Play it again…

Alan Rusbridger was a very unassuming speaker, he was very softly spoken and extremely modest of all his achievements.  He said that whilst at school he had been good at a few things, however this was enough to take him to Cambridge.   He is most famously known for being Editor of the Guardian newspaper, a post he held for 16 years.

Whilst being an Editor, a very demanding job, with 24 hour news coverage he often worked 16 hours a day and worked everyday. This for Rusbridger was not a challenge enough he wanted to see whether his brain still had the elasticity to play music again.

He was already an amateur pianist however his challenge was to perform in public and play one of the most complex pieces of music for a pianist – Chopin’s Ballade No.1.

How did he do it with the demands of his job and at the time two of the biggest stories for the Guardian (WikiLeaks and the phone hacking scandal).

He set aside 20 minutes each day.

Last week I painted for the first time in years, it was an hour not 20 minutes.  The feeling afterwards of using parts of my brain that have been dominant for so long was brilliant.  The result was the smallest canvas of a tomato – I am looking ahead to a whole wall of tomatos…

Visit the website to read about Alan’s journey:-  http://alanrusbridger.com/playitagain/film

A celebration of the dedicated amateur and the transporting, enriching qualities of playing music, Play It Again is Alan Rusbridger’s account of an extraordinary challenge and an extraordinary year.