Summer is often a quiet time for recording, with musicians occupied at the various festivals. And so it proved - I only had a short couple of days working at the beginning of July near Pisa with the wonderful soprano Eugénie Joneau, tracking a long scene from Verdi's Nabucco. This completed our Verdi - The Father (working title) recording with Plácido Domingo which should be released in early 2027. In August I enjoyed opera and concerts at the Salzburg Festival, before a recording with Duo Praxedis at the end of the August. In September I flew to Shanghai to record Shostakovich's symphonies nos. 1 and 10, continuing our complete cycle there with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra conducted by Long Yu.

I had a slow start to this half year recording-wise. With several large projects which needed editing and correcting I was pleased to have some time. In January we recorded original repertoire for harp and piano with Duo Praxedis in the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle in Hamburg-Harburg. In March I was in Madrid to record a Verdi scene with Plácido Domingo and Sonya Yoncheva, as well as a short overdub with René Barbera. The rest of March my wife and I enjoyed a long holiday in Japan with a wonderful few days on the island of Naoshima. We caught the beginning of the cherry blossom before returning to what would prove to be an extremely hot Spring and Summer. A busy one too - in June I was in Paris with Lang Lang to record Beethoven's sonata op.109, destined to be part of his complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recording. We commenced this cycle shortly afterwards in Leipzig with the Gewandhausorchester conducted by Andris Nelsons. It was a demanding schedule for Lang Lang, with 8 days of recording the first three concertos, a week's pause and then a week for nos.4 and 5 with a concluding concert containing both nos.3 and 5. Concerto No.5 was recorded both digitally and a completely separate recording chain (microphones, pre-amplifiers and tape) for a dedicated analogue stereo recording, to be released on LP.

The last quarter of '25 was a busy one. At the beginning of October I worked with Daniele Pollini in Milan finalizing his recording of Debussy Images, Bartok Studies op.18, Stockhausen Klavierstück XI and a short piece by Evangelisti. An eclectic program which highlights Daniele's mastery of timbre. From Milan I moved to Mexico City for a recording of Strauss' Salome' with a star cast comprising Amber Braid, Nicholas Brownlee, Stefan Vinke and Lindsay Ammann. The Sinfonica Muneria (a crack orchestra who come together for two periods a year, comprising players from Mexico, the USA and Europe) was conducted by the phenomenal conductor Alexander Prior. Our recording location was Churubosco Studios, a large studio lavishly and lovingly re-built movie soundstage by a fanatical classical music lover. All the singers were there all the time and a real team camaraderie made this a most enjoyable 9 days of hard work. Shortly after returning to Europe I proceeded to Shanghai to resume recordings in our complete Shostakovich Symphonies cycle with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Long Yu. During the first week of November we recorded symphonies numbers 8 and 9 including concerts. The rest of the year I was busy doing the first edits of the 'Salome' and finishing recordiongs in Armenia from earlier in the year.

We continued our recording in Yerevan with the cellist Mario Brunello and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergey Smbtyan. The main work was Mieczyslaw Weinberg's cello concerto as well as the 7 Dances by Martin Ulikhanyan. At the end of August I went to Shanghai for the start of a large project, recording all of Shostakovich's symphonies. Long Yu rehearsed the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for over a week before we arrived (we being the balance engineer Rainer Maillard and myself) and we had 5 days of sessions for Symphony No.5 and Symphony No.7 "Leningrad" as well as concerts.

I started the year with a regular client, the harp and piano duo Praxedis. The quality of repertoire which they have found for this combination of instruments - which was very popular in the 19th century - always impresses me.

In February I went to Luxembourg to work with the violinist Natalia van der Mersch and pianist Natalia Kovalzon. We recorded Grieg's violin sonatas at an unusual location - in the middle of a palace belonging to a major bank. Security guards escorted us to and from the hall. Later in the month I was together again with the Armenian Sate Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sergey Smbtyan. The cello concerto Ubi est Abel frater tuus? by Tigran Mansurian was the main work, and the soloist was Mario Brunello.

In April I went to Madrid to record Mahler's Symphony No.6 with the Orquesta Nacional de España under the baton of David Afkham. It was a great pleasure to record this wonderful work again and the Auditorio Nacional is one of my favourite halls. In May we continued and finished the recording with Lang Lang of Piano Book II in Paris. We recorded rather more repertoire than will end up on the double album so that a good balance could be found between classical and modern pieces.

In June I was delighted to record again with Plácido Domingo. We were in Madrid for a week to record some zarzuela arias including some not recorded by him before. Oliver Diaz conducted the orchestra.