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

I took up piano as a hobby after my grandmother asked if I’d be interested in learning it. Growing up on a farm in southern Tasmania meant there wasn’t much else to do, so I said yes. I didn’t decide to pursue a career in music until the end of my school years, when the head of music suggested I apply for conservatoires in London.

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

Probably my dad and my teacher. The former because he is inadvertently responsible for much of my taste in music, and my teacher Joanna MacGregor because she allowed and helped me to take a path less travelled in my musical development (no repertoire is off-limits!), and instilled in me a passion for new music.

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

Moving to the other side of the world by myself at age 18.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

I couldn’t say for certain, but in recent times I have been particularly pleased with a performance I gave of Michael Finnissy’s 2nd Piano Concerto with Ensemble x.y and An Assembly. Sometimes things do hold together when you need them to.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

I think I play modern/new music best, but I also like to think that I play Romantic-era works quite well too.

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

Briefly:

It depends on the concert and the context of the concert. One thing I hate vehemently is uninspired programming. A programme needs to be more than a series of pieces one after the other without connection other than ‘similarity’ or ‘contrast’. I like forming narratives, be it stylistic, historical, emotional etc. and I feel it is necessary to talk to an audience (either verbally or through your own programme notes) to offer this information, and offer an approach to listening. I strive to choose programmes that will be relevant to either the venue, the context of the concert or a featured piece. So this is primarily what drives my repertoire choices. It usually means I have to learn new pieces quite regularly, but that’s fine.

Who are your favourite musicians?

I couldn’t say, it would change from week to week or day to day even.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

I don’t know, mostly because I have a bad memory. Although I once did a certain concert with a certain friend of mine where between us we performed about two thirds of Boulez’s output for piano(s) and in retrospect it was a completely ridiculous idea and I have no idea how we pulled it off.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Owning a home.

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

Do things other than music at least as regularly as you do music.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I don’t know. But I think if I owned at least three pianos, and a celesta, and maybe throw in a few harpsichords and/or a clavichord and a few other things with keyboards I reckon that would do for a start. You could ask me again then.

Joseph Havlat is a St John’s Smith Square Young Artist for 2019/20

Joseph Havlat was born in Hobart, Australia, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Prof. Joanna MacGregor from 2012 – 18. Joseph has performed in major concert venues around the UK and in Europe, America, Japan and Australia as a soloist and as part of chamber groups and orchestras. He is a keen sock enthusiast and chamber musician, performing frequently with multiple groups – Tritium (clarinet) trio, Trio Derazey, Duo Ex Libris as well as the LSO percussion ensemble, with whom he toured Japan in 2018 giving the premiere of a work by John Adams. Passionate about contemporary music, he is a founding member and artistic director of contemporary music collective Ensemble x.y and is also an avid composer, having written for the aforementioned ensembles, among others. Having now graduated from the Academy, he is there serving as a Piano fellow for 2018-19, having also been a Chamber music fellow for the previous year.

josephhavlat.com

music.

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

I knew when I was about 12 that the piano was going to be an essential part of my life. I was quite shy and reserved as a child, and felt I could only express certain things and be truly myself when playing the piano. It felt immediately like a close friend that was always there and with whom I could share all the ups and downs of life. I did not know then what being a professional pianist meant, I just knew that music would always be an essential part of my life.

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

There are so many. If I was going to put one at the top of the list, I would say Ruth Nye – she was my teacher during my studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal College of Music. She was not only my mentor but rapidly became like family, and remains to this day an inspiration. She has shaped my artistic, technical and philosophical development like no other person in my life. Also Nikolai Demidenko, Murray Perahia, and Dominique Merlet all taught me crucial things at various stages of my development.

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

Challenges go hand in hand with a performing career. Of course, I have had to go through many stressful situations, dealing with tight deadlines and intensive performing periods. But these are to be expected and it is nothing special. A good example of that was when I did my first concerto recording. This was a three concerto album, performed live at the Cadogan Hall in one concert. The very next day, I had a recital at the Wigmore Hall. I remember coming home late that night after the Cadogan performance and practising until about 4 am.

But the most important challenge is to get up everyday and thrive to reach a deeper artistic understanding of the music I am playing, to always question, to remain insatiably curious and never stop learning. In art, movement is everything. The music grows with me everyday, and I hope that the second I have performed or recorded something, my interpretation will have already started to evolve.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

Pride is not really a feeling I would associate with a successful performance or recording. But I guess more a feeling of exhilaration during a special moment shared with an audience or in the intimacy of a recording studio with my producer and recording team. But perhaps if I had to choose one, I would say my first Wigmore Hall recital; I remember doing a crazy programme, including Bach-Busoni chaconne, Beethoven Sonata op. 110 and Liszt B minor Sonata. I remember the Beethoven op. 110 in that hall as one of these rare moments when you feel you are no longer physically there. There was a real link between me, the music and the audience that night.

In terms of recordings, I think my latest Hyperion concerto recording of works by Bronsart and Urspruch (two Liszt students) with the BBC Scottish Symphony and Eugene Tzigane is particularly interesting. It was a fantastic experience for me to record these hardly known romantic works and bring them to life with such wonderful musicians. My Chopin preludes album as well; I think we managed to capture an intimate sound that allows one to hear all the details, yet distant enough that the poetry remained intact.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

I am not sure about using the word best, but I would say that this non-exhaustive list of pieces are some of the works that are very close to me: Liszt B minor sonata and Après une lecture du Dante, Ravel Gaspard de la nuit, Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, Schumann Études Symphoniques, Beethoven sonata op. 110, Chopin preludes op. 28, Schubert sonata in Bb D. 960, Mozart concerto in D minor K. 466 and Brahms concerto No. 1 in D minor.

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

Mostly of my own choosing: the piano repertoire is extremely vast and there are so many works that I want to explore! Though choosing a programme has to be done carefully. It is like putting together a meal. I will only perform something if I feel I have something truly special to say playing this work, that it has become a part of me. Also, other considerations come into play. The venue is one; I might not choose to play the same thing in a big London hall and in an outdoor summer festival. Also, I might be in the process of recording specific works, and of course a particular season might coincide with a composer’s birthday, for example, Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020.

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

For me Wigmore Hall is very special. I have wonderful memories there. It has perfect acoustics and is just the right size to be intimate yet not too close; you can hear everything right down to the very last row.

Who are your favourite musicians?

There are many: Claudio Arrau would be one of the most important ones. His sound, colours, depth of interpretation, but perhaps more importantly, he is the artist who resonates with me the most in terms of philosophy and approach to performing. He was completely uncompromising, putting the music and respect for the score at the centre of everything with such integrity. But also Dinu Lipatti, Ferruccio Busoni, Alfred Cortot, Martha Argerich, Yehudi Menuhin, Jacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein and many many more!

What is your most memorable concert experience?

I think it would have to be the first time I performed Brahms’s first piano concerto as a young student, conducted by Andrew Litton. I had won the Royal College of Music’s concerto competition. We had three big rehearsals, which of course never happens in the professional world. This allowed for some truly special music making – Andrew Litton was amazing, the orchestra was full of passionate and eager music students wanting to give everything they had to the music and the conductor. I hold the memory of this concert very close to my heart.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

That is a very hard question. But at the same time, as strange as it may seem, I don’t think I spend too much time thinking about it. I guess, doing what I love to do for as many years as I am lucky enough to be able to do it! Being a musician is who I am no matter what, music is my oxygen and it’s at the very core of my identity.

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

I would say that for me, the most important thing is to keep remembering what is at the centre of it all – the music. That as performers we are a middleman, a link between the music and the audience. The hardest thing I think on this journey is to keep a healthy psychological compass and to not fall into the traps of vanity or self-doubt, as both extremes are equally destructive. It’s a delicate balance: one has to remember that if you are a talented artist, you have a unique message and personality; that is what you have to cherish, nurture and put at the service of your art to the best of your ability with integrity and complete dedication.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

All these precious simple moments spent with my wife and baby daughter.

To be on stage performing beautiful music, on these rare moments when everything clicks into place and there is a real link made with the audience is a wonderful feeling.

 

Emmanuel Despax will be performing live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune programme on 29th April at 5pm, ahead of his performance of both Chopin concerti with string quintet at the Menuhin hall on 30th April (more information)

“Poetry fused with breathtaking technical perfection” (Concertclassic) and “A master colourist with genius-like ability” (Classical Source) is how the brilliant French pianist Emmanuel Despax was described after his acclaimed recitals at the Louvre auditorium in Paris and Wigmore Hall in London.

Despax is establishing himself as an artist whose interpretations bring a rare sincerity and imagination to the music. He performs internationally and is regularly broadcast on many radio stations including France Musique, BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Medici TV.

His latest Romantic Piano Concerto album for Hyperion – with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Tzigane – received a glowing review from Gramophone: “It’s hard to imagine it being better played than by these forces, Emmanuel Despax displaying a wide range of colours combined with an easy virtuosity … It requires prodigious playing from soloist and orchestral musicians to make it sound as effortless as here, and that it does is tribute as much to conductor Eugene Tzigane as to Despax.” The recording features two romantic concerti by students of Liszt, Hans Bronsart and Anton Urspruch.

His previous Chopin preludes album on Signum Classics was chosen as “Album of the week” by Classic FM in the UK and received a five-star review on Diapason in France: “The young artist’s poetic work of entomology left me speechless. Rarely has the text of these 24 pieces been thus read, enhancing the least articulation or pedalling detail in relation to tempi, sound weight, projection from a prelude to the next, from a group of preludes to another, transmuting his Fazioli into a 1900s Pleyel, iridescent as needs be – intimate and very beautiful.”

In his native France, Despax has appeared in prestigious venues such as Paris’ Salle Gaveau, Salle Cortot, the Louvre Auditorium and the Festival International des Nuits Pianistiques in Aix-en-Provence. He performs regularly across Europe and has given recitals at the Fazioli Auditorium in Italy, the Gasteig Blackbox in Munich and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Belgium.

UK highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham, the Chipping Campden and Petworth Festivals and a performance of three piano concerti at Cadogan Hall. This concert was recorded live and released on Signum Classics. “Emmanuel Despax is a formidable talent, fleet of finger, elegant of phrase and a true keyboard colourist.” (Gramophone)

Having studied in the UK at the Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal College of Music with Ruth Nye, one of Claudio Arrau’s finest students, Despax draws inspiration from a long tradition of pure artistry and uncompromising commitment to the score. His passion lies in retaining and regaining the true role of a performer, as a faithful vessel for the composer’s message.

Now based in London, Despax has performed with many UK orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Sinfonia, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

emmanueldespax.com

 

Artist photo: Luca Sage

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

I first discovered the piano at a friend’s birthday party when I was six years old. They had an upright piano in the living room, and that interesting large object immediately caught my attention as something that looked very interesting. Later, when most people were outside playing football, I remember climbing onto the piano stool and started just tinkering some notes, and realised that there was a connection between each note, and a kind of weird relationship I couldn’t quite describe – I started to slowly pick out tunes that were stored in my head from my even earlier years at nursery (tunes such as ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’, ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’). It took me a while to pick out full tunes, but I was immediately aware that some of the notes fitted in the tune as the ‘right’ notes in the right order, and some notes which didn’t, and thus were ‘wrong’. I also could somehow differentiate each note in terms of pitch by an instinct – later, I was told that this was perfect pitch. My friend’s mum was impressed, and later phoned up my own mother and told her that she didn’t know I was taking piano lessons, and wanted to know who my piano teacher was. My mother was shocked at all this, and was in confusion with pianos and piano teachers, since it’s something that never really cropped up into her life until that point! A few months later, my mum bought me my first piano (a new upright), and after playing around with the instrument, I began taking lessons.

My passion for composing music came around the same time when I picked up the piano, but it started out as improvisation – I always loved to sit at the piano and make up my own pieces and remembered having tremendous fun! When I was about eight, someone told me that it might be a good idea to start learning to write ideas and improvisations down. A music student, who was a friend of my dad’s, came round to our house and recommended we get a music notation software. I began to play around with that, and would spend hours playing on there and experimenting with different instruments, sounds and styles. I would sometimes perform them to friends and family, and got great fulfilment out of that. However, I didn’t have formal tuition until secondary school, which was a place where I had the chance to open myself up to even more kinds of styles, and refine my composition techniques as well as learning new ones – there was the beginning of my life-long search to find my own compositional voice, integrity, and individuality

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

My parents and my teachers – they have been very supportive with my musical passion ever since the beginning, and have always been there for me. I feel very lucky indeed.

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

For me, the most difficult thing about playing music is not technique – rather, it’s finding the most musical, communicative, faithful, fresh, authentic way of interpreting music, that is true to yourself and to the composer. One of my old piano teachers always emphasised about making the music sound as natural as possible. The process of learning and performing a piece is a deeply fulfilling, but never-ending journey to find the real spirit, character, depth, and true understanding of the piece in terms of its theme and stylistic context, and then, it’s the question of how to convey all that into the interpretation, bearing in mind that, if you’re practicing the right way, every time you work on a piece, you discover something new. The greatest pianists all manage to somehow achieve this – it’s this very essence on how they express and communicate the music that can give audiences goosebumps, move them to tears, or drop their jaws and think ‘wow’. Music is one of the few things in the world that, when unleashed to its full potential, has the power to do just that – to summarise, the biggest challenge for me in music is making music! I am somewhat relieved that this process is never leisurely for me – it’s what motivates me to carry on, and is one of the soul reasons why I love music so much.

As for composition, it’s always a flow of inspiration which leads to many good ideas forming a piece to be written down – the challenge for me, however, is overcoming the self-doubt that usually follows immediately after this. I’m always questioning myself about every minuscule idea I put to paper, and then forgetting about it and continue to do what I’m currently doing. The end result has mainly been positive and gratifying for me. Of course, there’s always the challenge of rehearsing the piece with the player(s), but it’s always the feeling that you want your next piece you write to be somewhat even better than your previous piece that drives me forward, and makes me continue!

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

I always try to put in the same effort and concentration into each performance and recording I do. I am however, pleased with my debut album for Orchid Classics, which will be released in September this year!

Which particular works do you think you perform best?

I always strive to try and bring the same amount of justice to whatever it is I’m playing – I try to convince myself that I’m fully versatile with all kinds of works and styles.

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

It always varies, and usually depends on my mood and my taste at that particularly time. I strive for a kind of variety, and try to include at least one of my own compositions.

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

For me, every single venue, be it large or small, has its own uniqueness and story. I try to look for the best in every venue I play, and what matters for me is how to convey the music in the best way that suits whatever venue I’m in at the time. Also, the warm receptive and enthusiastic audience matters to me more than the venue. I do, however, love venues that are architecturally stimulating.

You are also a composer…. Which musicians/composers have had a significant influence on your composing?

Practically everyone! I’m influenced by such a wide range of genres, styles and composers, that I can think of very few composers and styles I don’t like. But sometimes, I even LIKE listening to a piece just because I DON’T like it, as I find it challenging to digest in someway, which leaves me wanting more. Music that I don’t like is like a puzzle for me – I would spend time listening to it in secret to try and ‘decipher its puzzle’. I’m a big like a vacuum cleaner – everything somehow makes their way into me creative thought-process. This is also why I sometimes find it dangerous to ‘open my doors’ too wide – sometimes I get an ‘influence overload’, which can then lead to the self-doubt I was talking about earlier on. But yet, that’s also a good thing, as it expands my knowledge and makes a mark on the inspiration in my subconscious – it’s a bit of a paradox!

How would you characterise your compositional language?

I’ve always had a natural affinity to write in any style/genre required or thrown at me. I’ve enjoyed writing filmic music, pop songs, folk music pastiches, and hope to write musicals and film scores as well in the future. I have done lots of arrangements of Chinese folk songs and other well-known tunes – usually all through improvisation.

Although, for my concert music, I don’t think my style has settled down firmly yet – it’s continuing to evolve. I’ve always been more fascinated by the inspiration and concept behind a piece, and the musical ideas and how they are used, and that’s why I infrequently think about my music as being ‘tonal’ or ‘atonal’ or not. Having said that, a few years ago, I was enjoying writing music that ended up being almost inadvertently atonal or mixed tonal music, but now it’s starting to edge towards the more tonal side. I’m starting to think there is so much I can experiment and play around new ways to use tonality, and combining them both. Some may say that this is unfortunate, but I personally feel very lucky to be living in a time with so many musical languages at our disposal, and we can write whatever we want – like a painter having lots of different types of paintbrush. I feel lucky to be fluent in so many ‘musical languages’

How do you work (as a composer)?

I’m always improvising and recording myself to help generate ideas. I usually compose with pen and paper, and then put it into a notation programme. I now have several good ideas for pieces I want to write, but haven’t started yet, because I’m currently writing another piece. I try not to write several pieces at once, as I feel it clogs up my mind.

Who are your favourite musicians/composers?

Again too many to list here! I’d feel guilty mentioning someone with the worry of missing someone else out! Although there’s never really been a pianist or composer that I love 100% of everything he/she plays/writes – it’s always a few or more pieces that are my favourite interpretation, or a particular piece by a particular composer that I really love, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I love all other pieces written/played by him/her.

That said, pianists include Argerich, Sokolov, Zimmerman, Horowitz, Hoffman and Cortot to name just a very few. Apart from the great composers of the past eras, such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Bartok, Szymanowski, Stravinsky etc., more recent composers include Arvo Part, Gorecki, Oliver Knussen, James MacMillan, John Adams and many more. Film and musical composers include John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and many more

What is your most memorable concert experience?

I have a few, but from the recent period, I won’t forget performing a solo piano tour in Portland, USA, and as an encore, I offered to do an improvisation on the spot – I’d ask for any member of audience to either come onstage to the piano and play any random notes (which I will base the improvisation on) and any style/composer – this rather intellectual member in the audience shouted ‘how about a piece using only notes G and F#, in the style of Weber and Oscar Peterson’! I accepted the challenge – turns out the audience liked it very much, and they gave me a very warm reception.

Here is an improvisation I did on a famous musical motif from ‘The Hunger Games’ in an Impressionist style: http://sg.abrsm.org/en/about-abrsm/abrsm-blog/article/my-musical-journey/791/

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

For me, as clichéd is it might sound, it’s about being able to see between the notes of what the composer wrote to really convey a performance that is special, memorable, moving and deeply musical. For aspiring composers, it’s important to open up your mind to as many different kinds of music as possible. Always strive to do everything in music to the very best of your ability and not to compromise your quality. Above all, enjoy it, cherish it, and allow music to take over your life!

What is your present state of mind?

Happy and contemplative.

 

Yuanfan Yang’s debut disc of music by Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Philip Cashian and his own compositions is available now on the Orchid Classics label

Born in Edinburgh, Yuanfan began learning the piano when he was 6, passed Grade 8 with Distinction at the age of 8 and achieved a Diploma of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (DipABRSM) when he was 10. He was awarded the AMusTCL Diploma in Music Theory with Distinction in 2015, and is a Scholar of the Drake Calleja Trust.

Yuanfan has won numerous piano competitions. He has won 1st Prize at the Cleveland International Young Artists Piano Competition in the USA in 2015, and 1st Prize of the 4th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar, Germany in 2014, with which he was awarded the Special Prize for Best Interpretation of a Classical Sonata, the Special Prize for Best Interpretation of Works by Liszt, the Special Prize for Best Composition and Improvisation, the Junior Jury Prize, and the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY) Prize for Most Outstanding Contestant. In 2013 he won the 3rd Prize in the Minnesota International E-Piano Competition. He has also won 1st Prizes in the 2010 RNCM James Mottram International Piano Competition (under 19), and the 2009 Manchester International Piano Concerto Competition for Young Pianists (age 16 and under). Yuanfan is also a fluent sight-reader, having been the champion of the ongoing Michael Abraham Sight-Reading Award six years in a row, ever since he joined Chetham’s. He has also won 1st Prizes in the UK Liszt Society International Piano Prize 2015, the Royal Academy of Music’s Sterndale Bennett Prize 2015, and the 9th Grand Prix Interlaken Classics International Piano Competition 2016. He was the Keyboard Category Winner and a Grand Finalist of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition 2012, and won both category and overall prizes at the European Piano Teachers Association (EPTA) UK Piano Competition 2010. Most recently, as the youngest participant and top eight semi-finalist in the Cleveland International Piano Competition 2016, Yuanfan’s performances earned him the Special AAF (Alink Argerich Foundation) Prize.

Yuanfan has performed for many eminent music societies, festivals and key events throughout Britain, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and the US, and has performed concertos by Beethoven, Chopin, Gershwin, Grieg, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky with many eminent conductors and leading orchestras including the Northern Sinfonia, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Romanian Radio National Symphony Orchestra, the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra in Cleveland, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Leeds Sinfonia, and the Manchester Camerata.

Yuanfan is also a versatile composer and an accomplished improviser. His ‘Fantasy in G’ for piano was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007 and 2008, and his arrangement of ‘Scarborough Fair’ was shown on BBC Four in 2010. His piano composition ‘Waves’ won the Overall Award in the European Piano Teachers Association UK Composition Competition 2011. This piece also won Highly-Commended in the BBC Proms Young Composers Competition 2011. His ‘Haunted Bell’ won first prize in the Junior Group of the Golden Key International Piano Composition Competition in 2012, and it was broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio Three. He was a finalist in the National Centre for Early Music Composers’ Award 2013, where his piece ‘Crushed Suites’ was premiered and recorded by the leading early music ensemble Florilegium. In September 2014, Yuanfan’s new Piano Concerto – ‘The Wilderness’, scored for solo piano and full symphony orchestra, was premiered in Qianjiang, China; the concerto was performed again at Wuhan University as part of his China tour in November 2014, and it had its UK premiere with the Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra in June 2015 – all the performances were enthusiastically received with critical acclaim from the press and audience. This concerto will be performed in 2017 at the Beijing Concert Hall with the Beijing National Theatre and Dance Orchestra.

Yuanfan has recently recorded his debut album for Orchid Classics, which is due for international release in mid-2017.

www.yuanfanyang.com

 

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

I remember being drawn to the piano as a very young child. I had a French aunt who was a superb pianist. When she came to visit and sat to play at the old Bechstein grand that we had at home, a kind of magic descended on the household. I naturally enjoyed starting lessons at the age of seven. It was only quite late in my life that my mother confessed to me that she had listened to gramophone records incessantly while she was pregnant with me, with the express intention of producing a musical child (my older brothers had not shown great interest in music…). I was a bit taken aback to think that I had been brainwashed in the womb, but, on reflection, I am quite grateful!

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

I could make a long list of people who have been important in shaping my musical life, amongst whom would be many composers and colleagues, not least my fellow players in the Schubert Ensemble (which has remained unchanged for 22 years). But three teachers stand out above all others. My greatest debt of gratitude goes to Rosemary Hammond, a local schoolteacher and choir director, who took me under her wing when I was eleven years old and floundering at an unmusical boarding school. She was no great performer, but had an infectious love of music and was an inspirational teacher. She introduced me to playing on clavichord and fortepiano as well as modern piano, taught me to compose and encouraged me with astonishing warmth and generosity. In my twenties I was lucky enough to study with Vlado Perlemuter, whose honest and unmannered musicality is still an inspiration to me, and also with Peter Feuchtwanger, a maverick and unorthodox teacher who taught me to open my eyes and ears in unexpected ways and gave me the courage to shape my career by following my enthusiasms.

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

It may sound simplistic to say this, but the biggest challenges of my career have been developing that career in the first place and then sustaining it. I can honestly say that I have loved my professional life, but for years it involved a huge amount of hard work and uncertainty about the future, together with the constant battle of trying to juggle travelling and working at unsociable hours with bringing up a family. These pressures are common to many freelance professions, but we pianists inhabit a world overcrowded with dazzling talent and I can’t think of a single moment over the years when I have felt I could take my career for granted. The musical challenges (of which there have been many!) have felt easy by comparison.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

Without any hesitation, I would hold up my recording of Pavel Zemek Novák’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, which came out on Champs Hill Records in 2011. It is a monumental work lasting around 75 minutes, which was written for me over a 17-year period from 1989 to 2006. I found the pieces incredibly difficult to play (and to read – they were written in manuscript and almost every page was covered in dozens of corrections!) and the recording took a huge amount of preparation. It was a labour of love, but massively rewarding. The Preludes and Fugues comprise some of the most important and original piano music that I have ever played. Pavel is not hugely well known outside the Czech Republic, but I am convinced that his music will become better and better known. Of the 45 or so CD recordings that I have made over the years, I think this is the one most likely to outlive me.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

I am probably the last person who should try to judge what I play best, but I feel especially at home playing Schubert, Chopin, Fauré and Janáček, and if I had to single out one work of each composer, they would be the Wanderer: Fantasie, the First Ballade, the Sixth Nocturne and In the Mists.

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

I like to introduce new works into my repertoire each season and to return to works I have not played for a while. Recording plans and new commissions also affect the make-up of programmes, and large-scale projects too at times. At the moment my programmes are built around love songs for solo piano, both romantic pieces and a large collection of newly commissioned works.

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

I tend to judge venues as much by the pianos they offer as well as their acoustic. The Wigmore Hall ticks all boxes for me. While I love performing in its acoustic, it also has one of the best-maintained Steinways in the country. Next year will be the fortieth anniversary of my first concert there, so I can add familiarity and decades of happy memories to its attractions! Competing with the Wigmore is the medieval Great Hall at Dartington, which is a beautiful space to perform in, and is also full of memories for me. I heard many of the most memorable concerts of my life there as a student at the Summer School in the late 60s and 70s and it always gives me a huge thrill to be playing there myself.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

It would be too difficult to choose my favourite pieces to perform – they tend anyway to be what I am working on at any given time. Naming my favourite pieces to listen to is easier. They would be Mozart’s G minor String Quintet and Janáček’s Second String Quartet.

Who are your favourite musicians?

I have too many favourite musicians in the present who I could list – composers, instrumentalists and fellow pianists who are friends and many others who I admire from afar – so I will stick to those from the past who I heard play live and whose recordings I still love to listen to Artur Rubinstein, Vlado Perlemuter, Shura Cherkassy, and Rudolf Serkin.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Nearly 20 years ago the Schubert Ensemble launched a project called Chamber Music 2000, in which we commissioned several dozen new chamber works for young pianists and string players. We put on over twenty public concerts in venues all over the UK, including the Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centre, in which young musicians, mainly teenagers, performed whole concerts of works by living composers. These concerts had a wonderful spirit of engagement and adventure and were some of the most memorable I have attended as a listener.

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

It is the privilege of older musicians to specialise (if they want to!), but I think for younger and aspiring musicians a broad experience of music is essential. It is important to hear lots of live performances and to study as wide a repertoire as possible, and, very particularly, repertoire beyond that written for your own instrument. And I firmly believe that working with living composers can teach us an enormous amount about how to approach interpreting music from the past.

What is your present state of mind?

I feel very positive about life at the moment! I am enjoying playing the piano more than ever right now and I have a number of projects on the go that I am finding fascinating and challenging.

William Howard is established as one of Britain’s leading pianists, enjoying a career that has taken him to over 40 different countries. His performing life consists of solo recitals, concerto performances, guest appearances with chamber ensembles and instrumentalists, and regular touring with the Schubert Ensemble of London, Britain’s leading group for piano and strings and winners of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Chamber Ensemble. He can be heard on around 40 CDs, released by Chandos, Hyperion, ASV, NMC, Collins Classics, Black Box, Champs Hill, Nimbus and Orchid Classics.

His solo career has taken him to many of Britain’s most important festivals, including Bath, Brighton and Cheltenham, and he has been artist in residence at several others. He has performed many times in the Wigmore Hall and the South Bank in London and has broadcast regularly for BBC Radio 3. For many years he has been invited to perform and teach at the Dartington International Summer School. His recording of Dvořák Piano Works was selected in the Gramophone Critics’ Choice, and his recording of Fibich’s ‘Moods, Impressions and Souvenirs’ won a Diapason D’Or award in France.

Recent solo engagements have included a performance at the 2015 Bermuda Festival, the premiere of David Matthews’s Four Portraits at the Spitalfields Festival in London and performances at the Cheltenham, Deal, Leamington, Petworth and Paxton Festivals, at Kings Place in London, in Brno (Czech Republic), Italy and Oregon, USA. In 2011 he made a recording of Pavel Zemek Novák’s extraordinary 75-minute cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues. A double five-star review in the BBC Music Magazine described the performance as “superb” and the music “a real discovery”. His most recent album, Sixteen Love Songs, released in June 2016 on Orchid Classics was selected as ‘Drive Discovery of the Week’ on Classic FM.

He is passionate about 19th century piano repertoire, especially Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Fauré. He also has a strong interest in Czech piano music, and has been particularly acclaimed for his performance of Janáček, for which he received a medal from the Czech Minister of Culture in 1986. Many leading composers of the present day have written for him, including, Sally Beamish, Petr Eben, Piers Hellawell, David Matthews, Pavel Novák, Anthony Powers, Howard Skempton and Judith Weir. In 2016 he launched a project to commission sixteen love songs for solo piano from leading composers in the UK and abroad, including Elena Kats-Chernin, Nico Muhly, Richard Reed Parry and Judith Weir. He also set up an international composing competition for writing piano love songs that attracted over 500 entries from 61 countries.