Interviews

347 Posts
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Bruno Delepelaire: 12 Questions for 12 Berlin Cellists
In June, the much-beloved 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic toured four cities in China. Their eclectic repertoire attracted a wide following, from classical music enthusiasts to fans of tango and film soundtracks. After hearing James Bond and Jasmine Flower
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Matthew Hunter: Berlin Philharmonic’s Violist for Thirty Years
Matthew Hunter, who majored in philosophy as an undergraduate and did not take up the viola until he was 27, grew up near Boston and learned to speak fluent German. “The viola teacher who had the greatest influence on me
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Kirill Gerstein: When Brahms met Liszt
What was a 20-year-old Brahms like? Why was Liszt fascinated by the hell? Kirill Gerstein’s recitals illuminate the early 1850s, when the two met, and their creations fuelled the debates over absolute versus programmatic music. Being the busiest pianist on
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Sayyod Mirzomurodov and Mariya Akhadjanova
Contemporary Uzbek Music for Clarinet and Piano
Contemporary Uzbek Music for Clarinet and Piano does exactly what it says on the tin: a first-of-its-kind offering that blends traditional Uzbek music with the Western classical style. It was recorded as part of Uzbek-born, US-based clarinettist Sayyod Mirzomurodov’s doctoral
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Augustin Hadelich: Between Baroque and Blues
1200 seats sold out within seconds. That was how the audience responded to Augustin Hadelich’s only solo recital in mainland China this September. Last year, he closed off the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra’s season with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Across concert halls
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Italian pianist Silvia Carlin on Pensées fugitives
Italian pianist Silvia Carlin’s debut solo album, Pensées fugitives, brings together collections of miniatures by Sergei Prokofiev, Clara Schumann, Samuil Maykapar, and Moritz Moszkowski, united by the idea of “fleeting thoughts.” For Carlin, the program is more than a carefully
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Mark Padmore: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
“I am currently reading the Dao De Jing; its ideas about the path (Dao) resonated with the journey in Winterreise.” Mark Padmore thought aloud, while leafing through his worn notebook. The verses of T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and William Blake
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Eric Lu
“I Try to Live in the Moment”
In 2025, the 27-year-old pianist Eric Lu won the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, a contest described by The Washington Post as “the Olympics of classical music.” Lu had first competed in Warsaw in 2015 and returned ten years later
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