Classical Interviews
Composer and conductor Carl Davis, 1936-2023Friday, 04 August 2023
May 2021 should have seen the appearance on Netflix of a new restoration of Abel Gance’s silent epic Napoleon, lasting nearly seven hours and timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death. The release was delayed, but, in anticipation, theartsdesk spoke to the composer and conductor Carl Davis, who has died aged 86. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Abel SelaocoeFriday, 23 September 2022
South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe is about to begin his third major concert in London in under a year. As the support artist for kora player Ballake Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal at the Roundhouse in January, he received a lengthy ovation for his 30 minute set, having demonstrated an uncanny ability to play the audience as dexterously as he plays his cello. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Horn player Sarah Willis on returning to CubaSaturday, 03 September 2022
Berlin Philharmonic Horn player Sarah Willis’s Mozart y Mambo caused a stir in 2020, its mixture of Mozart and traditional Cuban music making it a bestselling crossover disc. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Klaus MäkeläThursday, 25 March 2021
Let the facts – and the music-making you can see and hear online – speak for themselves first. Read more... |
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... |
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