Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music?
As I was born into a family of musicians, I literally breathed music from my early childhood. It was just natural to me, and when I grew up that natural feeling turned into a passion that has not left me.
Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?
My father was my first mentor and definitely shaped my vision of music. Later on, I had the great luck to work with very inspiring pianists, each of them leaving their mark on my musical understanding. Today I feel that the great composers I listen to have shaped my musical world the most, and are virtually always on my mind: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
To avoid distractions and focus all my efforts on my main goal: making music.
Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?
I do not like looking back so much and am always most excited about my next project rather than my last.
How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
I learn what I feel I have to learn, and nowadays I compose my concert programmes like a gastronomical menu, avoiding excess and trying to delight with the unexpected and surprise with the well-known.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?
I have been blessed to play in many wonderful venues, I liked many of them very much, however it is always the audience that makes a concert experience truly special.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
Whenever my excitement for the music reaches the audience, and people leave the concert noticeably happier then when they arrived, I am happy. As for anecdotes I definitely experienced a lot of funny and less funny situations, from being obliged to repair a pedal by crawling under the piano, to a member of the audience falling from his chair. Luckily it turned out it was only dehydration, and I came to meet him the next day and we shared a great laugh, making it a wonderful memory as well.
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
Making music an equally emotional, intellectual and spiritual experience.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
Reflecting on Edwin Fischer’s quote: “Nicht ich spiele – es spielt” (I am not playing – it plays).
Jean Muller’s second volume of Mozart Piano Sonatas is released on 29 November on the Hãnssler Classic label.
Hailed as a “major talent“ by Gramophone, Jean Muller has shown exceptional musical talent since his earliest childhood. At age seven, he assembled his first Chopin Etude and has been performing on stage ever since. Following his initial training at the Conservatoire of Luxembourg in Marie-José Hengesch’s class, he was exposed to varied pianistic schools in Brussels, Munich, Paris and Riga under the guidance of, among others, Teofils Bikis, Eugen Indjic, Evgeny Moguilevsky, Gerhard Oppitz and Michael Schäfer. Having received further advice by distinguished artists Anne Queffélec, Leon Fleisher, Janos Starker and Fou T’song to quote but a few, Jean Muller became a master craftsmen who combines “savage technical voltage” (Gramophone) with a capacity for bold and interpretive risk. He thus achieved the rare stacked-deck of every pianist’s dreamed triple-threat ability: “Everything is there: fingers, head and heart” (Jean-Claude Pennetier).
(Artist photo: Kaupo Kikkas)
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 