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In 1965, Alexandra von Triessen arrives at the International Ketterling Competition knowing that one performance could make her career – or expose every weakness she has spent a lifetime learning to conceal. In this rarefied world, perfection is merely the starting point. Forty of the world’s most gifted pianists have come to battle for a prize that promises fame, fortune, and artistic immortality. Alexandra is one of the few women among them—and unlike the men surrounding her, she has no taste for combat.

There she meets Sebastian D’Antonio: magnetic, ambitious, dangerously charming, and born for the spotlight. He offers her passion, glamour, and a place beside him at the center of the musical world. But behind Sebastian stands his enigmatic brother Conrad – a restless composer of staggering genius who wants nothing from fame, yet understands Alexandra’s music, her loneliness, and her deepest desires in ways no one else ever has.

What begins as a contest between virtuosos becomes an intimate war between love and loyalty, talent and ambition, truth and myth. Bound together by music, Alexandra, Sebastian, and Conrad are drawn into a decades-spanning triangle of desire, rivalry, sacrifice, and betrayal – where the most beautiful creation may conceal the most devastating secret.

Descending Thirds is a sweeping, sensual novel about the violence beneath beauty, the loneliness of genius, and the terrible price of becoming unforgettable. It asks the question every artist – and every lover – must eventually answer: Do you choose the life that brings you applause, the person who promises you devotion, or the truth that sets your heart on fire?

Interview with author of Descending Thirds, Nicole Conn

Who or what inspired you to pursue your creative career?

My first concert hall was the floor beneath my mother’s piano.

As a child, I would lie underneath it while she practiced Beethoven and Chopin for hours. I felt the vibrations move through the floor and into my body before I had any intellectual understanding of what I was hearing. Music entered me as sensation, emotion and story. Long before I understood harmony or musical form, I understood that music could say what ordinary language could not.

My mother was a brilliant pianist and later became a lauded teacher. She gave me far more than an appreciation of classical music. She taught me, simply by playing, that art can hold grief, desire, fury, tenderness and contradiction all at once. Even as Parkinson’s began taking command of her hands, her relationship with the piano endured. That was extraordinarily painful to witness, but also profound. Her body was becoming less dependable, yet the music remained part of her identity. It made the relationship between memory, the body and artistic expression very real to me.

Christa Hoven, Nicole Conn’s mother

I came to filmmaking and writing through that same desire to express the inexpressible. Film gave me image, language, silence, performance and music—all the elements through which interior life can be revealed. And I’ve always considered the score the soul of a film.

Descending Thirds grew directly out of that inheritance. It is dedicated to my mother, who gave me classical music; to my daughter Gabrielle, whose birth sparked the most compelling muse; and to my son Nicholas, who is non-verbal and extremely Special. I played classical music that was put in his isolette in the NICU. While he cannot communicate, his passion for classical music inspires me every day.

Link to GirlTalkHQ regarding my Mother

Who or what have been the most significant influences on your career?

My mother remains the beginning of everything. Beethoven and Chopin were part of the atmosphere of our home, almost like another language spoken in the family. Through her, I learned that music was not decoration. It was an emotional necessity.

The composers who shaped Descending Thirds were also significant influences on me personally. I’m mad for Bach as is Conrad in the novel, our genius savant. Beethoven embodies the battle between limitation and will. Schubert carries an ache that can become indistinguishable from beauty. Rachmaninoff gives us emotional sweep without apology. Prokofiev is danger, volatility and modernity. Debussy taught me about colour and atmosphere, and Chopin about intimacy – the ability to make something whispered feel enormous.

But my musical influences are not limited to composers. Cinema taught me to think musically. A film has rhythm, phrasing, counterpoint, repetition, crescendo and silence. A cut can function like a percussive strike; a sustained shot can be a held note. Dialogue has tempo. Characters can move in harmony or dissonance. I have always written and directed with an awareness of those things, even when there is no literal music playing. And I always use one or two composers to be the backbone of every project I do and listen to them incessantly from pre-production right through to editing.

The central musical idea in Descending Thirds comes through Conrad: that music is already everywhere – the wind, footsteps, machinery, conversation and the spaces between sounds. In the novel he hears the legato movement of water, the rhythmic exchange of tennis balls, leaves becoming snare drums in the wind, and even the pizzicato of a coffee maker.

More recently, Mary Jane Wells and Sally Bishop Melbourne have influenced how I understand my own work. Mary Jane revealed rhythms, humour and emotional undercurrents in the prose that even I had not fully heard. Sally gave an audible life to music that had previously existed only in my imagination. Both reminded me that collaboration does not diminish an artist’s vision. With the right people, it expands it.

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

The greatest challenge has been keeping faith with the original impulse of a work while surviving the practical realities required to bring it into the world. In other words – funding!

Independent filmmaking teaches you very quickly that artistic vision and commerce are uneasy but unavoidable companions a thread pursued throughout the novel. You may begin with something deeply personal, but eventually that work must pass through financing, production, distribution, marketing and an industry that often wants certainty from an art form built upon risk. The challenge is knowing where to compromise and where compromise would damage the reason the work exists.

Descending Thirds presented another kind of challenge. I carried and refined the story for approximately twenty-five years. I had to translate music into language without turning the book into a musicology lesson. The technical details had to be credible, but the emotional experience had to come first. I want readers to fall in love with classical music. They shouldn’t need conservatory training to understand what Alexandra experiences when she performs.

Perfectionism has also been a lifelong challenge. And while pursuing it, not feeling entirely like an imposter. Both issues that Alexandra experiences as an artist. Yes, we must push ourselves to the limit, but perfectionism can also become a form of paralysis or cruelty.

That pressure is not confined to classical music. Film and publishing have their own versions of it. The work is never finished enough, financed enough, marketable enough or safe enough. My challenge has been to continue making things despite that.

Of which works are you most proud?

My book Descending Thirds, and especially the extraordinary audiobook created with Mary Jane Wells and Sally Bishop Melbourne.

The novel is probably the longest and most complex “score” I have ever written. Music is not simply its setting. It is the language through which the characters love, compete, betray one another, conceal themselves and, occasionally, tell the truth. The challenge of the audiobook was to make that musical dimension audible without overwhelming the narrative.

Multi Award winning Voice Artist, Mary Jane Wells did far more than narrate the book. She performed it. She gave the characters distinct inner lives but never reduced them to voices or theatrical effects. Alexandra’s reserve, Sebastian’s magnetism, Conrad’s stillness, Chandra’s irreverence and the many other tonal and cultural distinctions had to coexist within one performance. Mary Jane brought emotional precision, intelligence and an extraordinary sense of musical timing to the language. Her ability to deliver every shade of nuance and subtext makes the listener experience so much more depth than I knew was possible.

Mary introduced me to Sally Bishop Melbourne who then undertook something I had once thought impossible: she composed the music the two brothers, Sebastian and Conrad compose. They couldn’t be more different and so she had to imagine what Conrad and Sebastian would create, how their musical identities would differ and how those differences would reveal character. The audiobook contains more than seventy musical moments, bringing together passages from the classical repertoire with Sally’s original compositions.

Several of the classical works were drawn from my mother’s repertoire, so the finished recording became personal on multiple levels. It brought together my mother’s musical legacy, the fictional world I had carried for so many years, Mary Jane’s performance and Sally’s original music. A side note: Sally had suffered the passing of her son, Will, a few years earlier and had been in a state of depression. Composing for the two brothers created in her a new zest for life and creativity.

Descending Thirds has become so healing on so many levels. It was so lovely to see and hear the excitement in her voice and music as she would share the pieces with me.

The moments of which I am proudest are those in which the boundaries disappear—when narration, character, classical music and original composition become one dramatic language. It is one of the rare occasions when the finished work became larger than the version I had heard privately in my imagination.

What kind of things in regular life inspire your creative ideas?

I always write what I know—not necessarily as literal autobiography, but from emotional truths I have lived at the very deepest level. My films, scripts and the documentary I made about my son, Little Man, have grown out of some of the most extreme experiences of the human condition: love, disability, motherhood, sacrifice, grief, survival and the complicated ways people try to make themselves bearable to themselves. My next feature, do we not grieve, explores the severe trauma I experienced after the loss of my sister—my best friend—to an extremely violent suicide. I am drawn to the moments when our carefully constructed selves begin to fracture: how do we handle fear, tragedy, the unexpected and who do we become under the klieg lights during those events in our lives.

I believe this emotional honesty is why many people watch my films repeatedly. The circumstances may not mirror their own lives, but the feelings ring true, resonate and can become part of their healing.

My children remain an enormous source of inspiration: Gabrielle’s birth awakened the first impulse that became Descending Thirds, while Nicholas’s experience of classical music reminds me that our most powerful responses to art are often immediate, instinctive and beyond explanation.

What is your definition of success?

Success is completing a work without betraying the reason it came to you—and then allowing it to reach another person.

Awards, reviews, sales and recognition matter. Anyone who says they do not matter is probably being slightly disingenuous. Art requires an audience, and artists need practical ways to continue working. But those things cannot be the final measure.

My deeper concern is whether the work has emotional integrity. Did I tell the truth of the story as fully as I could? Did I resist making it safer merely to make it easier to sell? Did I always ask the question, “what is the best thing for this specific project?” And what survives the distance between what I imagined and what I was capable of creating?

Then there is the audience. Success occurs when someone recognizes part of themselves in the work—even when their life bears no obvious resemblance to the characters’ lives. A reader may know nothing about international piano competitions but understand Alexandra’s fear of not being enough. Someone may never have composed a note but recognize Conrad’s desire to create without becoming a commodity. Another person may see in Sebastian the terrible distance between ability and the art of packaging and commerce.

But for me probably the greatest measure of success are those fans who have written and told me they have seen one of my films ten times, fifty times. They watch one of my films weekly. And those fans who use my films to heal from their own broken stories.

What advice would you give to young or aspiring musicians?

Learn your craft so thoroughly that technique becomes freedom rather than confinement. Practise with discipline, but do not confuse punishment with discipline. They are not the same thing.

Protect the part of yourself that first responded to music before you understood whether you were playing it “correctly.” Technique is indispensable, but technique alone cannot explain why one performance leaves us admiring and another leaves us changed. In Descending Thirds, Alexandra’s first teacher tells her that anyone can execute notes, but not everyone possesses the soul or feeling for music. She also makes it clear that the gift does not excuse the work: practice, practice more, and then practice again.

Be absolutely passionate about your craft. If you’re not, then the piano, writing, making films becomes a massive amount of work without reward. It’s too competitive and arduous not to be driven by a relentless compulsion to do the work.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

Classical music does not need to become less profound. It needs to become less forbidding.

We need serious, sustained music education in schools, access to instruments and live performance, affordable tickets and programs that reach people where they actually live. A child should not require affluent parents or proximity to a major city to encounter an orchestra or touch a piano.

We also need better storytelling. Tell audiences what was emotionally at stake when a piece was written. Reveal the human being inside the monument. I found while researching for Descending Thirds incredible stories about so many composers. They were not just marble busts. They were ambitious, difficult, desirous, frightened, funny, competitive and frequently chaotic. I loved their flawed humanity.

Descending Thirds and its audiobook are my attempt to create an entry point to classical music. A listener may arrive because of the searing triangular love story and discover Rachmaninoff; another may arrive for the music and become absorbed in the characters.

The tension between accessibility and artistic truth is examined repeatedly in the novel. One character argues that the performer’s job is to excite the public and make people like the music; another asks whether a musician’s obligation is instead to remain true to how they feel it. I do not think those aims have to be enemies. Accessibility is not simplification. It is invitation.

What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about which you think we should be?

The human cost of excellence. We celebrate the prodigy, the winner, the standing ovation and the apparently flawless performance. We are less willing to ask what was required psychologically to produce them. Humiliation is still sometimes defended as rigorous teaching. Anxiety is treated as weakness. Physical injury, isolation, eating disorders, substance dependence and depression can be regarded as unfortunate but almost predictable by-products of serious artistic life.

Young musicians are often taught to make their entire identities dependent upon ranking, casting, competitions, reviews and access to a field with very few places at the top. They are told to become singular while simultaneously being trained to satisfy institutions, juries, conductors, managers, audiences and algorithms. That is a nearly impossible psychological contradiction.

We also need to discuss how easily image can eclipse artistry. Charisma, mythology and marketability have always influenced musical careers, but contemporary media can intensify that pressure until the artist becomes a brand performing an approved version of the self. Descending Thirds explores all these dynamics — the danger of a world in which perception, promotion and commercial mythology begin to carry as much authority as the music itself. Sebastian even argues that audiences prefer the beautiful myth—that performers such as he make music accessible because they embody what people want to believe.

There must be room for ambition, discipline and exacting standards. But we should be able to distinguish rigor from cruelty and excellence from self-destruction.

What next? Where would you like to be in 10 years time?

The immediate next chapter is to bring Descending Thirds to the screen as a limited series. The novel was always intensely visual to me: the competition halls, the opposing pianos, the orchestra’s and concert halls, Antonia’s mythological gardens, the changing decades and, above all, the physical experience of music passing through the characters. A limited series would allow the story the time it needs. It could preserve the psychological complexity of Alexandra, Sebastian and Conrad while finally allowing audiences to hear the music that governs their lives. I pitch it as an Epic Emmy Prestige Limited Mini-Series.

I’m also in development on my next feature, do we not grieve and publishing my next novel, Armand’s Tango in 2027.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Spending as much time with my extended intended family of six adult children and my precious granddaughter, Ocean. I identify first and foremost as a Mom or “Granny CoCo”.

Creating. I have been blessed in my life to have so many people make it possible for me to continue making films, shows, and writing books. I am further blessed by a workaholic muse. I am utterly passionate about my work and am extremely grateful for this endless drive. 

The other things I am passionate about are the 4 P’s: Puppy (Lady Bugs) Puzzles, Poker and Pot!

What is your most treasured possession?

I’ve never been a “thing” person. My treasured possessions are my family!

What is your present state of mind?

Grateful, restless, slightly overwhelmed and deeply determined.

Completing Descending Thirds after carrying it for twenty-five years might have felt like an ending. Instead, the book, audiobook and developing screen adaptation have made it feel like the beginning of an entirely new creative life. I am trying to remain open to that without becoming so consumed by the destination that I fail to hear what is happening along the way. Process has always been key for me.

Descending Thirds by Nicole Conn is available now in paperback and audiobook format

Audiobook Trailer: https://descendingthirds.com/descending-third-audiobook/

Paperback Trailer: www.descendingthirds.com

Nicole Conn

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

I began conducting seriously at University before embarking on postgraduate conducting studies in London and beginning a freelance life. I had been surrounded my music growing up, singing and playing in choirs and orchestras, and doing lots of accompanying. Conducting and composing became natural extensions of this, and I haven’t looked back since.

Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life?

The musicians around me making the music, and those who have gone before to create it.

What, for you, is the most challenging part of being a conductor? And the most fulfilling aspect?

Conducting requires hard work, determination, patience, planning, none of which are particularly easy – but this pays off when making great music with others, whether untrained amateurs or seasoned professionals, and sharing this with audiences, however large or small. Nothing beats that.

As a conductor, how do you communicate your ideas about a work to the choir/orchestra?

Being a performing musician is all about listening and respect: listening to yourself and others, and respecting everyone around you and the score in front of you. Communicating your ideas as a conductor is about listening to the music around you and suggesting ways to craft the sound organically in a collaborative process that includes gesture, body language, and eyes. Most of the work takes place in rehearsal, but there always needs to be an element of spontaneity in the performance itself.

How exactly do you see your role? Inspiring the players/singers? Conveying the vision of the composer?

Fully respecting the score in front of you and bringing it to life with the best possible performance is the single most important role for any conductor. Especially so when the composer is present!

Is there one work that you would love to conduct?

There are so many works I’d love to conduct. I had been hugely looking forward to conducting my first St Matthew Passion in April 2020 in the Netherlands, but alas it was not to be because of the Coronavirus outbreak. But, as with all musical events that have had to be postponed, I suspect that it will make any rescheduled performance in the coming seasons even more special.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?

I count myself fortunate to have seen so much of the world and performed in some extraordinary venues already, and every occasion has provided me with its own cherished memory. Performing in Barcelona’s Palau, Washington’s Library of Congress, Shanghai Symphony Hall, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sydney Opera House, Wigmore Hall – they have been and always will be significant memories for me. But equally special have been an outdoor concert perched on top of Penang Hill in Malaysia, a surround-sound recital scattered around Los Angeles’ Bradbury Building, and a bare-footed antiphonal performance standing in the River Jordan either side of the Baptismal Site. I love travelling, making new friends, and sharing my music making around the world – so I look forward to exploring more in the years to come.

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

I admire so many. But if I had to name a few it would have to include Bach, Shostakovich, John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, Janáček, and René Jacobs.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Music making at the highest possible level, whatever the circumstances.

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

Respect each other, respect the music, be kind, be encouraging, be prepared to work hard, don’t waste time, and listen.

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

Still making great music with colleagues old and new.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Great company, music, food, and wine.

What is your most treasured possession?

My husband!

What is your present state of mind?

Calm and grateful: the current lockdown because of the Coronavirus crisis has given the world a rare moment to pause, think, and reflect – and to be grateful for the extraordinary work of our medical professionals who are battling to save lives.

Graham Ross conducts the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge and the Dmitri Ensemble in a new recording of music Arvo Pärt, Peteris Vasks and James Macmillan. Further details

Graham Ross has established an exceptional reputation as a sought-after conductor and composer of a very broad range of repertoire.  His performances around the world and his extensive discography have earned consistently high international praise, including a Diapason d’Or, Le Choix de France Musique and a Gramophone Award nomination.  As a guest conductor he has worked with Australian Chamber Orchestra, Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Aurora Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra, and Salomon Orchestra, making his debuts in recent seasons with the BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, DR VokalEnsemblet (Danish National Vocal Ensemble), London Mozart Players, European Union Baroque Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as acting as Assistant Conductor to Vladimir Jurowski.  He is co-founder and Principal Conductor of The Dmitri Ensemble and, since 2010, Fellow and Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he conducts the internationally-renowned Choir.

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(Artisti photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

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Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music?

I was naturally good at music (I could play by ear from a very young age) but did not come from a musical family so I was a bit of an oddity. I started the clarinet aged around 10, having lessons at my local comprehensive school. We didn’t go to many concerts or arts events when I was young, but my parents were very supportive and I loved the local North East Derbyshire Music Service and my County Wind Band. They were very ‘happy places’, run by passionate, dedicated and inspirational musicians. I didn’t really know much about a career in music and I sort of vaguely drifted into music college (Royal Northern College of Music) – which was a bit of a shock. What had been ‘fun’ suddenly felt super-competitive and I think this was the point when I really started working very hard indeed.

But something wasn’t quite right. I soon realised I didn’t get the same buzz from playing in an orchestra as many of my fellow students did. But I did love the theatres, the museums, the art galleries, the urban architecture of Manchester. I used to wander around the abandoned Hulme Crescents (the largest public housing development in Europe, described as ‘Europe’s worst housing stock’ – demolished 1994) feeling sad for it, and I think my fascination with the way that people (audiences) ‘consume’ art and design stems from these days. I started composing (lessons with the wonderful Tony Gilbert) and doubled up my course – two simultaneous programmes of study as a clarinetist and composer. I also loved chamber music and really enjoyed playing contemporary music – it felt more ‘theatrical’. The more unconventional and challenging it was, the better – I was a bit of a thrill seeker. The year I played Max’s Eight Songs For A Mad King was a real turning point. Alan Hacker used to come and give us clarinet masterclasses. He would bring his reed knife and whittle all our reeds down until they were paper-thin. It was like playing a kazoo after he’d finished and we soon learned not to bring our best reeds along! But I really enjoyed his classes and, through him, having what felt like a close connection with the incredible composers he worked with.

I pursued music as a clarinetist for decades, playing lots of new repertoire and chamber music, mixing it up with composition and academia – but still not feeling it was 100% ‘right’. It was only when I was in my late 30s that the penny finally dropped. A colleague pointed out how ‘theatrically’ I described things – and I suddenly realised what was missing from my purely musical life – theatre. It was a peculiar light-bulb moment as I’m certainly no actor and the desire was to MAKE theatrical events rather than be in them. I started to create shows and, a few years later, I resigned from my senior academic post at Guildhall to set up my own company. Goldfield Productions make ‘adventures in sound’. We work with composers, puppeteers, writers, artists, animators, inventors etc to create extraordinary touring cross-arts shows but we always have the highest quality chamber music at the heart of what we do. Everything I do now seems to be connected in some way to both music and theatre and I love it! Goldfield’s work with young people is really important to me too – I’m very passionate about that.

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

I’m inspired by artists in other fields – which I think I like to apply or ‘translate’ into musical ideas. The ones I couldn’t imagine life without – John Berger, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes…the breath-taking imagination of Italo Calvino, Angela Carter….I have many books of fairy-story collections, on design & architecture (especially ‘ways of living’) and amateur music making (past and present). I am often inspired by museum and gallery curators and how they tell narrative through objects and in a space. I love what Paola Antonelli (senior curator of architecture and design) did with MOMA (making design relevant to everyone) and what Paul Holdengraber did with the New York Public Library (turning it into a huge conversation for the City and beyond) – he calls himself a ‘curator of Public Curiosity’. Art and music doesn’t exists in a vacuum for me – its always in a dynamic relationship with those who ‘consume’ it. The things that inspire me the most are those that have engaged people with art in extraordinary ways.

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

I juggle a LOT now. In addition to running Goldfield as Artistic Director (and being the sole fund-raiser), I also work as a freelance producer for many other companies and venues. Writing (words) has also become a rather big thing. I’ve written 5 children’s productions and, since 2017, I’ve written and presented stories for BBC Radio 3 – a most unexpected outlet for exploration and discovery which I absolutely love. I’ve written around 140 stories so far – each on a topic that I research from scratch. My shelves are rammed with fascinating books that I may never have otherwise bought! I try to play the clarinet every day – even if I don’t have a run of concerts coming up. Playing the clarinet is still very much part of my identity and although I do so many other things that compete for time, I’d hate to give up performing and making music with my chamber music friends. I probably ought to have more sleep and exercise regularly – fitting those in would be a genuine challenge!

So there is the on-going personal challenge of keeping all the balls in the air, and combining this with the kids and family life. But there are also the wider challenges of sustainability for Goldfield and the arts in general, short and long-term funding, trying to ensure that funders are not entirely shaping the art we make, how we can tackle the reduction of music education in schools, how we can possibly do justice to the huge volume of new music being created …I guess these are everybody’s challenges, but they are constantly on my mind.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

I’m very proud of Goldfield’s recent Erika Fox CD for NMC Records. We (Goldfield Productions) often work with composers over a long period of time in a bespoke way (‘what do they need that we can provide?’) and we aim to have a transformative impact on their development / careers. But the relationship with Erika and her music exceeded all expectations! She was a true ‘neglected’ voice. Two years ago, the only way to listen to her music was to go round to her house and put on one of the cassette recordings she had salvaged from the 70s and 80s when her music was often played and won numerous awards. With huge support from funders, trustees and NMC records, Goldfield set out to record six of Fox’s chamber works on what would be the very first album of her music, released in June 2019 in her 82nd year. Press and public response has been overwhelmingly positive and Erika’s composition career has literally taken off again with new commissions coming in and high profile recognition and performances in the UK and abroad. Its amazing that this sort of change is possible. Its a privilege to be part of it but the credit is due to Erika – she is a genuine, remarkable and unique voice. We just had to get the music out there.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

I still love playing new music and I’m definitely happiest in a chamber music setting. I’ve got a super-flexible embouchure so anything that involves lots of colours, multi-phonics, endurance and generally finding non-clarinetty type sounds is good. I like to discover and learn new musical languages – learning Erika Fox’s language last year was fascinating. That said, I also think I play Brahms well and I do a cracking good Copland concerto. For sheer pleasure, I play unaccompanied Bach on the clarinet….but only in private.

How do you make your production choices from year to year?

I seem to have an inexhaustible number of ideas (kept in scrap books, note-pads, on my phone, in my head….) but they don’t all come to fruition. I’ll think about stuff for ages – playing with it, developing it in my mind, testing it out in different imaginary contexts…is it a piece of theatre… radio..a site-specific work? I don’t think ‘I’m going to make an opera’. I think ‘I’ve got an idea– what will it become?’ I’m really careful about what I invest time in. It has to be right. ‘Right’ means – a great artistic idea expressed in the most succinct way, with the best people to deliver it, something that is wanted or needed right now (even if people don’t know it yet!), a wholly balanced proposition (budget, aims, outcomes, reach, partners, people, venues etc). There is something beautifully satisfying about a production blueprint that is ‘right’. I do a lot of brutal self-culling and whittling down of ideas to make sure that they are truly the best they can be and I’m constantly looking at how we are communicating art and ideas to audiences.

Here’s what happens when you make a show: initial idea and brainstorming (‘OMG this is going to be amazing’); long period of fund-raising and work going into development (‘OMG this is really hard’): period of intense challenges (‘OMG this is going to be awful’): finally, the home straight as it all comes together (‘OMG this is going to be amazing!’) Four stages. Every. Single. Time.

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

I’ve put shows into all sorts of venues – museums, tiny churches, vast warehouses, concert halls, theatres, schools, outdoor spaces, galleries… but the Parabola Theatre at Cheltenham Music Festival stands out as special because it was the first venue that gave me a shot at being a producer. I am forever indebted to Leksi Patterson and Meurig Bowen who – for reasons best known to themselves! – believed me when I strode over to their table in the Barbican café in 2012, waving a small book of poems, proclaiming ‘I’m going to make an opera!’ I had literally NO idea how to do it. And – even worse – I didn’t know that I didn’t know! (Hey – how hard can it be? It’s just like chamber music with some singers, right?) What a learning curve. I raised a budget of c. £170,000 (how? Fear of failure and gritty determination), put together an opera company and an 8-date tour for what was going to become Nicola LeFanu’s Tokaido Road. After that, I DID know how to make an opera. It nearly killed me, but I loved it and it set me off in a new direction. Cheltenham Festival gave me was the venue for the world premiere and we’ve been back many times since with other shows. I always feel very happy in the Parabola. I’ve played on the stage a lot too – sometimes in my own shows, sometimes in other peoples’ productions.

Who are your favourite musicians?

I really do have an enormous amount of empathy for a lot of music. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of lesser-known, lesser-loved music from the 1960s. Thanks to some brilliant listening-lists from friends, I have discovered and re-discovered works by Lumsdaine, Dale Roberts, Bacewicz, Ustvolskaya, Bedford, Jolas, Subotnick, Gilbert to name but a few. Its an often neglected and overlooked decade, yet the music is beautiful, well-crafted, shocking, surprising, fun, funny and wonderful. I am pondering what to do with a lot of this repertoire …. I’m very driven to play and programme the brilliant music we already have.

What is your definition of success?

For me, I think that ‘success’ is often to do with facilitating things and usually connected to making what I consider to be positive change. For example, someone telling you that they enjoyed contemporary music / opera / classical music for the first time because of something you did… when a young person says that the project they have taken part in has been a total game-changer for them… when you can bring the music of a composer to a new generation of listeners… when an artist you have commissioned has been able to push themselves in a new creative direction…

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

Be nice and be kind. Be polite and courteous to everyone (even…especially…more ‘challenging’ people…we’ve all got our own problems and these can surface in all sorts of ways). Never forget that making performance art / music takes a whole team and the person that books the venue / fetches the coffee etc is as much an essential part of that team as the director or leading singer. Be yourself and have fun, but always do your job and follow your passion with total professionalism. Be the sort of person you would want to work with…smart, hard-working, reliable, calm, generous, open-minded, honest, cheerful, considerate, efficient etc No one is perfect (I very much include myself in that), but try your best.

Listen to your instincts. If I had paid more attention to my love of art, galleries, theatre and architecture in my 20s (rather than trying to suppress it and be a ‘proper’ musician) I might have set up my company years earlier!

Be open to change. Sometimes, the path you think is ahead of you veers off in a new direction. Another door opens, you meet someone or see something which becomes a catalyst to dramatically change the way you think about things. The arts are volatile – be good at adapting to change within organisations and also within yourself.

Love what you do. That’s really important because working in the arts in the UK is tough. There is a lot of competitiveness and not enough money. But on the plus side you will get to work with some of the most extraordinary, talented and marvelous people that ever existed, your life will be rich with culture and you will – hopefully – enhance the lives of others too. That’s not a bad way to live 🙂

Build up strategies for resilience. At some point, things will get tough but its part of what makes you successful. You learn far more when things don’t quite work out than when everything is smooth sailing. You learn about yourself, your attitude to risk, your own definition of ‘success’. You don’t really know just how resilient, strong and determined you are until you have to be. Patience is important too – it can sometimes take a long time to get things off the ground.

Stay curious and keep questioning things. Don’t be afraid to keep challenging yourself and the world around you and asking how you can you best express the things you want to say.

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

I’d like Goldfield to still be flourishing, growing and evolving. I’d like to push myself more as a writer. I would only return to composition if I felt I had something to say, but I wouldn’t rule it out. I would like to have made great strides in my thinking about how audiences ‘consume’ music and how this understanding feeds into the art and events we make. I would like to be as curious, as energised, buzzy and optimistic as I feel now.

What are your most treasured possessions?

1. My books.

2. A necklace with a plaster cast of an ammonite that my parents made in the late 1970s. I wear it a lot.

3. The things the kids made for me when they were little – there is so much unconditional love embodied in these tiny, wonky, honest objects and each one tells a story.

What is your present state of mind?

Curious, energised, buzzy, optimistic.

Kate Romano is the founder and Artistic Director of Goldfield Productions.  She is also an independent producer of opera and music theatre and is passionate about story-telling and cross-arts productions.

Kate is a writer for the BBC Orchestras and the Proms. A regular BBC Radio 3 presenter, she has written and narrated around 150 short stories for Essential Classics and the 2019 Our Classical Century season leading up to the Proms. She has written and directed Goldfield’s five acclaimed children’s productions which have been seen by over 9000 children in 60 primary schools. In June 2019, Kate took up the post of Director of Aspire! at the Lichfield Music & Literature Festivals, developing a new outreach and participation programme for the festival.

As a clarinetist (chamber musician and soloist), she has performed at most major UK venues and festivals. Kate has given over 70 premieres and has recorded for NMC, Metier and Minabel. Her debut solo CD was awarded 5* reviews from Gramophone and ‘Pick of the Month’ in the chamber music section for the BBC Music Magazine. Kate studied at the Royal Northern College of Music where she graduated with first class honours, she holds an MPhil from Cambridge University and a doctorate in composition from Kings College London. From 2003  – 2016 she held a senior academic post at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and co-founded the schools’ flagship doctoral programme. In 2014, Kate was awarded a Fellowship from the School. 

kateromano.co.uk

 

(photo: Chris Frazer Smith)