a site advertising my services as a performer, arranger, conductor and teacher, but up to now the only element of jamestopp.com has been this blog, and its purpose […]

Last night I went to my former place of employment to see a stunning performance of Shostakovich 7 by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons. While there I met one of my former colleagues who told me about an amusing incident she had witnessed a few weeks before, when the Vienna Phil were in […]

Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | £33m tax bill could close orchestras

British orchestras face a £33m tax bill that, if collected, could “kill them all off in one fell swoop” according to one orchestra insider. “The problem is so gigantic that literally everyone would go bust,” said another symphony orchestra source.
The liability for the tax […]

I’m currently having fun with WordPress, which is a truly fantastic piece of blogging software. Once I’ve got to grips with the nuts and bolts (and there are many of them) I’ll be relaunching this blog on it, with lots of shiny new things.
I have the TV on in the background, and have just learned […]

I’m working on an arrangement of the Siegfried-Idyll by Richard Wagner, a work I don’t know as well as I probably should, but has me mesmerised, in much the same way as the sort of book you can’t help but read from beginning to end in a day. The introduction has an almost continually unfolding […]

Well, not exactly, but it feels like it compared to the previous few weeks.I’m sitting on my hotel room balcony overlooking the harbour in a lovely little town called (I think) Langeland, in Denmark. I’m here with an ABBA tribute show that I play in from time to time. Tonight we’re playing at a festival […]