When did you first start learning the piano, and why?
I first started learning the piano just before the age of six. This was influenced by my older sister also taking lessons beforehand, and apparently I was very intrigued and interested sitting in on lessons, and then it all started! I do remember being immediately attracted to classical music when I first listened to some works, mainly by Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin at the beginning. It was just so wonderful, so beautiful, so fresh. I had a strong innate emotional attraction to this great music, so I ultimately credit that in getting me started.
What do you love most about the instrument?
I think the piano is blessed particularly because of the incredibly rich, variable, and vast amount of repertoire. Furthermore, it’s just such a sensitive instrument, reacting to the most minute differences in touch, inflection, and feeling. The same piano with the same piece can sound completely different played by two different pianists.
Are there any piano icons of the past or present that you particularly admire?
Radu Lupu was an unbelievable musician, who sadly recently passed, who I admire with all of my heart. Grigory Sokolov, Mitsuko Uchida, Arcadi Volodos are others that I must name whose great art has left an indelible effect on me. Of the past, Emil Gilels for sure.
What does Ludwig van Beethoven and his music mean to you personally?
Beethoven was a composer who went through probably the most incredible transformation during each phase of his life of any composer in history. He was a person that always looked up at the cosmos, revolutionising everything he wrote, and I felt had such unbelievable inner strength, power and will, in leaving behind a vision for humanity. But he was also the most human of human beings, with moments of the utmost tenderness, tragedy and pure hopeful transcendent beauty. This is certainly the case for the Fourth Piano Concerto.
What does it feel like to perform a piano concerto in a large concert hall?
I think there is a certain excitement about performing a piano concerto in a big hall with a great orchestra that is unique and cannot be experienced in any other format. The chamber music element of playing a piano concerto, and the ability to bring the audience in on intimate moments in a large hall is something very special.
And finally, what three Beethoven pieces would you recommend to those reading?
There are so many masterpieces, this is too difficult to choose! Certainly I would recommend the Missa Solemnis, which I think has so much of Beethoven’s complete greatness all in one work. His 15th String Quartet is also up there, as is the Ninth Symphony.
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