Yekwon Sunwoo, The Cliburn Guest User Yekwon Sunwoo, The Cliburn Guest User

BBC Music Magazine: Yekwon Sunwoo's Cliburn Gold 2017

"Superbly assured pianism from the recent winner of the Van Cliburn competition, sensitive in Haydn and full-blown in Ravel’s La Valse." - Rebecca Franks, BBC Music Magazine, Cliburn Gold 2017

BBC Music Magazine
Rebecca Franks

Cliburn Gold 2017 (4-star rating)

Superbly assured pianism from the recent winner of the Van Cliburn competition, sensitive in Haydn and full-blown in Ravel’s La Valse.

 

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Guest User Guest User

Top 17 of '17

8VA's Top 17 of '17

January 2017
Strings Magazine
Inaugural Youth Music Culture Guangdong feature
 

YMCG Strings Magazine

June 16, 2017
New York Times
The Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition gold medalist, Yekwon Sunwoo performs on New York Times' Facebook Livestream.
 

Yekwon Sunwoo New York Times Livestream
Serenade! Festival

June 29, 2017
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
AFP features a story about Serenade! Washington DC Choral Festival, produced by Classical Movements, which is picked up by outlets such as Daily Mail

Prague Summer Nights

July 2017
OperaWire
A feature on Classical Movement's Prague Summer Nights (PSN) in addition to reviews of PSN operas including Die Zauberflöte and  Le Nozze Di Figaro plus more.

Times Square Beijing Music Festival

August 4, 2017
Times Square Billboard
Beijing Music Festival (BMF) and Long Yu featured in Times Square in celebration of BMF's 20th anniversary

August/September 2017
The Economist 1843 Magazine
Grand Teton Music Festival featured as a cultural event worth traveling for

GTMF Mountains.jpg

November 18, 2017
Haochen Zhang sells out solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall

Haochen performs at sold out Carnegie Hall
Anne Akiko Meyers in BBC Music

January 2018
BBC Music Magazine
Anne Akiko Meyers's performance of Bernstein's Serenade featured in BBC Music Magazine's CD mount.

February 2018
Strings Magazine
Highlights of the 20th Beijing Music Festival in October 2017

Strings Beijing Music Festival
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Yuga Cohler Guest User Yuga Cohler Guest User

MWA Quarterly: Notes on a 21st Century Virtuoso, Yuga Cohler

From music to tech, Yuga Cohler evades classification, using his brilliant mind to create innovative, one-of-a-kind experiences.

MWA Quarterly
By Karine Monié

FROM MUSIC TO TECH, YUGA COHLER EVADES CLASSIFICATION, USING HIS BRILLIANT MIND TO CREATE INNOVATIVE, ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCES

Music has always been part of Yuga Cohler’s life, but it took him a few years to feel passion for it. “Both of my parents are musicians, so I started at a very early age— piano at 3 and violin at 5,” he says. “However, I didn’t really start enjoying music until I was 12, when I went to my first music camp.” Since then, Cohler has never put aside creative discipline, which today is an important part of his life.

At only 28 years old, Cohler is already an internationally-known orchestral conductor, while also working as a senior software engineer and manager at Google, having graduated summa cum laude in computer science from Harvard University. “My grandfather is a computer scientist and he taught me QBasic when I was 6,” he says. “It aroused my interest in math, logic and puzzles. I think that an understanding of the systemic facets of technology that my work cultivates—an appreciation for design, an apprehension of large-scale systems, a belief in process—is essential to anybody looking to engage in 21st-century culture.”

As if it isn’t enough to be a science expert, Cohler is also a musical genius. These seemingly disparate fields are complementary for Cohler. “My junior year of college, I interned at Goldman Sachs as a strategist in the investment banking division,” he confesses. “I worked 11- to 12- hour days and listened to Kanye West all day long at my desk. Through that experience, I came to understand that the structures underlying Kanye’s music are no different from those that underlie classical music, and thought it would be interesting to put on concerts that explicitly point out similarities like these.”

Appointed music director of the Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) Debut Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles in 2015, Cohler explored this idea of combining popular and classical music through “The Great Music Series,” starting with “Yeethoven,” a concert that boldly compared the works of Kanye West and Beethoven. “Many of the best cultural innovations are born from combinations of distinct traditions,” explains Cohler, referencing modern cuisine as an example. “Popular music owes much of its theoretical backbone to the tradition of Western classical music, and I think the values inherent in classical music can help popular music evolve in interesting ways. At the same time, classical music can learn from the iron-clad ties to modern-day culture by which popular music is defined.”

Listening to hip-hop, electronic music, Korean and Japanese pop, among many other genres, Cohler’s open mind and impressive path are a testament to both his talent for and love of innovation that he showcases all over the planet. Having a close relationship with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Cohler appeared several times in concert on Japanese national television and recently did an international tour with the orchestra and musician Yoshiki. Frequently invited to Europe and different places in the United States, and currently a director of the Asia/America New Music Institute, Cohler is successful in everything he does. Although Cohler is unconvinced that music is essential, “...I think it’s inevitable,” he offers. “You don’t need music to survive, but if you’re surviving, you’re probably either consuming or producing music. For me, music is a platform through which you can reach anybody, because it’s not tied to any predetermined meaning. That lack of intrinsic significance makes music an ideal medium for a type of universal communication.”

Reaching all types of communities through the vitality of an orchestra, transcending categories while inventing another, more global vision is definitely among Cohler’s most impressive skills. With his creativity and ambition exceeding music, Cohler describes his dream project: “A start-up/media company that produces content designed to make its audience think more deeply and deliberately. It would promote and provoke thought by integrating the expected with the unexpected, the commonplace with the extraordinary, the popular with the sophisticated.” Some people are born with many talents and they know how to make the most of them. Whether through music or technology, Cohler always finds a way to create something unique from a variety of influences.

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Youth Music Culture Guest User Youth Music Culture Guest User

The Strad: Yo-Yo Ma on making artistic connections and raising balanced musicians

This month Yo-Yo Ma returns as artistic director of his Chinese education initiative Youth Music Culture Guangdong, a programme that aims to create balanced, astute and connected musicians. Charlotte Smith explores the ideas behind the cellist’s approach

The Strad
Charlotte Smith

This month Yo-Yo Ma returns as artistic director of his Chinese education initiative Youth Music Culture Guangdong, a programme that aims to create balanced, astute and connected musicians. Charlotte Smith explores the ideas behind the cellist’s approach

Photo ©Li Lewei, courtesy of YMCG

Photo ©Li Lewei, courtesy of YMCG

‘Classical musicians today have moved away from improvisation, but it’s an essential part of owning the music,’ he says. ‘In the classical tradition, pretty much all musicians played, arranged and composed. Clara Schumann composed and Heifetz made arrangements and Kreisler wrote all those little pieces. It’s today’s insistence on professionalisation and specialisation that has separated those skills. It’s the commoditisation of music. We are told to stick with what we do well, as opposed to develop the whole individual. But what’s valuable is the musician who can do all of those things. Of course there will be some skills that stand out, but musicians should continue to feed themselves with all aspects of musical life. It’s an idea that was cherished by the Enlightenment – that we should treasure the person who can be a generalist, the conduit for a world of wonder and awe.’

For Ma, making connections – between people, cultures, artistic modes and genres, and musical skills – is the key to developing into a complete and healthy artist and, crucially, to tapping into the flexibility necessary to negotiate difficult and changing times. ‘That’s why at this year’s YMCG we are focusing on the music of Beethoven,’ he continues. ‘Beethoven was a pivotal personality in a rapidly changing world, both as a culmination of the Classical era and a herald of the Romantic. He was an improviser, a virtuoso pianist and a composer, and shows us that being many things produces the great creativity we need to understand change.’ Just as the young Ma reacted to the huge upheaval of his family’s move to the US with a desire to learn, consume and, ultimately, to express himself creatively, 21st-century musicians can also follow Beethoven’s lead in using instability and unrest as fuel for their own imaginations, and by doing so, making sincere and meaningful connections with audiences and fellow musicians.

To read the full article, get the January 2018 issue.

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Long Yu Guest User Long Yu Guest User

Bachtrack: Variations of tension, energy and contrast with Long Yu and the Hong Kong Phil

First, a disclaimer: I have been an admirer of Long Yu’s conducting skills – not that he can do no wrong, but that he can usually make up for it by delivering tension, energy and contrast in whatever is at hand. Friday evening’s collection of variations with the Hong Kong Philharmonic was a case in point.

Bachtrack
Alan Yu

First, a disclaimer: I have been an admirer of Long Yu’s conducting skills – not that he can do no wrong, but that he can usually make up for it by delivering tension, energy and contrast in whatever is at hand. Friday evening’s collection of variations with the Hong Kong Philharmonic was a case in point.

Long Yu’s première of Er Huang in Hong Kong was a resounding success, traversing the full gamut of emotional latitude the work afforded, from contemplative introspection to boisterous clamour. He laid bare the variety of orchestral colours and kept us on tenterhooks with a superb sense of timing.

Read the full Bachtrack review here.

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Yeethoven, Yuga Cohler Guest User Yeethoven, Yuga Cohler Guest User

Time: How a Live Orchestra Is Mashing Up Kanye West and Beethoven

Rap icon Kanye West and classical legend Ludwig van Beethoven are, at first glance, polar musical opposites. But one project, dubbed Yeethoven, is bringing their music together in a bi-coastal mash-up concert that cuts through the distance of centuries and styles.

Time Magazine
By Raisa Bruner

Rap icon Kanye West and classical legend Ludwig van Beethoven are, at first glance, polar musical opposites. But one project, dubbed Yeethoven, is bringing their music together in a bi-coastal mash-up concert that cuts through the distance of centuries and styles.

But why Kanye and Beethoven? It comes down to their shared status as iconoclasts of their eras. “[Beethoven] was emblematic of making really dynamic and meaningful changes in his art form, just as Kanye does in his,” explains Yuga Cohler, one of the project’s creators. “You might think Kanye’s one thing and only certain types of people listen to it, and ditto Beethoven. But that’s actually not the case.” Instead, project masterminds Cohler and Johan — who goes by a single name — argue that there’s a “common musical and cultural backbone” that runs straight from classical to contemporary hip-hop. Bringing the two genres together in live symphony, they hope, can help listeners discover a new way to appreciate music, no matter their age or musical taste.

Taking place in L.A. on Dec. 14 and in New York City on Jan. 18 with support from the Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) and Lincoln Center, Yeethoven II is now in its second year, after a sold-out 2016 concert. Cohler regularly conducts the YMF Debut Chamber Orchestra, while Johan is an independent artist and producer and arranger for hip-hop and pop acts like rapper Vic Mensa and singer Alessia Cara.

TIME spoke to the duo about their process of piecing together the perfect orchestral mash-up, how a “risky project” like this one can help popularize classical music and why Kanye makes a great case study as an artist with unexpectedly broad appeal.

TIME: Why did you select these two artists to bring into dialogue? What makes them good parallels?

Yuga Cohler: I had always been a big fan of Kanye’s music, and I knew other musicians were as well. I was really interested in doing a project with the [YMF] Orchestra involving him. So the first person I called was Johan, who was studying composition at Yale at the time. We talked about comparing [Kanye] to Stravinsky and a bunch of other classical composers, but we settled on Beethoven.

Johan: We were trying to figure out why classical musicians find Kanye so compelling, especially on his last two albums [2013’s Yeezus and 2016’s The Life of Pablo]. We were trying to find a classical musician who had a similar impact on their time.

Why is Kanye particularly interesting to classical composers?

Johan: He’s a risk taker, really innovative. He gets away with things musically that are pretty radical for someone who gets that attention: the fact that millions of people listen to his albums; the fact that Yeezus was borderline unlistenable as pop music, but really interesting as more of an art project, as well as The Life of Pablo. I was around a lot of composers and found they were interested in the fact that this guy was doing such crazy stuff. When I was in grad school at Yale, I studied with David Lang, a Pulitzer-prize winning composer. He was like, “Oh, Yeezus is really good.” This dude is like 55, and he’s talking to us about how Yeezus was really cool!

Cohler: Johan and I thought about this a lot. In those two albums, he willfully deviates from the traditional verse-chorus format, which is obviously a hallmark of pop music. The decision to do that, and then the decision to branch out into other, new formal language, was really reminiscent to us of what classical composers constantly try to do.

How do you create music that’s a true dialogue between the two artists? What’s your process like to figure out how to mash it up in a way that makes sense?

Cohler: We’ll go through the track listings of Yeezus and The Life of Pablo and we’ll talk about which songs are most interesting or have elements that are most reminiscent of Beethoven or classical composition. Then we ask, what are compositions by Beethoven that do the same thing? Is there sonic similarity, is there cultural similarity, is there compositional similarity? From there, Johan arranges and orchestrates them.

Johan: It always starts with the Kanye. That has to be turned into an orchestral thing, no matter what. It’s not like we’re running through the whole song; we’re grabbing the iconic material from a song of his. We’ll get the 16 bars or something that are really iconic, figure out how to make that sound unbelievable with an orchestra, and then figure out a way to add the Beethoven and develop them to interact. It’s important that the pieces communicate what we’re talking about. If they’re both there, we want people to recognize each piece of material separately before they start to hear them intertwined, so people can really get what’s going on. That’s a big part of the whole concert for us: making it clear.

Was there a particular Kanye song that was especially successful — or challenging — to adapt?

Cohler: For me it’s the arrangement of “Waves.” It’s hard to describe; the melody is in bass, but the accompaniment is in treble, which is this sort of unique thing. We compare that to Beethoven’s 8th Symphony, which is an unlikely candidate. But when you bring the two together, you can actually hear how the voicings are very similar.

Johan: It’s the second movement of the 8th Symphony, right?

Cohler: Yeah.

Johan: They were pretty tricky. We also did one with “Ultralight Beam” and a quartet —

Cohler: It’s the string quartet of Op. 132 — the slow movement from that.

Johan: That was about trying to show these really spare elements. They’re both really slow and spread out, so finding a way to keep the momentum going while illustrating how much space there was in both of these was tricky to keep it as a compelling piece of music. But I think it came out well.

You’ve spent a lot of time exploring the Kanye-Beethoven mashup. Are there any other pairings you’re interested in?

Johan: Personally, I think something with Daft Punk would be cool.

Cohler: It has to be a really organic connection. I don’t think it works to make this into a trope — one classic composer and one pop artist — that cheapens the art. Kanye is very special, I think everyone would agree.

Johan: There’s few people who are simultaneously doing stuff as weird as he is and on as such gigantic a scale in terms of reach.

Have you ever reached out to him? Do his people know you’re doing this?

Johan: I think he knows, but we don’t know for sure. I do string arrangements for the hip-hop world, so… We’ll see what happens.

What do you hope audiences take away from listening to this?

Cohler: One of the really positive aspects of the show in 2016 was that so many different types of people came. It was definitely not your typical hip-hop or pop concert; it skewed a little bit older. It was absolutely not at all your typical classical concert; it was much younger than that. You have people of all different backgrounds, bound by either this interest in Kanye or the concept. There’s this common musical and cultural backbone to both of them, and we can all appreciate it in a single group. That’s the message of the whole thing.

Johan: People are smart and discerning listeners of music. Those same people who were applauding at Kanye were also applauding at the Beethoven stuff; they were just excited about good music.

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KUSC: What Happens When You Mix Beethoven and Kanye West?

The worlds of classical music and hip-hop may seem too far apart to ever come together in any meaningful way. However, two artists (and a youth orchestra) are looking to remix the way we think about these two different art forms: composer/arranger Johan and conductor Yuga Cohler, the music director of the Young Musicians Debut Chamber Orchestra.

KUSC

Yuga Cohler and Johan take the stage during a performance of “Yeethoven”

Yuga Cohler and Johan take the stage during a performance of “Yeethoven”

The worlds of classical music and hip-hop may seem too far apart to ever come together in any meaningful way. However, two artists (and a youth orchestra) are looking to remix the way we think about these two different art forms: composer/arranger Johan and conductor Yuga Cohler, the music director of the Young Musicians Debut Chamber Orchestra.

Together, Cohler and Johan have put together a concert of mash-ups of the music of composer Ludwig van Beethoven and hip-hop artist Kanye West. The project is called Yeethoven and premiered last year. Now, they’re back for Yeethoven II, taking place on December 14 at the Belasco Theater in Downtown Los Angeles.

For more information about the project, I interviewed Johan and Cohler.

BL: Where did this idea for combining the music of Beethoven and Kanye West come from?

J & YC: We both have been interested in Kanye’s music for years, and so have many of our friends in the classical world. We wanted to examine what it was about his music, especially on his last few albums, that was so compelling to us as classical musicians. The idea of putting Kanye West side-by-side on a concert with a similar iconoclast from the classical world, such as Beethoven, seemed like a really cool way to illustrate it for people.

BL: From a musical/structural standpoint, what sorts of similarities are there between Beethoven’s and Kanye’s music?

J & YC: Starting with his album Yeezus, Kanye’s music moved away from traditional song formats and towards more freely developed “pieces”. This allowed him to feature extreme juxtapositions between material of different characters, to a degree that felt very Beethovenian to us. For example, the sudden dynamic contrasts found in Kanye’s “Blood on the Leaves” struck us as similar to the subito character changes in the famous Fifth Symphony. Our concert focuses on six of these parameters for comparison, with a pair of pieces illustrating each one.

BL: How did you assemble the scores? What led you to make the musical decisions that you made?

J & YC: We began by finding Kanye songs that felt most conducive to these types of comparisons, while also being likely to translate well to the orchestral format. Simultaneously, we looked for pieces by Beethoven that housed similarly innovative structural elements and held long discussions about what common musical kernel defined both the Kanye song and the Beethoven piece. Johan then transcribed the Kanye works and orchestrated them, finding specific instrumentations that would approximate the sound of the original songs. Once he had an orchestrated version of each Kanye excerpt, he developed them into full pieces.

BL: How big, do you think, is the Venn diagram intersection area of classical music lovers and hip-hop lovers? Do you think there are more classical fans who enjoy hip-hop or more hip-hop fans who enjoy classical?

J & YC: That’s a great question. Many young classical musicians have very wide-ranging taste, and many also have what feels like a newish desire to reach outside of the classical music community. Hip-hop is probably the most adventurous genre of popular music right now so it makes sense that it would receive a lot of attention from curious young musicians. Going the other direction, it’s harder to say. Fans of adventurous pop music seem to respect classical music a lot without necessarily consuming that much of it. We’re both very interested in changing this.

BL: How have audiences responded to Yeethoven?

J & YC: More enthusiastically and attentively than we ever could’ve dreamed, honestly. We talk briefly throughout the concert about the formal elements in each piece, and last year we witnessed the audience erupting into spontaneous applause when the exact techniques we referred to appeared later in the actual music. That level of perception from an audience mostly unused to classical concerts was something we never anticipated.

BL: It feels like genre is becoming less and less important to music consumers. I get the sense that most people categorize music into two groups: “stuff I like” and “stuff I don’t like.” Are you seeing that also?

J & YC: That definitely seems accurate. The way streaming platforms organize music allows people to move much more fluidly between genres. There are still boundaries, but they seem to have more to do with the context in which people want to experience music. Someone might have a wide variety of genre-spanning works which are unified only by the fact that they like to study to them, and a separate, equally wide range of music they like to experience at a party or on the dance floor. In our view, classical music at its best is a spectacular emotional and sensory experience, and can most effectively cater to people seeking that type of immersion.

BL: Anything else you’d like to add?

J & YC: We’re just really grateful to YMF for taking a risk on this event with us. It matters more now than ever that organizations like that are open to experimenting with the way classical music fits into the public consciousness.

The Young Musicians Foundation Debut Chamber Chamber Orchestra performs Yeethoven II on December 14 at the Belasco Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. Johan is the composer/arranger of the show. Yuga Cohen, music director of the YMFDCO, will conduct.

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Yekwon Sunwoo, The Cliburn Guest User Yekwon Sunwoo, The Cliburn Guest User

Miroirs CA: Interview with Yekwon Sunwoo

Soon after 28-year-old Yekwon Sunwoo won the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Decca Gold released a recording of his performances at the competition called Cliburn Gold, which became number one on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Album charts.

Yekwon Sunwoo talks about his career with Editor Leonne Lewis.

Miroirs CA

Soon after 28-year-old Yekwon Sunwoo won the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Decca Gold released a recording of his performances at the competition called Cliburn Gold, which became number one on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Album charts.

Those who live streamed or attended this year’s Cliburn Competition were bowled over by Yekwon Sunwoo’s dynamic playing, as were the jury members who awarded him a gold medal with its built-in perks that include three years of concert tours in the US and at international venues and fashion threads - concert attire supplied by Neiman Marcus which is reason enough to practice hours a day for a chance to compete!

Over the next few seasons and beyond, Sunwoo will appear with high-profile groups such as Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Elbphilharmonie, National Orchestra of Cuba, and perform at Aspen Music Festival, Istanbul Music Festival, Klavier-Festival Ruhr and the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

Sunwoo’s playing was center stage even before his participation in The Cliburn Competition as evidenced by his winning the 2015 International German Piano Award, 2014 Vendome Prize at Verbier Festival and 2012 William Kapell International Piano Competition. Already a seasoned performer, he has given recitals in South Korea, Europe, Costa Rica and appeared with major orchestras including the Houston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, National Orchestra of Belgium.

He also concentrates on chamber music in collaboration with such artists as members of the Brentano and Jerusalem Strings Quartets, Ida Kafavian, Peter Wiley and released recordings with violinist Benjamin Beilman on the Warner Classics and Analekta labels.

He began piano studies in his native South Korea at age 8 and then relocated to the US in 2005 where he received a bachelor’s degree at The Curtis Institute of Music with Seymour Lipkin, a master’s degree at The Juilliard School with Robert McDonald and an artist diploma at the Mannes School of Music with Richard Goode. He currently studies with Bernd Goetzke in Hannover, Germany.

Yekwon Sunwoo talks about his career with Editor Leonne Lewis.

You studied in South Korea and at conservatories in the US. Have mentors of these schools influenced your approach to piano playing?

I feel extremely fortunate to have such wonderful teachers and they all share the same trait of being genuine and sincere musicians and warmhearted human beings. I am deeply saddened by Seymour Lipkin’s passing two years ago, but have fond memories of working with him at Curtis for six years beginning in 2005, when I was 16 years old. During the time I worked with him, I became more exposed to diverse music and he helped me open up my heart and play as if actually singing with my own voice.

After that, I went to Juilliard to work with Robert McDonald for two years. He has incredibly sensitive ears, which helped me become more attentive in listening to my own sound and the phrasing coming out as intended. Then, I went to study with Richard Goode at Mannes School of Music for two years. From time to time he would be away giving concerts, but whenever he was in town I would come to his house and play for him – and sometimes this went on for two or three hours.

He demonstrated a lot and it was sheer beauty to stand right next to him and hear him play, and I would feel as if I was reborn after each time. His whole life is faithfully dedicated to discovering the true intentions of each composer and I learned so much from him, like not taking every phrase each composer writes for granted.

In the Fall of 2016 I moved to Munich and currently study with Bernd Goetzke in Hannover. I’ve been working with him for just a year now but he has helped me to have more conviction in my music making and especially in shaping each phrase according to the requirements of the composer and understanding the whole structure in a more constructive way. I am forever grateful for guidance from all these teachers. They all made me love music even more deeply so that I can really bring out all emotions through piano playing.

You have won many international piano competitions. Does your approach change when playing for competitions or performing live concerts?

I believe strongly in not having a different thought process when performing in concerts or competitions. You are there to play your heart out and to share all kinds of emotions that are going through at every second of music making and hopefully convey them to audience members. The only difference might be in these two elements. First, you have to be even more focused and mentally strong when participating in a competition because you are under high pressure and there is the cruel fact that the announcement awaits after each round. Secondly, you are handling a huge amount of repertoire, so you need to understand your physical stamina and how to balance it all at once.

However, it is all about music making in the end and conveying your own interpretation with conviction. Seeking the composer’s intentions and putting all your endeavors into making the music come alive should be the main concern at all times.

Since winning The Cliburn Competition, what are some of your career and artistic goals?

Since I first started playing the piano when I was 8-years-old my ultimate dream has always been to become a concert pianist, travel all around the world and share all these feelings through music. Winning the 2017 Van Cliburn Competition has opened up a new chapter for me and this definitely helps my dream continue. I have a personal affinity towards German and Russian repertoire so I would like to focus more on this repertoire for now. Having performed works such as Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No. 6 and Thomas Ades Traced Overhead, I would also like to explore more contemporary works that are not yet often played. After winning the Van Cliburn Competition, I know that the exciting musical journey will continue.

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Classical Movements Guest User Classical Movements Guest User

Musical America: Top 30 Movers & Shapers - Neeta Helms

Neeta Helms is named one of the top 30 professionals of 2017 by Musical America.

Musical America

Movers and Shakers: Musical America's Top 30 Professionals of the Year
Susan Elliott, Musical America Editor

If “Movers and Shakers” is a familiar moniker for bigwigs and high rollers, “Movers and Shapers”
represents a perhaps less visible but arguably more important category. These are the individuals who are actually “shaping” programs, practices, and perceptions of the performing artists.

NEETA HELMS
By John Fleming

Music is the universal language, and Neeta Helms speaks it around the world. As founder and president of Classical Movements, now in its 25th year, she specializes in tours for orchestras and choruses, with clients ranging from the National Symphony Orchestra to the Yale  Glee  Club.  Based  in  Alexandria, Virginia,  the  company  does about 60 tours a year, and has brought music to 145 countries.

Helms  is  a  risk-taker  whose  breakthrough  came  in  1993, when she organized a tour of the Choral Arts Society of Washington with  the  National  Symphony  Orchestra  and  legendary  Russian conductor  and  cellist  Mstislav  Rostropovich  to  the  former  Soviet Union. Rostropovich led a free concert in Moscow’s Red Square that drew more than 100,000 people. “It was probably like touring the United States with the Beatles, that was what it was like going to Russia  with  Rostropovich,”  she  says. “It  was  so  exciting. The  world was  changing.”  Last  spring,  Classical  Movements  handled  its  30th NSO tour, again to Russia.

Classical  Movements  also  produces  choral  festivals  in Washington,  DC,  and  South  Africa,  as  well  as  a  summer  festival  for young  singers  and  instrumentalists  in  Prague.  Since  2005,  the company has commissioned composers from 20 countries to write more than 50 works. In 2015, it commissioned 10 American composers for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s 100th anniversary. This  year,  Syrian  clarinetist-composer  Kinan  Azmeh  became  the company’s first composer-in-residence.

Helms  grew  up  in  a  musical  family  in  India.  She  began studying  piano  at  age  four,  sang  in  public  at  five,  and  went  on  to earn  a  BA  in  economics  and  an  MBA.  She  has  lived  in  the  United States since 1986.

What  annoys  her  most  about  travel?  “Airlines  get  on  my nerves. They are absolutely the most difficult part of our job.” Some tours take special resourcefulness, such as those in Cuba, which has a  shortage  of  musical  instruments.  In  June,  Classical  Movements took  both  the  Minnesota  Youth  Symphonies  and  the  Stanford
Symphony  Orchestra  there. “Our  biggest  challenge,  believe  it  or not, was finding and renting the timpani.”

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The Strad: Fantasia Album Reviewed

Julian Haylock reviews Anne Akiko Meyers's latest album, Fantasia.

"Yet the star item here is Rautavaara's Fantasia (2015), one of his last works and composed especially for Meyers, who soars aloft with its tender cantabile, shaping its shimmering melodic lines with a profound sensitivity that exerts irresistible pressure on the tear ducts."

The Strad
Julian Haylock

"Yet the star item here is Rautavaara's Fantasia (2015), one of his last works and composed especially for Meyers, who soars aloft with its tender cantabile, shaping its shimmering melodic lines with a profound sensitivity that exerts irresistible pressure on the tear ducts."

Read the full album review in The Strad's December issue by purchasing it here.

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