Michelle Assay is a pianist and musicologist, Shakespeare scholar, and music critic and broadcaster. She is the principal investigator of the Marie Curie/UKRI Project, 'Women and Western Art Music in Iran' at the University of Toronto and King's College London. Born and raised in Tehran, she holds a PhD from the Sorbonne and University of Sheffield, and is author of award-winning publications on Russian/Soviet music, and Shakespeare and music. She is a regular contributor to Gramophone, International Piano, Bachtrack, and Ludwig van Toronto, and the BBC Radio Three programme, Free Thinking.
Years ago, after a Paris performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth symphony, I heard the composer’s widow, comparing the work to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “Because it’s always…
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