Nik Payton

Apologies for my extended absence. I’ve been slightly overwhelmed by a new ‘gig’ and I’m just getting life back in order!
A few months ago I took on the job of Artistic Director for Jazz Festival Brasil, foolishly thinking I’d have lots of fun organising the biggest festival of it’s kind in the country. I’ve since [...]

Are you a musician who is not yet using Twitter? Have you been putting it off because it seems a bit dumb - why would you want to read about, or tell other people about everything that goes on in your life? If you are then read on!

As with a lot of people I was [...]

First of all, let me apologise for the lack of posts and newsletters. After my trip to New York I came down with pneumonia which knocked me out a bit - in fact I’m still getting over it almost 3 months later. Anyway, that’s no excuse. In fact, you might ask, if I wasn’t doing [...]

I’ve lived in Brazil now for 5 years. When I came here I spoke virtually no Portuguese whatsoever. Hello, please and thank you was about it. Obviously to make my self understood I had to learn, very quickly. After a year or so I could hold a conversation quite well and although my vocabulary wasn’t [...]

I’ve had a few emails from musicians who didn’t really know much about the tools and ideas I talked about in my last newsletter. I thought I was well behind in this new movement but it seems there are many musicians, especially in the jazz world, who aren’t sure what is going on. I’m going [...]

I’ve just read an interesting article in the New York Times today on Juan Diego Flórez’ performance at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday. He performed a solo encore after a standing ovation - something not heard there since 1994. In fact, solo encores were common in the 19th century but as the opera grew [...]