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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano, and make it your career? 

I cannot pin point where the inspiration came from, I guess I was just very passionate and still am about the piano.

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

My first teacher, Edvin Alamshah, who was a former student of Arturo Michelangeli, was a huge influence in my younger days.  But I think the greatest influences are the great composers, and great music.

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

I like to think of the challenges more like journeys; however I think for most pianists the greatest challenges are communication.  Once you have the ability to communicate with your audience you have overcome one of the greatest challenges.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?  

I haven’t recorded a CD yet but I have made many videos for YouTube and radio broadcasts. I think my favourite performances/recordings have to be the Scriabin and Janáček piano works.

Which particular works do you think you play best? 

It depends on how the coffee tastes in the morning!  There is no work I think of in that way, each piece of music has a soul and its own personality which breathes like we do, and on many occasions I’ve been proven wrong with a work I thought I could play best. However, Janáček sits very closely to me and agrees with me.

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

By reading lots and lots of music and seeing what speaks to me. I never listen to recordings to make these decisions.

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

I have to say the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Verbrugghen Hall. It has lots of memories and a huge acoustic which fits my personality on stage.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?  

I absolutely adore Haydn and all of his works, and I have so much fun with him while I perform.

Who are your favourite musicians? 

Really don’t have favourites, just very open/honest interpretation from many musicians young and old.

What is your most memorable concert experience? 

I think my most memorable was a recital where I performed lots of Galina Ustvolskaya’s chamber works. She was a student of Shostakovich.

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

My friends and colleagues will laugh at this, but I always believe you must spend more time outside your practice room, meet people, go to concerts, classic or not, drink lots of whisky and take it easy.  I am not saying you should never practice – it’s very important: however some people really lose the sight of how it really is in real life. Spending 8-9 hours in a practice room can get very lonely: how are you supposed to communicate with people on stage when you can’t do that in real life?

What are you working on at the moment? 

I am working on the complete works of Janáček to perform and record in 2015.

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

Where I am now, happy and healthy.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? 

Where I don’t feel happy 24 hours of the day.

What is your most treasured possession? 

My piano scores

What do you enjoy doing most? 

Eating

What is your present state of mind? 

Panic (about to start teaching)

Vatche Jambazian performs works by Shostakovich, Mozart and Ustvolskaya at the 1901 Arts Club on Friday 16th May as part of the South London Concert Series. This concert is now **sold out**. Details of future South London Concert Series events here

Vatche Jambazian recently completed his BMus at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and is now based in London performing many recitals in the UK and abroad. He has been a prizewinner in many international piano competitions such as The Russian Music Piano Competition in San Jose and the Australian National Piano Award. He is a highly dedicated piano teacher who aims to bring enjoyment as well as discipline to the lessons.

Vatche has recently been appointed Ambassador for the Commonwealth Piano Foundation.

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We all have favourite performers, orchestras, venues, recordings and memorable concert experiences. Some works have special resonances and associations which connect us with experiences from our childhood, teenhood, early adulthood and beyond, or are potent reminders of a particular event, person or occasion. Sometimes a few bars of a certain piece can take me back to a particular time and place in my life and trigger a very distinct ‘Proustian rush’. There are recordings we return to again and again, performances we would revisit every night if we could, or pieces that we would happily have playing on a continuous loop.

‘Music Notes’ is a new occasional series, mostly comprised of guest posts, in which contributors discuss favourite or significant concerts, performances, artists, recordings or musical experiences. More ‘Private Passions’ than ‘Desert Island Discs’, the series is an opportunity for people to share their love of music and attempt to explain why certain pieces, places and artists have such distinct resonances and associations for them.

Guest contributions are now invited. The brief is wide – write about what you care about, what you love; nor is the remit strictly classical music. If you would like to submit an article, please use the Contact page to get in touch.

The series will begin with my own musings on a particular recording of Schubert piano music…..Read more here

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One of the best things about contemporary technology is its ability to offer new ways of exploring well-trodden paths. In an earlier age, The Mozart Project, a new interactive e-book created by two non-musicians, James Fairclough and Harry Farnham, would probably come in several volumes (given its wide-ranging and comprehensive text), with innumerable footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, further reading, further listening and so forth. With the weighty tomes at one’s side, one would then have to rummage through one’s CD or LP collection to listen to the music referenced in the book. By this point, one might have tired of having to do so much additional work to experience some of Mozart’s juvenilia or a late opera.

Not so in the e-book format, for all your need to discover the world of Mozart, the man and his music, the world he inhabited and his lasting influence and perennial popularity is contained within this continuous and generously-illustrated format. Nor is this some “how cool would it be to do an e-book about Mozart?”, dreamt up by a couple of computer geeks in their bedroom over a few beers on a Sunday afternoon. Two years in the making, The Mozart Project contains a wealth of authoritative and carefully-researched material, with chapters written by distinguished academic authorities and Mozart scholars such as as Cliff Eisen, John Irving, Neal Zaslaw and Nicholas Till. Alongside this are contributions from leading figures in the world of music and opera/theatre – Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Felicity Lott, Elizabeth Wallfisch, Sir Nicholas Hytner, Sir Jonathan Miller, Simon Russell Beale and members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, together with round table discussions with the authors led by music journalist Paul Morley. Many of these contributors offer personal insights into the music of Mozart, and provide crucial information on aspects such as interpretation, performance practice and Mozart instrumentation. The creators received funding from composer George Fenton, who is on a mission to bring a more diverse audience into the world’s greatest concert venues, and who felt that James and Harry could bring a huge amount of passion to the project.

This is more than confirmed in the final product. Its creators are not classical-music heads and I think this lends a really wide-eyed and genuine spirit of discovery and excitement to the material. There is no “dumbing down” here to appeal to the masses or those who felt Milos Forman’s film Amadeus presented a “true” portrait of Mozart as a farting fop in a pink powdered wig. The text is underpinned by scholarship, the “talking heads” and musical extracts are high-quality and professionally produced, the further reading is comprehensive (without being burdensome). Yet the material is presented in an attractive and accessible design, easy to use and never overly complex nor didactic. The text is regularly sprinkled with music extracts and spoken word, in mp3 and video format, and extra interesting titbits can be found by clicking on pictures, maps, and timelines. The book also provides exclusive access to the Mozart Autograph Vault in Salzburg and explores areas of controversy and intrigue: for example, does Pushkin’s diary confirm speculation over the Salieri poisoning?

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The book is arranged over 10 chapters, covering topics such as The Grand Tour (an experience which had a significant impact on Mozart), the Europe of Mozart, Symphonies, Concertos, Operas and a final chapter, appropriately, on the Requiem. There is also a whole chapter devoted to the ongoing fascination with the child prodigy, with contributions from contemporary prodigy, eight-year-old Alma Deutscher. And the book is truly interactive: readers can put questions to the authors online, and material within the book will be regularly updated. This stylish, imaginative and engaging book will appeal to music lovers, musicians and Mozart scholars alike, and at just £9.99 it represents excellent value for such a comprehensive and fascinating study of the genius of Mozart.

The Mozart Project can be purchased from the Apple iBooks store.

Meet the Artist interview with John Irving

Follow The Mozart Project on Twitter @themozartproj

 

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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano, and make it your career?

I think the piano was its own inspiration.  We had no classical music in my home at all but an aunt had a piano and it was love at first vamp.  I picked out tunes on its yellow keys and wanted to take lessons.  it was a short step (over a long time) for that to become my career.

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

Definitely my main piano teacher Gordon Green.  Also Derrick Wyndham (both taught at the RNCM) then later Robert Mann (former 1st violinist of the Juilliard Quartet) with whom I played and recorded all the Beethoven sonatas in the 1980s.  I was 23 and had everything to learn; he was a great partner and, indirectly, a teacher.  I would also cite Alfred Cortot and many other pianists from the first decades of the 20th century whose playing I got to know well through recordings.  They were always and remain my favourites.

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

Just doing it – day after day.  Specifically the extreme contrast between being as tough as a old boot offstage (travel, hotels, paperwork etc. etc.) and as sensitive as a bejewelled ballet shoe when at the piano.  It requires a unique kind of schizophrenia!

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

Ah tough to say!  The Hummel concerto record was the first one where I felt good in the studio, despite very little time.  We had less than six hours for each concerto, to rehearse from scratch (correcting parts along the way) and record.  it was seat of the pants but I still remember the exhilaration and excitement of playing those pieces and making the first complete recording of works which were absolutely central to the repertoire of Liszt, Chopin, Schumann etc.  Later Mompou was a joy to record and more recently my own 2nd piano sonata (on the CD ‘In the Night’).  Strange to record your own music!

Which particular works do you think you play best?

I really can’t say.  But I do feel able to slip into different roles.  I feel as involved and connected playing Mozart and Beethoven as I do playing Chopin and Liszt as I do playing Schoenberg and Webern.

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

Some of it ties in with recording plans, sometimes there are anniversaries, or specific requests.  With concertos it depends a lot on the programming being done by the conductor and management of the orchestras.

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

Not really.  Many famous halls are famous because they’re great – main stage of Carnegie New York or Concertgebouw Amsterdam or Musikverein Vienna.  The Wigmore of course is special.  I also love Severance Hall in Cleveland … too many to name though.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

Impossible to say!

Who are your favourite musicians?

Mainly those who died before I was born – Cortot, Rachmaninov, Friedman, Kreisler etc.  I’ve worked a lot with Steven Isserlis and he is one of my favourites, for personal as well as musical reasons.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Probably my debut at the Hollywood Bowl when I raced over from Cheshire to replace Pogorelich at the last minute.  it was my first taste of the fast-lane, crazy side of having a career.  Paganini Rhapsody with Sir Charles Groves.

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

Study the score intensely then play as if you’re improvising.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

I think ‘success’ is one of the hardest words for a musician to define. There is no way to measure it externally; it passes and fades like life itself; it depends entirely on the subjective impressions of others; chasing it almost guarantees its lack. All I can say is that if music still thrills, charms, touches, moves, inspires us every day (and through us, other people too) then we are successful musicians.

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

Same place but deeper.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Surprised by happiness when not looking for it – and sharing it with someone else.

What is your most treasured possession?

My sanity.

What do you enjoy doing most?

Many things.  To choose one would be to squeeze it dry of magic.

What is your present state of mind?

Content yet tired and a little anxious – but grateful for life and health and food and friends.

Named by ‘The Economist’ as one of 20 Living Polymaths, British pianist Stephen Hough is a rare renaissance man of our time. Over the course of a long and distinguished career as one of the world’s leading concert pianists, he has also excelled as a writer and composer. Mr. Hough combines an exceptional facility and tonal palette with a uniquely inquisitive musical personality, and his musical achievements have resulted in many awards and accolades for his concerts and a discography of more than fifty recordings.

 

Stephen Hough’s full biography

www.stephenhough.com