Dear All,
I hope you are all feeling safe and well.
Following your warm feedback on the previous episodes of my series ‘Quarantine or Paradise’ which included wonderful guests, the renowned educator and pianist Melanie Spanswick, the ground-breaking & exciting composer, producer and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev, the BBC broadcaster, actress and eminent vlogger Jo Good and the inspirational editor of Pianist Magazine Erica Worth, a thought-provoking composer, who is also Senior Vice President of Naxos of America, Sean Hickey and one of Europe's leading physicians and researchers in the field of East Asian medicine, medical historian, anthropologist and practitioner of Chinese Medicine Professor Volker Scheid, it gives me a great pleasure to introduce one of the renowned conductors and harpsichordist Richard Egarr, who is also Music Director, Academy of Ancient Music (UK), Principal Guest Conductor, Residentie Orkest (Holland), Artistic Partner, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (US), Music Director Designate, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale (US), Visiting Professor at The Julliard School (US) as well as Visiting Professor at Royal Conservatoire The Hague (Holland).
The conversation covered many areas: from how Richard came to be such a specialist in early music, whether it is good to play early music on modern instruments, and vice versa, how one can make the harpsichord sound more expressive, recognising the audience of today and, of course, we both shared a few tips on developing creativity in lockdown.
"I am an unashamed musical omnivore, and I hope you will come on our fabulous journey together to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new works and re-assess old ones, to boldly take Philharmonia into the 21st century."
Richard Egarr
(Richard's quote about his newly appointed role as the Music Director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, in San Francisco)
As the interview turned out to be quite long, I have broken it into sections in my comments below the episode (on YouTube), so that you can listen to the interview in discrete ‘chunks’ if you are short of time, and easily find the different topics discussed.
The Premiere of the episode will take place this Wednesday, 3 June at 9pm on my YouTube Channel. I will be there for a chat, so please do join me! You can set a reminder or Subscribe to my channel, in order not to miss the episode.
We highly recommend that you watch the video at 720p quality for the highest video quality. To adjust the quality, please click the cog icon next to the cc button. If you are watching on iPhone or iPad click on three top vertical buttons in the right hand corner and adjust Quality to 720p.
I hope that you are all coping well these days, and finding some peace and tranquility in the lockdown, wherever you are!
I wish you to remain safe and well!
With love,
GéNIA