The Importance of Being a ‘Well-Balanced, Healthy Individual’
Kian Soltani © kiansoltani.com
Whether it’s Dvořák’s Cello Concerto or Pirates of the Caribbean, cellist Kian Soltani’s curiosity and commitment to music of all styles has captivated audiences around the world with playing described as ‘sheer perfection’ (Gramophone).
Kian’s rise to fame began with a win at the 2013 International Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki, leading to international recognition and, eventually, an exclusive signing with Deutsche Grammophon in 2017. His 2021 solo album Cello Unlimited is a one-man tour de force of multi-tracked cello arrangements, all arranged and performed by Kian himself, an expression of his love for the power of film music. His next album, featuring Schumann’s Cello Concerto alongside Camerata Salzburg, is out later this month.
Growing up in Bregenz, Austria, to a family of Persian musicians, nowadays Kian splits his time between Zurich and Vienna, following an appointment in 2023 as Professor of Cello at the latter’s University of Music and Performing Arts.
I talked to Kian during his summer break at his home in Zurich, catching up on some rest at the end of a busy season of concerts across Europe and the US. I asked him about the recent season, his upcoming release, the influence of jazz on his playing, and the simple importance of being nice.
Kian Soltani – “Up is Down” from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’
You started the cello aged four. How did you find your way to music?
Both of my parents and my aunts and uncles are all musicians, so I was in a really musical environment from the very beginning. Since I was born, music has been around me every day, so it was just like another language.
It was only later that I realised that not everyone had that in their everyday life. As a child it seemed very normal, like a natural step in my development: you’re old enough to walk, you’re old enough to talk, you’re old enough to finally play an instrument.
So, there was plenty of encouragement when you started playing?
Most importantly, I had a lot of encouragement, support, and guidance. My family really knew what the steps were, who the good teachers were, and all that kind of stuff. My parents were both teachers themselves, and so that really helped guide me.
Did they ever teach you themselves?
They didn’t teach me because they didn’t play the instrument I played, but they would try to help me with my practice, to guide my practice. They still knew what it meant to practice, even though they didn’t know how to play my instrument. These kinds of things translate into every instrument.
Why the cello?
My cousin is also a cellist. He’s three years older than me and was kind of my role model while I was growing up. He had already been playing the cello for a while, and we grew up together. We hung out a lot, and I was always impressed by his playing. It made me want to do that as well. I think it inspired me somehow.
Who inspires you today?
Certainly, I’m still in very good contact with my cousin, and we speak about cello stuff a lot, a lot of nerdy talk! Other than that, these days, I’m mostly looking slightly outside the cello world.
If I had to narrow down cellists, then I guess there are three cellists that inspire me the most: one of them being Steven Isserlis, one of them being Yo-Yo Ma, of course, and then there’s Giovanni Sollima, an Italian cellist who’s also a composer.
Other than that, I’m mostly inspired by jazz these days and jazz musicians.
Obviously there’s Jacob Collier, everybody knows him. I find him quite incredible, but there are plenty of other people. There’s Cory Henry who I find amazing, and Brad Mehldau, and also the standard jazz players, people like Keith Jarrett and Thelonious Monk.
Kian Soltani & Aaron Pilsan – Schubert: Du Bist die Ruh, D. 776 (Transc. for Cello & Piano)
What is it about jazz that attracts you?
I think it’s the creativity of it. Of course, there’s creativity in classical music, but not to the degree of jazz. Also, a lot of modern jazz these days has electronic music embedded into it – it’s no longer only acoustic.
It’s become a kind of mix, and I like that very much. I like the use of electronics and even some groovy funky elements, which I still count as jazz. I’m an amateur jazz pianist myself – very amateur! – and also an amateur electronic music producer. I do these things in my free time at a very, very low level. Even just to deal with them as a hobby is fun enough.
There’s certainly lots of creativity in your 2021 album Cello Unlimited. What was the process behind that project?
The idea was already born during my studies ten years ago. I would sit in my practice room sometimes and layer my playing on top of itself using only my iPhone and the GarageBand app.
It all came out of a love for film music. I would watch a movie, and I would be so inspired by the music that I would go straight to the cello and play the melodies [but] feel slightly unsatisfied because there was so much missing.
I thought, ‘This is the melody, sure, but I wish I could play the other stuff at the same time’. You can only play two or maximum three [lines at the same time] if you’re trying to be super virtuosic, but I wondered how it would sound if I played everything.
I just tried putting down the bass line, then adding the second line, the third… it just came out of being in love with this music and wanting to play all of it myself and being able to hear how it would sound if it was played on the cello.
I did two or three projects like that on GarageBand ten years ago. I didn’t think about it much after that until the pandemic hit, and I found myself browsing through my old stuff. I remembered that project and how much it inspired me, and I thought, ‘Let’s just do that again, on a higher level this time.’
I ordered professional microphones online and learned how to use Logic Pro X on the computer. What previously sounded quite horrible on an iPhone recording suddenly sounded much better with these professional microphones—but still done at home.
I thought, ‘This actually doesn’t sound all that bad!’ It inspired me so much that I just continued to make more and more of these projects, these arrangements, straight into Logic. I showed this to my producer at Deutsche Grammophon, and told her I wanted to make a social media post with this. She told me, ‘Hold on, don’t do that – I think this is maybe worth more than just that.’
She encouraged me, and said, ‘Why don’t you bring one of those projects and come to Berlin, and we’ll do it really professionally, in the studio.’ And so that’s what we did.
We did the one track in Berlin, listened back to it and thought it sounded good. And then the idea was born.
I spent one year making the arrangements for the album and recording them at home, on Logic with my own microphones, and then I would travel to Berlin to redo them in a professional studio.
That whole thing took a year and was a very creative project. It was the kind of work that I really enjoyed doing, and something that I want to do more of in the future.
Tell us about your upcoming Schumann release.
Kian Soltani © kiansoltani.com
I went back to something more traditional, a back-to-the-roots kind of thing. For many years, my dream has been to record the Schumann Cello Concerto, but somehow, I was never fully satisfied with my experiences.
This piece is so personal, and I found it hard to communicate with the conductor in a way that I felt truly understood. Conductors have their own strong opinions of course, and sometimes it’s hard to agree. It’s not always easy to meet with this piece, particularly because it can go in so many different directions, so I never felt really ready to record this… until the idea came to just do it without a conductor!
Once that idea was born in my head, I couldn’t think of anything else. I was looking for an ensemble that could potentially do that with me, and we found the Camerata Salzburg, which is used to playing without conductors all the time.
We had a tour planned together, and this was perfect: we went on tour and played six concerts, with me leading from the cello without a conductor, and then went into the studio.
It was incredibly enjoyable to be able to really express yourself directly in the way that you want without any filters, so I’m very pleased with the result. It was exactly the sort of version of this piece that I wanted it to be.
Even though this was a very ‘standard’ project compared to Cello Unlimited, it still felt very creative and very personal to record it like this.
You are at the end of your first year as Professor of Cello at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. How does it feel to be passing on your knowledge to the next generation of musicians?
It feels much more enjoyable than I thought, somehow. I felt like two years ago I would have not been ready for this at all.
I’d never really thought about teaching. My own professor who I studied with, Ivan Monighetti, has been pushing me to teach for years, saying ‘You should, you should!’. I wasn’t sure, and then this thing in Vienna just happened so conveniently, so it was a perfect opportunity for me to jump in.
I just thought I’d try it out, knowing full well that I don’t have the time to have a full class. It was communicated from the beginning that it had to be a very reduced position, so I only had four students.
This whole first year was extremely enjoyable. I really really like it, it’s very interesting to work in such a way. It’s all about patience and guidance, and support for the students.
Why did you initially not feel ready for this kind of thing?
I mostly thought that the time management would be impossible. A few years ago, before the pandemic, that would’ve been the case. Before then, my schedule was a little bit too messy. Of course, I was happy to play as much as possible, and I did play as much as possible, but then I think because of covid, a lot of us reevaluated our free time, and it created a shift in many of us.
I spoke to many people who all agree that it made us appreciate time off more, and since then I’ve been much more careful and selective with my schedule, trying to really find a good balance of concerts and no-concerts, and now it was actually no problem at all to teach in Vienna.
There was barely a week that I missed – barely! I didn’t want to be one of those teachers who just have a couple of students that they see once a month – I really want to be there for them, so meeting almost every week is very important.
And now, this is all very much possible with this balance that I’ve found.
What advice would you give to younger musicians who are just entering the profession now?
I think it’s very important to understand that the music world is one big family. The people who run it are friends, most of the time, so it is a big advantage if you are part of the friends rather than the enemies!
I don’t want to say, ‘Be nice because you want something back’. That would be insincere. If you’re only nice because you want something back then maybe do some inner work or something, but if you can be genuinely nice to people because you want to be nice to them, that will make your life so much easier going forward.
Work on yourself until you’re at the point where you enjoy being nice to people, enjoy spending time with people, enjoy being around people, doing stuff for people – it should be enjoyable.
I was always a very sociable guy. I wanted to be around people and I enjoy being nice to people. It has only served me well by coincidence. It’s not something I did because I wanted something back.
Don’t underestimate the power of unfriendliness, the destructive power of being an unpleasant person.
That you have to be excellent on your instrument goes without saying. So practice, yes, study, yes, all of this is clear. Music is about sharing, about connecting, about friendship, this is what the whole thing is about. If you don’t enjoy that, then you’re going to just be miserable for the rest of your life because you’re going to have to hang out with people when you don’t want to, and you’re going to have to be nice when you don’t want to be.
Don’t do that – do something else. If you want to be a musician, you have to be a decent human being because it’s all going to come out, one way or another, either on stage or off. You have to open your heart to people, to audiences, to everyone. Work on being a well-balanced, healthy individual, I think that’s very important.
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