wed 12/02/2025

Classical Interviews

theartsdesk Q&A: Gianandrea Noseda on conducting Mahler and the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra

David Nice

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.

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'A laboratory for everything': Jasper Parrott on the future of his classical music agency

Jasper Parrott

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.

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10 Questions for Cellist Raphael Wallfisch

Gavin Dixon

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.

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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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