By day, Robert Titterton is a lawyer. In his spare time, he goes on stage beside pianist Maria Raspopova—not as a musician but as her page-turner. “    1     not being a trained musician, I’ve learned to read music to assist Maria in her performance.”

Mr Titterton is chairman of the Omega Ensemble but     2     (act) as the group’s official page-turner for the past four years. His job is to sit beside the pianist and turn the pages of the score. In this way, the musicians don’t have to break the flow of sound by doing it     3    . He said he became just as nervous as those playing instruments on stage.

Being a page-turner requires plenty of practice. Some pieces of music     4     go for 40 minutes and require up to 50 pages of turns, including back turns for repeat passages.     5     matters is onstage communication. Each pianist has their own style of “nodding”     6     ( indicate) a page turn that they need to practise with their page-turner.

But like all performances, there are moments     7     things go wrong. “I was turning the page to get ready for the next page, but the draft wind from the turn caused the spare pages to fall off the stand,” Mr Titterton said, “Luckily, I was able to catch them and put them back.”

    8     most page-turners are piano students or up-and-coming concert pianists, Ms Raspopova has once asked her husband to help her out on stage.

“Sometimes my husband is not an attentive page-turner. He’s interested in the music,     9     (feel) every note, but I have to say: ‘Turn, turn!’ ” she laughed. “But Robert is     10     (qualified) page-turner I’ve had in my entire life.”