Alexey Zimakov, winner of the 1991 American Guitar Association Competition in Miami, has suffered the amputation of all fingers on both hands after contracting severe frostbite in his home town, Tomsk, in Siberia.

The amputation took place, we are informed, on January 15. He had been due to give a concert with the Belgorod Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Evgeny Bushkov, on February 2, performing Ponce Concierto del Sur and Paganini Romance and La Campanella. The concert will now go ahead without him, retitled Hommage à Alexey Zimakov.

Of all the misfortunes we suffer, in the course of a musical life, few can be greater than this!