Interviews

In today’s music world pianist Javier Perianes has become, at the age of 40, the most renowned Spanish performer. His agenda runs naturally through the best stages and international festivals, where he performs in recitals as well as in concerts and tours with the most renowned orchestras and conductors. In recognition of such a successful career, he is Artist of the Year 2019 of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA). We publish an interview made by Justo Romero for our Spanish Jury member Scherzo.

When more than two decades ago you were still a young and promising pianist, you denied harbouring the dream of becoming an acclaimed and recognized pianist. Now that the ‘no dream’ has come true, and so many things and successes have happened in your well-established concert career, do you still think the same way?
Yes, I maintain my answer of that time. My aim is to enjoy the music, each and every one of the projects that I have the opportunity to face, plus my family and my environment. Read More →

At the age of seventy-four, and after seventy years at the piano, Nelson Freire has won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Classical Music Awards, which he will receive at ICMA’s Gala in Lucerne on 10 May. Child prodigy, endowed from his beginnings with an astonishing virtuosity, his trajectory has been built on freedom and interpretative class, with a combination of technique and intelligence like it can be found with very few pianists. Assuming that all this has come to him, and that his role has been limited to that of being faithful to those innate qualities, the conversation with the great Brazilian artist – who speaks in a very low voice, with a cadence that suggests both discretion and sharpness – runs, with warm calm, in a dressing room of the Palacio de la Opera de La Coruna, in full rehearsals of his concerts with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia. We publish an interview from our Spanish Jury member Scherzo, done by Luis Sunen.

You are awarded with the ICMA Liftetime Achievement Award and yet, alongside your predecessors in the award, Menahem Pressler, still active, or Aldo Ciccolini, who played until almost the moment of his death, you are a child …
Well, a child… I remember my childhood often, I remember a lot of the past, but when it comes to music I always look forward. I have had several lives. I would say as many as seven different lives, each very recognizable, sometimes with radical changes and they are like a sum that gives a whole life, mine. One, but well divided into seven parts. Read More →

The very first of ICMA’s Composer Award goes to the Spanish composer Francisco Coll (*1985).Coll was formed in Valencia and Madrid, but in 2009 he became the only private student of British composer Thomas Adès. He completed his studies at the prestigious Guildhall School while beginning an impressive international career as a composer with commissions for the London Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain and the London Sinfonietta, among others. Pablo L. Rodríguez from the Spanish ICMA Jury member Scherzo made the following interview with the awardee in his current hometown Lucerne (Switzerland).

How does one become a composer today?
In reality, I never thought about being a composer. In my case it was completely irrational. I remember perfectly the first time I wanted to compose something. I was tired of hearing the same thing from my Walkman and I chose to record something created by myself with instruments that I could play. Read More →

For his Mozart album, Maxim Emelyanychev won an ICMA Award 2019 in the category Solo Instrument. Born in 1988 to a family of musicians, Maxim Emelyanychev first studied conducting at the Nizhny Novgorod Music School then continued his education in the conducting class of Gennady Rozhdestvensky at Moscow’s State Tchaikovsky Conservatory and in the fortepiano and harpsichord class of Maria Uspenskaya. He made his conducting debut at the age of 12 and has since then conducted both baroque and symphonic orchestras. He became chief conductor of Il Pomo d’Oro in 2016 and will be principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, effective with the 2019–2020 season. In parallel he pursues a career as pianist and harpsichordist. Olga Kordyukova from Radio Orpheus made the following interview with him. Read More →

Young Russian pianist Eva Gevorgyan has already played on many prestigious stages. A student of the Central Music School in Moscow and a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, she has won prizes at various competitions as well as the Discovery Award 2019 of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA). Jury member Evgenia Krivitskaya from the Russian magazine Musical Life has made the following interview with the ambitious young pianist. Read More →

German cellist Christoph Heesch won an ICMA Award in the category Concertos with his CD Golden Age – Cello 1925. Born in Berlin in 1995, he started to play the cello at the age of six, and began attending the Julius-Stern-Institut in 2005. From 2008 to 2015 he studied with Jens Peter Maintz, and since 2015 with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, both at Berlin University of the Arts. Read More →

This year, the record label Alpha is Label of the Year of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA). Alpha belongs to Belgian music group Outhere (Alpha, Ricercar, Fuga Libera, Ramée, ZigZag, Arcana, Phi, Linn…). ICMA Jury member Juan Lucas (Scherzo, Spain) has made the following interview with Outhere’s Chairman Charles Adriaenssen.

How would you describe your origins and at what point did you decide that you wanted to get involved in the classical record world a serious way?
There were plenty of cultural interests in my family when I was growing up, and music, consequently, played an important part in my education and upbringing. I studied Law and, then, for a period of fifteen years I worked as a diplomat, until 1995, when I became involved with the family business concerns in brewing, and I joined a number of management boards… Yet music was always present there, and even during twenty years of a very active business life I supported many concerts. Read More →

The young Chinese flutist Yuan Yu has won the ICMA Discovery Award 2018. Yuan Yu is a student at the Conservatoire national supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Professor Philippe Bernold, assisted by Florence Souchard-Delépine.In 2012, he won first prize in the children’s section of the inaugural China Flute Association. In 2015 he was given an honorable mention at the 67th International Prague Spring Music Competition.In 2017, at the age of fifteen, he was the winner of the 7th Krakow International Flute Competition. Later in the same year, he also won first prize at the 9th Kobe International Flute Competition.He loved performing since an early age, giving his first solo recital at the age of thirteen at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Yuan receives a scholarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein, and takes part in the intensive music weeks and activities offered by the Academy. Remy Franck and Isabel Roth spoke with the young musician. Read More →

Der Multi-Percussionist Christoph Sietzen, ‘Young Artist oft he Year’ der International Classical Music Awards’ (ICMA), gab im Alter von 12 Jahren sein Debüt bei den Salzburger Festspielen und ist u.a. Preisträger des Internationalen Musikwettbewerbs der ARD. Seine erste Solo-CD ‘Attraction’, die den Titel des für ihn von Emmanuel Séjourné komponierten gleichnamigen Werks trägt, wurde mit dem ‘Pizzicato Supersonic Award’ ausgezeichnet. Der in Salzburg geborene Luxemburger wurde seit seinem sechsten Lebensjahr am Schlagwerk unterrichtet und studierte später Marimba bei Bogdan Bacanu, mit dem er das ‘Wave Quartet’ gründete. Seit 2014 unterrichtet Christoph Sietzen an der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. Remy Franck hat sich mit dem Musiker unterhalten. Read More →