By |

img_6899
(photo: Frances Marshall)

Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music? 

My family! I am the youngest of four children and when I came along my three elder siblings were all at it! I was dying to get started and at the age of three my eldest sister Mary (aged 13) started to teach me. At age 6 I won a scholarship into the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin to continue my studies with John O’Conor, but Mary also continued to coach me at home. And I haven’t stopped playing since! And I’m nearly 40!

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career? 

John O’Conor was the most wonderful and inspiring teacher and mentor.  He taught me from age 6 to 22 – I did my bachelor degree in music performance under his tutelage.  He has also been extremely generous to me by promoting me to his many international contacts and has helped my career enormously.

Christoph Eschenbach also helped me greatly when I was in my early 20s.  I was selected by Menahem Pressler to play for him at a  public masterclass in Ravinia and Eschenbach was so impressed he invited me to make my American début with the Houston Symphony – and I subsequently returned to play with the Chicago Symphony under his direction  – that was an amazing experience!

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far? 

Maintaining a high standard of performance throughout a gruelling schedule of concerts with varying repertoire.  I am very lucky to be very busy and I get through a huge amount of difficult repertoire and am constantly learning new chamber music scores (currently the Ligeti Horn Trio!) – this is all wonderful and I am very grateful to be so busy but it comes with great challenges, simply being on top of the music at all times! And the other great challenge for me is dealing with varying acoustics.  It makes it so much harder to perform when you are in a dry theatre! Sadly one cannot play at the Wigmore Hall all of the time!

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?  

My solo Schumann recordings for Claves Records.  They were the first really serious recordings I made and the whole process was so rewarding and fascinating.  So different to performing in recital. Hugely demanding in concentration but very satisfying when the final product sounds OK!

Which particular works do you think you play best?  

In solo repertoire, I think I am happiest with Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Chopin  – at least, at the moment! I have just recorded a new Chopin CD and I feel really comfortable in that repertoire. But I love playing Bach as well!

Paricular works that I feel I play best (reading the question again!) – Schubert Drei Klavierstücke D. 946, Brahms Two Rhapsodies Op. 79, Alban Berg Piano Sonata, Chopin Ballade No. 4.  Just off the top of my head! Other people may think differently! I often think we are perhaps not the best judges of our own playing??!

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

That is another great challenge.  It’s so hard to know what you will want to play 18 months in the future, or how you will get on with certain pieces.  It takes great courage (or foolhardiness?) to programme a very challenging work (for example the Chopin Preludes Op. 28) in a major venue (for example the Wigmore Hall)  when you haven’t ever played them before!

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

I’ve already mentioned it twice – the Wigmore Hall in London has got the most fabulous acoustic, and the feeling on stage is so rewarding and positive. I always feel I play about 10% better there than anywhere else! There’s just a feel-good factor, something about the sound that comes back to you on stage.  It’s the perfect size auditorium – for solo recitals at least, I’ve done very little chamber music there and no song! Hopefully in the future ! Another venue I’m very fond of – and proud of – is St. Mary’s Church in New Ross in Ireland, where we hold the annual New Ross Piano Festival in late September.  It has a most satisfactory acoustic and has been compared to the finest chamber halls in Europe.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

Perform: see above.

Listen to: Brahms string sextets, Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin, Verdi opera, Mozart opera, Mendelssohn octet…

Who are your favourite musicians?

Gosh, where to start! There are too many.  I work with such a huge variety of wonderful musicians. For example, this summer I worked with a  wonderful Russian violinist Nikika Borisoglebsky, I’d never heard of him and he was amazing! I also worked with the Goldner String Quartet in Australia, who were wonderful, what a lovely experience! And that’s just picking two at random. At the moment I have a few projects with István Várdai who is a fabulous Hungarian cellist.  Over the past decade I have worked a lot with the wonderful French cellist Marc Coppey.  When it comes to starry pianists (if that’s what the question meant?!) – the usual suspects apply – Argerich / Perahia / Lupu / Uchida but possibly most of all Grigory Sokolov, who is extraordinary.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

A recital by Grigory Sokolov in Switzerland (Cully Classique festival 2013 – it took place in a small intimate church with no more than 300 people) in which he played a most stunning rendition of the Hammerklavier Sonata.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Listen to yourself, listen to others, listen to other genres of music, be open to new ideas, play a lot of chamber music, go to a lot of concerts, don’t do too many masterclasses, don’t study until you’re 30, don’t do too many competitions, get out there and network and respond to emails in a business-like fashion!

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

Doing the same routine only better, still having lots of concert engagements, still travelling, still having an appetite for it all, meeting new people, playing new music, constantly striving to serve the music better and fulfil my potential. Keep communicating the central message of the music to our audience, whom we live to serve! Without audiences we are nothing!

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Jumping off a boat into the green sea off a Greek island for a swim before drinks and dinner with a treasured friend (or two).

What is your most treasured possession?

My iphone.

What do you enjoy doing most?

Travelling.

What is your present state of mind?

Optimistic.

One of Ireland’s most successful musicians, Dubliner Finghin Collins was born in 1977 and studied piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with John O’Conor and at the Geneva Conservatoire with Dominique Merlet. Winner of the RTÉ Musician of the Future Competition in 1994 and the Classical Category at the National Entertainment Awards in Ireland in1998, he went on to achieve major international success by taking first prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland in 1999. Since then he has developed a flourishing international career that takes him all over Europe, the United States and the Far East.

Finghin Collins’ website

By |

10863510-1416476088-549536(Musical) Terms

Descriptive words, usually in Italian, used to define tempo, expression, articulation, dynamics, pedaling or a specific feature such as a glissando or cadenza. We start learning and accumulating musical terms from the moment we begin to play the piano, starting with the simplest terms – forte (loud), piano (soft), allegro (quick or brisk), andante (at a walking pace). As we progress in our piano studies, we add more terms to our dictionary – allegretto, adagio, largo, presto, cantabile, accelerando, rallentando…..

metronomeComposers use terms to guide us in our interpretation of their music. With the invention of the metronome terms relating to tempo (such as presto, allegro, andante, adagio) became more standardised and suggested tempi are given on the body of the metronome in beats per minute, and also at the start of a piece. These speeds are not set in stone, however, and terms should be interpreted according to the character and style of the piece, as well as our own abilities and limitations.

Andante is a term which has always interested me. We know it means “at a walking pace”, but my walking pace may not be the same as yours. And maybe one day my walking pace is hurrying for a train, and another it is strolling in the park……. In the slow movement of Schubert’s Sonata in A, D959, the tempo marking is andantino and the character of the music suggests to me the weary tread of a melancholy traveler. Some will disagree, preferring a brisker walking pace, or the plod of an almost-funereal Adagio.

I love highly descriptive terms – allegro con fuoco (fast and with fire), allegro amabile (which means amiably quick, but which I prefer to translate as “smile as you quickly place”), affettuoso (with affection and tenderness), accarezzevole (caressing), bruscamente (brusquely), perdendosi (dying away). Once could write a passionate love story from these terms.

Tea

When I asked for suggestions for this entry in the Pianist’s Alphabet, a number of my pianist friends and colleagues suggested Tea. What would we do without it? I must drink six or seven cups a day. It fuels my practising, my teaching and my writing. Tea keeps fingers and brain lubricated. My morning ritual is to make a large mug of smokey Lapsang Souchong which I take to the piano. The ritual is repeated at regularly intervals, and mid-morning my husband will silently bring me a cup of tea and place it on my desk behind the piano. Coffee makes me jittery and nauseous – not an ideal combination when one is trying to refine Schubert’s heavenly length.

Others T’s (suggested by friends and colleagues)…..

Toccata

Takemitsu

Talent

Trills

Terrifying Thalberg

Tickle (as in “tickle the ivories”)

Tuning

Technique

Touch

Temperament

Thumbs

 

 

By |

jo-quail-five-incantationsAdrian Ainsworth nominates Jo Quail: ‘Five Incantations’

In recent years, my listening has evolved and expanded from rock/folk/electronica more and more towards the labyrinth of listening options that is ‘classical music’… So perhaps it’s no wonder that one of my favourite artists is someone who is continually developing along those lines as a musician.

Jo Quail is a cellist and composer who produces work primarily (but not exclusively) for performance on her own electric cello, plus loop station. This electronic aspect allows her to write pieces that develop layer upon layer into something genuinely, and at times overwhelmingly, orchestral. Part of the exhilaration of seeing her live is to watch how the tracks build: the total absence of trickery, the obvious presence of melodic/harmonic invention, and rhythmic precision.

Because she emerged from, broadly speaking, the avant-garde ‘underground rock’ world, it’s still perhaps most common to encounter JQ supporting a heavy instrumental guitar band, or quietly wowing a festival crowd on the continent. But when she stages a concert of her own, she gives her ‘classical’ side equal weight – as with her recent composition for electric and acoustic cellos, percussion and choir, ‘This Path with Grace’. (To me, it’s a mystery why a label like NMC or ECM aren’t paying more attention – perhaps it’s a side-effect of JQ building her fanbase in all corners of the music-going public?)

However, her latest recording ‘Five Incantations’ is, in its own way, her most ambitious and fully-realised project yet. The ‘incantations’ are related movements that form a kind of suite, or single-player concerto, for cello and electronics. As we’re guided through the elements, the mood shifts between driving, stately anthems and near-ambient, gliding pauses for reflection. Overall, the work is designed for listening in one sitting – and JQ plays it live, entirely solo, in an unbroken, 40-minute sequence.

That said, ‘Gold’ is perhaps the section that can most readily stand alone. Before the album’s release, JQ issued an alternative mix of this particular track, and I’m very fond of it – I return to it often, especially if I don’t have time to play the whole CD. It encapsulates the attractions of her music beautifully. The unhurried patience of the tune as it nestles in your brain; the heartbeat rhythm (created by striking the cello) dovetailing with the harsher, bowed punctuation points that kick in after around five minutes; the way the loops allow various parts to ‘slot’ in and out until finally fitting together like a musical jigsaw.

If you like this, please investigate further on JQ’s Bandcamp page (https://joquail.bandcamp.com/album/five-incantations), where you can listen to – and buy – her music.

(To give an idea of the ‘live’ experience with something a little more pacy than ‘Gold’, here is a performance of ‘Laurus’ from the previous album ‘Caldera’ – the video allows you to see the quickfire use of loop pedals, all managed in a near-balletic style while playing an absolute blinder with the hands!)

Meet the Artist……Jo Quail

Adrian Ainsworth writes for a living, but mostly about things like finance, tax and benefits. For light relief, then, he covers his obsessions – overwhelmingly music, but with sprinklings of photography and art – on the ‘Specs’ blog, which you can find at

Twitter:

 

 

 

By |

This weekend I headed off to “sarf-east” London for a rather unusual Prom featuring music by American minimalist composer Steve Reich who is 80 this year….

For those of us more used to the highly refined atmosphere of London’s finest chamber music venue, a brutalist concrete lump with low ceilings and unremittingly grey walls cannot possibly be a good place to hear music, whatever the genre. The acoustic should be appalling, a brisk wind slices through the performance space, riffling music, which is pegged to the music stands to stop it blowing away, and the music is regularly interrupted by rattling trains and the sounds of the street below….

Read my full review here

the venue
Multistory Orchestra conducted by Christopher Stark
part of the Derek Jarman garden at the Bold Tendencies multi-storey carpark
leaving the carpark after the concert