NEW! TENOR NICHOLAS PHAN IN CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTOPHER SALLON
09/08/2018
Holding the Key: Nicholas Phan talks to Christopher Sallon
Nicholas Phan
‘Music is for everybody, but the artist, alone, holds the key’ declares Nicholas Phan, one of the USA’s most accomplished lyric tenors. In a blog recorded in 2010, some eight years before our July interview in Tanglewood, he stood calmly before the camera and provided an ‘insider’s’ glimpse, as he prepared for his Carnegie Hall debut recital with accompanist Myra Huang. With a maturity and self-assurance which belied his years – he was then just 31 years old – he spoke of the need to take risks and proceeded to provide a key to his programme of songs by Benjamin Britten. Phan’s performance that night, particularly his account of Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, and the song cycle Winter Words, a setting of Thomas Hardy poems, garnered rave reviews, as did his Winter Words CD, released soon thereafter. Read more
NEW! THE PIANIST GEORGE HARLIONO IN CONVERSATION WITH GREGOR TASSIE
07/08/2018
George Harliono talks with Gregor Tassie
Valery Gergiev with George Harliono
Among the finalists for the 2018 Brit Awards was the brilliant young pianist George Harliono, unfortunately he didn’t win an award but certainly this seventeen-year-old has already been causing a stir in the classical music world. The young teenager George Harliono from Cambridge became a media celebrity a couple of years ago when he was invited to play with the Mariinsky Orchestra in Russia, and since which he has given several high-profile concerts in Russia and has played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, played at the Wigmore Hall, and this autumn will play at the Berlin Philharmonic. But he comes from a musical family for his older brother Joshua is studying violin at the Guildhall School of Music and his sister Adelaide plays cello in the National Children’s Orchestra. Read more
NEW! THE CONDUCTOR ALEXANDER SLADKOVSKY IN CONVERSATION WITH GREGOR TASSIE
05/07/2018
Alexander Sladkovsky Talks to Gregor Tassie
Alexander Sladkovsky
The recent highly praised recordings on Melodiya of Mahler and Shostakovich by Sladkovsky’s Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra reveal they are a top-class ensemble sharing comparisons with the finest Russian orchestras in Moscow and St Petersburg. Read more
NEW! THE TENOR RUSSELL THOMAS IN CONVERSATION WITH MARGARIDA MOTA-BULL
07/05/2018
Russell Thomas interviewed by Margarida Mota-Bull
Russell Thomas
The first time I came across Russell Thomas was a couple of years ago and by pure chance while searching for tenor performances in Don Carlo on YouTube. In the long list that appeared, a video caught my attention, showing Mr Thomas in a duet with Anja Harteros. She was a household name in the operatic world but I didn’t know him. So, I watched it and listened carefully to Thomas’s voice. Its power, beauty and warmth impressed me immensely. Read more
NEW! RAFAL BLECHACZ IN CONVERSATION WITH GEOFFREY NEWMAN
05/05/2018
NEW! MARKUS POSCHNER IN CONVERSATION WITH GREGOR TASSIE
19/04/2018
Markus Poschner talks to Gregor Tassie
Markus Poschner (c) Reinhard Winkler
Born in a musical family in 1971 in Munich, Markus Poschner has become one of the most sought-after conductors in recent years. He has worked extensively in both opera and concerts, all the major European orchestras, and in the United States and the Far East. Currently Markus Poschner is general music director of Opera Linz and principal conductor of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, which he shares with and the principal conductorship of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Locarno with whom he has made a highly regarded cycle of the Brahms symphonies. As he prepares his orchestra from Linz on their third UK tour he spoke to me about his career and ambitions in music. Read more
NEW! A Q&A WITH ITALIAN BARITONE FRANCO VASSALLO
16/04/2018
Franco Vassallo is an acclaimed interpreter of leading Verdi roles – amongst many others – in the world’s most important opera houses (including Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Opéra de Paris, London’s Royal Opera House and New York’s Metropolitan Opera). He has just sung Scarpia for the first time in Puccini’s Tosca at the Staatsoper Hamburg in the Robert Carsen production and performed with Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann. Read more
NEW! MICHAEL SANDERLING IN CONVERSATION WITH GREGOR TASSIE
04/04/2018
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