As part of our partnership with ricordilab, we spoke with the composer Liza Lim about her duties with this competition and the benefits and limitations of composition competitions in general. VAN: Composers often complain that hyper-complex-looking scores have an advantage in competitions. How much does the way the score looks impact your decisions? Liza Lim: […]
Category: Interview
Posted inInterview
Unfinished Business
For Intro, we speak with the musicians who don’t show up in press releases. We hope to portray a diversity of background and experience in classical music. This is the second interview in an ongoing series. Occasional contact keeps memories vivid. When I think of Eli Marshall, I remember a crisp, sunny autumn morning and […]
Posted inInterview
Answers
Elīna Garanča stunned audiences when I saw her in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Roberto Devereux” in March, with a memorable performance even against Sondra Radvanovsky’s history-making role. She received an Opera News Award along with Waltraud Meier at the Plaza Hotel in New York on April 10, where we spoke to her about new versus old […]
Posted inInterview
Continental Shift
Ilan Volkov’s Tectonics Festival, in Reykjavik on April 14-15 and in Glasgow on May 7-8, conjures images of dramatic, continental upheaval. But plate motion is an incredibly slow process—land masses move at rates measured in millimeters per year. Listening to the names of the many avant-garde composers mentioned by the Israeli conductor in our Skype […]
Posted inInterview
Listening, Not Hearing
The American composer, performer, and humanitarian Pauline Oliveros performed a two-day Deep Listening Intensive and Sonic Meditation alongside her partner, author and dream specialist Ione, and jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran and his band, the Bandwagon, on April 1 and 2 as part of the 2016 Artists Studio at the Park Avenue Armory in […]
Posted inInterview
Depth Psychology
The German mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier performed her last Kundry, a complex figure from Wagner’s “Parsifal,” on March 28 at the Staatsoper in Berlin. On April 10, she will receive one of five Opera News Awards at The Plaza in New York. We spoke with her, in the middle of her final preparations, about Wagner, “updated” […]
Posted inInterview
No Fixed Abode
In this issue’s Design Review, we looked at several classical album covers, some of which display famous performers prominently. Odradek Records, a label which opposes the “model centered on just a few big names,” however, chooses its performers anonymously, without considering fame, biography, or looks. We spoke with founder John Anderson about his “utopian” project. […]
Posted inInterview
Patriarchal Structures
This interview took place in November 2015, and is reproduced here in an abridged version. We spoke with Neuwirth about the persistence of the patriarchy in classical music, the new generation of women composers, and her recent and older works. VAN: I feel there’s an imbalance between the genders in our musical society. Are quotas […]
Posted inInterview
Finite Measures
In our last issue, VAN published Elena Cheah’s honest audition diary. The process is critical for professional musicians, but can also leave them discouraged about their career prospects or disconnected from their art form. For this follow-up article, we spoke with Dr. Joanne Loewy, director of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at […]
Posted inInterview
Homecomings
For Intro, we speak with the musicians who don’t show up in press releases. We hope to portray a diversity of background and experience in classical music. This is the first interview in an ongoing series. Andrew Trovato is a pianist, composer, and childhood friend. In the course of two long Skype sessions—he was lying […]