Just because musicians spend hours in the practice room, perfecting those difficult technical passages, doesn’t mean that they don’t occasionally like to let their hair down with a little physical activity, be it football, boxing or table tennis.
In honour of the Olympics later this month, here are a selection of famous past and present musicians playing sport…
- Olympic Games music: the key role played by music across Olympic history
- Best Olympic music of all time
Famous musicians playing sport….
Sing as you swing: soprano Lucrezia Bori tees off for a game of golf with Members of the Met Opera in Atlanta, 1922 © Getty Images
Tenor Plácido Domingo shows some silky skills on the football pitch in Budapest, 2008 © ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP via Getty Images
Snow time like the present: composer Richard Strauss feels the need for speed on his toboggan, c.1910 © Roger Viollet via Getty Images
Composer Benjamin Britten smashes another opponent on the tennis court, Aldeburgh, 1949 © Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
- Six of the best… tennis-playing composers
- Game, set and match: 10 fascinating connections between tennis and classical music
Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler elegantly traverses the ski slopes © ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Pianists John Ogdon and Denis Matthews cue up for a game of pool, 1965 © Erich Auerbach/Getty Images
Some deft ping pong action from pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, 1966 © Erich Auerbach/Getty Images
Bass-baritone Paul Robeson, star player of the Rutgers University American Football team, 1916
Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel goes for a drive before the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, 2010 © Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images