Classical Interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: horn player Sarah WillisSaturday, 11 July 2020
Horn player Sarah Willis joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001. She juggles her position with spells of teaching, interviewing soloists and conductors for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall and hosting an online series of Horn Hangouts, interviews with musicians streamed live on her website and archived on YouTube. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Olari Elts in TallinnSunday, 22 December 2019
Arriving in Tallinn hotfoot from Paavo Järvi's inaugural concert as chief conductor of Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra, and expecting the limelight to belong to composer Erkki-Sven Tüür on his 60th birthday, I found another Estonian bonus in store. Read more... |
'In every concert, I want to try to tell a story': Conductor Omer Meir Wellber at the BBC PhilharmonicThursday, 12 December 2019
Omer Meir Wellber may be the first chief conductor of a major orchestra to have begun his tenure with a children's concert. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Gianandrea Noseda on conducting Mahler and the Pan-Caucasian Youth OrchestraWednesday, 16 October 2019
There's something about the very opening of a Mahler symphony which gives you an idea of how the rest of the performance will go. In the case of the Second, the inescapable "Resurrection", it's the ferocity behind the upper string tremolo and the wildness of the uprush from cellos and basses. Read more... |
'A laboratory for everything': Jasper Parrott on the future of his classical music agencySaturday, 05 October 2019
Fiftieth anniversary? It seems incredible but also so exhilarating not least because these times we live in now seem to me to be a golden age for music of all kinds and in particular for what we label so inadequately classical music. Read more... |
10 Questions for Cellist Raphael WallfischMonday, 13 May 2019
Cellist Raphael Wallfisch thinks outside of the box. His concert repertoire spans the popular concerto choices – the Elgar, the Dvořák – but he doesn’t stop there, and makes a point of seeking out the lesser-known and the little-heard. Read more... |
10 Questions for Musician Will GregorySaturday, 04 May 2019
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. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: concert pianist Lucy ParhamThursday, 03 January 2019
"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. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: guitarist Sean ShibeTuesday, 02 October 2018
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. Read more... |
Ryuichi Sakamoto: 'Ideally I'm recording all the time, 24 hours a day' - interviewSaturday, 26 May 2018
Ryuichi Sakamoto has conquered underground and mainstream with seeming ease over four decades, never dropping off in the quality of his releases. Read more... |
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