Heinrich Schiff’s performance of the Viennese composer Friedrich Cerha’s Concerto with Belohlavek and the BBC Symphony was a highlight of the BBC Proms this Summer. He played the Dvorak Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra and von Dohnanyi in May and concerto appearances in the next few months include the Vienna Symphony (Elgar), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (where he is a regular guest, both as conductor and soloist) and the Berlin Staatskapelle. Schiff’s extraordinary musicianship and the sheer energy and will-power which he communicates to orchestras and audiences are equally in evidence on the podium. Since our last newsletter he has toured Japan with the Vienna Radio Symphony (9 concerts), conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus in a Shostakovich programme and just returned to the Munich Philharmonic – Nielsen’s Symphony No.2 and Schreker’s Kammersinfonie, a work which Schiff has introduced to many orchestras, and which he also takes to his old friends the Northern Sinfonia in October. December sees a return to the Dresden Staatskapelle where he will conduct Nielsen Symphony No 2 and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.