Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?
My parents were given a piano as a wedding present so it was a natural step for me to try the piano. Fortunately, (or, some might say, unfortunately) I took to it and liked it immediately.
Who or what were the most important influences on your playing?
I owe a great deal to my teachers: Maria Curcio and Mark Swartzentruber for their guidance in my formative years in London, Benjamin Frith for his passion, Joaquin Achucarro for his discipline, Ferenc Rados for opening my mind.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Finding a happy balance.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?
Wigmore Hall is pretty special.
Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?
I could happily play Brahms and Beethoven all day long.
Who are your favourite musicians?
Richter, Gilels, Haskil, Horowitz, Argerich and Schiff, to name but a few. I have also heard staggeringly beautiful recordings of Lili Kraus and Annie Fischer recently.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
Performing in the cloister of Sant’Andrea Apostolo in Amalfi. It was utterly magical.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
Honesty and truth.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Not to have any worries. Alternatively, a good, leisurely breakfast.
Pianist Yoon Chung is a versatile musician and has performed throughout Europe, America and the Far East. His London appearances include the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Kings Place, St. John’s Smith Square and St. James’ Piccadilly. He has been broadcast in France, Japan, Korea and America. Born in Seoul, Korea, Yoon spent his formative years in London under the tutelage of Maria Curcio and Mark Swartzentruber and was an ABRSM postgraduate scholar at the Royal Northern College of Music. Further studies were undertaken in America and Hungary under Joaquìn Achùcarro and Ferenc Rados. Yoon is a founder member of Trio Andante and currently resides in London.
Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?
I heard my father playing Chopin, Grieg and Schumann at home almost every evening on our small upright piano. Then I tried to imitate him! As I was gifted, he decided to do everything necessary to help me in my development: courses with great teachers, day to day work. He believed in my musical career from the very beginning and that was probably the most important.
Who or what are the most important influences on your playing?
Arthur and Karl-Ulrich Schnabel (with whom I really learned my Beethoven), then Leon Fleisher, who was for me a kind of Mentor, and Christian Ivaldi, who opened my brain to the world of Wagner and Strauss, which radically influenced radically repertoire and the texture of my personal sound.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Playing the 32 Beethoven sonatas in 10 days.
What are the particular challenges/excitements of working with an orchestra/ensemble?
Playing a concerto with orchestra is the utmost gift a pianist can receive! The piano concerto repertoire is just fabulous and I always feel like it’s an achievement in a solo career. The main problem is to build a relationship with a conductor in a very short rehearsal time. You can feel a kind of frustration sometimes. It is why my relationship with Philippe Jordan is very special, as we have recorded and played so many concertos since 2007! The complete Beethovens on CD and in concert as well as Mozart, Brahms and Saint-Saens. The musical result is amazing because we feel like chamber music partners.
Which recordings are you most proud of?
My Brahms 2nd concerto with LPO and Paavo Berglund, the Beethoven Fifth Concerto with O.P. Radio-France and Philippe Jordan, and my last live recording of Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata recently released.
Do you have a favourite concert venue?
This is a tough question. For recital, I would say Wigmore hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, Köln Philharmonie and Metz Arsenal.
With orchestra, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Salle Pleyel in Paris and Royal Festival Hall in London. Next season I will make my debut in two great European hall: Tonhalle in Zürich and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam!
Who are your favourite musicians?
Among others – Furtwangler, Celibidache, Barenboim, Boulez, Brendel, Pollini and Sokolov. I rediscovered Arrau recently: a genius.
Regarding the conductors I’ve played with I would mention Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Harding, and of course Philippe Jordan. Recently I played with the young conductor Edward Gardner: he was astonishing.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
Philippe Jordan conducting Parsifal in Bayreuth.
What is your favourite music to play? To listen to?
Beethoven always to play and listen, I listen more than ever Wagner’s Ring..and all the others.. Then Bruckner 4/5/7/8/9, the complete Mahler
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians/students?
Do not only work solely at your instrument, although it is crucial to spend hours on practising. The main thing is to have an exhaustive knowledge of orchestral and operatic repertoire in order to make the piano like a real orchestra
What are you working on at the moment?
The 5 Beethoven Concertos and the 32 Sonatas, as well as some Wagner paraphrases to celebrate this genius!
I also have some modern music as usual, new studies from Georges Benjamin and a Piano Concerto by Tristan Murail.
Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time
Any place where I could perform Beethoven’s music.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
My wife’s love forever and music everywhere.
What is your most treasured possession?
Patou, my dear cat!!!!!
What is your present state of mind?
Promethean!
Interview date: November 2013
François-Frédéric Guy is regarded as one of the most fascinating pianists of his generation since his career was launched by his debut with Orchestre de Paris and Wolfgang Sawallisch in 2000.
Guy is an artist of immense interpretative authority and superlative technique. He has spent much of his career performing the works of Beethoven, recently completing recordings of the five concertos with Philippe Jordan, and the 32 Sonatas. Guy has performed worldwide with orchestras such as the Berlin Symphony, Hallé, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and San Francisco Symphony and conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Neeme Järvi and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Who or what inspired you to take up the violin and make it your career?
My dad originally. He’s a violinist and I heard him practicing as soon as I was born. It seemed like fun – which is a huge tribute to my dad for making it look that way. I don’t think I have successfully communicated a joy of practice to my children, who hear nothing but shouting and swearing from my practice room.
Who or what were the most important influences on your playing/composing?
My teachers were, and continue to be, huge influences. Starting with Sheila Nelson as a child, then Jean-Jaques Kantorow and Ruggiero Ricci as a teenager, with Victor Danchenko at Curtis as my last teacher.
Each one had a massive impact on my playing and my whole approach to music. I can’t imagine not having studied with any of those four teachers.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Keeping the discipline of every day practice, the neurosis involved in ever taking time off, and balancing the whole thing with a desire to be at home with my kids instead of travelling.
That last part is a real challenge, and not one I particularly relish, as I prefer being at home with my kids to anything else.
Which performances/compositions/recordings are you most proud of?
Without a doubt my new album, Fairy Tales, which is an album for children that took years to put together. I’ve never been so proud of anything, at least professionally. It’s the only thing I’ve recorded which I can actually listen to for fun.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?
The UK has some wonderful halls – Bridgewater Hall, Symphony Hall, the Wigmore.
But for a musician a venue is about more than just the hall itself. I just played in Antalya, Turkey, and the hall was basically next to the beach. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?
Britten concerto, which I have also just recorded, is possibly my favourite piece to play at the moment. Very hard indeed but I would play it every night if someone would let me.
Who are your favourite musicians?
I hate all musicians! Particularly Meghan Cassidy from the Solstice Quartet, who is currently sitting next to me and being distracting.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
I’m hoping it will be tonight, but I might not have practiced enough.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
I think the simple most important piece of advice I have is that you’d better really want to do it. Otherwise, the sacrifices you need to make will not feel comfortable…
What are you working on at the moment?
Loads of things! Paganini Concerto is currently providing most stress as I haven’t played it since I was a lad and it has apparently got much more difficult.
What is your most treasured possession?
I guess my kids don’t count as “possessions”?!
Probably my violin then…..wouldn’t be able to do much without that. Matthew Trusler has developed a reputation as one of Britain’s leading violinists, performing with many of the world’s great orchestras, and receiving huge critical acclaim for his diverse recordings. He has also founded the record label Orchid Classics on which some of the most important artists of today are recording, and the Lenny Trusler Children’s Foundation, which raises money for desperately ill babies. Trusler was instrumental in forming the Malmo International String Festival of which he became Artistic Director in 2011, and was in 2012 appointed a director of Delange Artists Management, based in Amsterdam.
Biting satirical lithographs and empathetic depictions of people going about their everyday lives are displayed alongside sculptures and paintings in the Royal Academy’s new autumn exhibition of work by French artist Honoré Daumier, the first exhibition of Daumier’s work in the UK for fifty years.
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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 