thu 28/03/2024

Classical Interviews

10 Questions for Musician Will Gregory

Thomas H Green

Will Gregory (b.1959) is best known as one half of the alt-pop duo Goldfrapp but has a long career in music that dips into many areas. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he was a working musician who toured with multiple bands, notably, Tears for Fears, as well as playing on sessions for albums by artists ranging from The Cure to Portishead.

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theartsdesk Q&A: concert pianist Lucy Parham

Sebastian Scotney

"The opportunities in standard concert formats are fewer than they were. You have to be versatile and look at different ways to bring this rich canvas of music to your audience," says pianist Lucy Parham.

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theartsdesk Q&A: guitarist Sean Shibe

David Nice

First it was the soft acoustic guitar playing, which on three occasions to three very different audiences won a silence so intense it was almost deafening.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto: 'Ideally I'm recording all the time, 24 hours a day' - interview

joe Muggs

Ryuichi Sakamoto has conquered underground and mainstream with seeming ease over four decades, never dropping off in the quality of his releases.

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Violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing: 'in the moments when magic happens, you think, that's why we do this'

David Nice

In a classical recording industry seemingly obsessed with marketing beautiful young female violinists, but very often presenting them in repertoire to which most of them seem to have little individual to add, how do you make your mark?

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Robin Ticciati on conducting Brahms: 'trying to understand the man through his music'

David Nice

Edinburgh, October 2015. Robin Ticciati is still flying high from a remarkable performance of Brahms's First Symphony, the start of an intended cycle with his Scottish Chamber Orchestra in his seventh season as principal conductor.

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theartsdesk Q&A: Composer, chansonnier and conductor HK Gruber at 75

David Nice

You haven't lived until you've witnessed Viennese maverick H(einz) K(arl) Gruber – 75 today (3 January, publication day) – speech-singing, conducting and kazooing his way through his self-styled "pandemonium" Frankenstein!!.

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Santtu-Matias Rouvali on conducting in Gothenburg - 'they just want to make music. No bullshit'

David Nice

Sweden's ackowledged "National Orchestra", the Gothenburg Symphony, left its Chief Conductor post unfilled for four seasons, but now it's finally certain to have let the right one in.

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Robin Ticciati on conducting Mozart - 'I wanted to create a revolution in the minds of the players'

David Nice

When Glyndebourne's Music Director Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the new production of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito starting tonight, you can be sure that it will sound utterly fresh, startling even.

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Koen Kessels: 'there's a joke in ballet we only have two tempi' - interview

Hanna Weibye

Koen Kessels is on a mission to change the culture around music in ballet. Anyone who has heard the Belgian conduct will know that he is the right person for the job: Kessels makes the classic scores come alive in the pit like nobody else I’ve heard.

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