I'm coming out ... as an autograph whore

For the last ten years or so, I've been collecting autographs of classical musicians I see in concert - not, I should stress, absolutely every one I have seen perform (I'm a bit more selective than that), nor do I get them to sign the programme. For me, it's the autographed CD that does it.

Off the top of my head, I've had CDs signed by Barbara Hendricks, Daniel Barenboim, Joshua Bell (three times thus far), Jean-Yves Thibaudet, the Capuçon brothers, Leif Ove Andsnes, Ian Bostridge, Mark Padmore and Maxim Vengerov. There've been a couple of occasions when I've gone without: it was freezing the night I saw Yuri Bashmet and I didn't want to hang around, the first time I saw Leif Ove Andsnes he was on the phone as he left, and yesterday Magdalena Kožená had an armful of baby. That said, the sight of Simon Rattle following her with a pram made up for it nicely!

Friday was something of a bumper night, going round to the back of the Royal Lyceum Theatre after choir rehearsal in the hope of catching Neal Davies, Lawrence Power and Toby Spence as they left after performing Curlew river. The last of these was of particular importance to me as I'd tried to get him into work to do a signing session which ended up falling through (without going into extraneous detail, it was head office's fault), a great pity as he'd been keen to do it. From my perspective, it was the least I could do to go round and apologise, ensuring also that he didn't leave without signing at least one CD.

It's all good PR ...