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.

In August I was in Armenia for a recording with the Armenia State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergey Smbatyan. The repertoire was of songs by Artur Grigoryan, an important Armenia composer in the latter half of the 20th century. His songs were deservedly popular, and Martin Ulikhanyan arranged them for large orchestra for the recording.

Returning to Hamburg, more songs, these by Oliver Gruhn. Sebastian Lang-Lessing conducted the Hamburger Symphoniker in three major song cycles, as well as two songs by Richard Strauss completed and orchestrated by Gruhn. Shortly afterwards I went to London to record a varied program including Bernstein's Serenade with Esther Yoo and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Long Yu.

In November we started an important project with Lang Lang in Paris. 'Piano Book II' continues a theme initiated in the first Piano Book album. It is a collection of classical masterpieces, modern favorites and treasured themes from gaming, anime, and film.

An unusual recording this one. At the end of 2023 I had received a mail from Laurie Christman asking if I could imagine making a recording with the London Symphony Orchestra of her compositions. She told me she is a 70 year old nurse in Californian hospice with no formal compositional training, and she had saved up for several years to have her compositions recorded. I was very sceptical, but she had included two demo tracks which impressed me. I agreed and we were fortunate that Robert Ziegler accepted to conduct, having looked at the scores. Unusually, the orchestra applauded after the first run through of the first number and we were all very happy with the results. The album is due to appear in 2025.

Due to the illness of a colleague I was asked at short notice to fly to Yerevan to record Camille Thomas and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sergey Smbtyan. The album consisted of arrangements for solo cello and orchestra of songs by Charles Aznavour to celebrate his 100th anniversary year. The mixture of Camille's sunny temperament and musicality with the enthusiasm of the orchestra was quite intoxicating. It will be a lovely album.

We also recorded the short violin concerto by the Armenia composer Tigran Mansurjan (whom I knew from a previous recording of his works in 2021). The wonderful young violinist Leia Zhou was the soloist. She proved to have formidable stamina, having missed a flight due to a delay, then spending 12 hours at Vienna airport and arriving at 6 in the morning for the midday session.