When a revolutionary new piano design, the Maene-Viñoly Concert Grand, needed to be test-driven last year, its creators chose Kirill Gerstein. For wherever this inspirational figure leads, people tend to follow, correctly assuming that whatever he does will in some way be original.
We saw this in the pandemic. He was not the only musician to invite us into their living room, but no one came near his tally of online guests, because what he offered was much more than a free recital: each week he hosted a musical seminar - all now archived and available to the public - with speakers not only from the world of music, but also from architecture, choreography and philosophy. "They certainly haven't replaced live music,' he says of those online events; 'but they did allow us to bring together interesting people from all over Europe. For example, it was nice to see Steven Isserlis in his kitchen, flipping over the pages as he explained Beethoven's cello sonatas. And I love interviewing people.'
Gerstein lives in Berlin, where he's a professor at the Hanns Eisler Academy. He is also on the faculty of Kronberg Academy, which hosts his 'Kirill Gerstein invites' seminars, and this year has residencies at Wigmore Hall in London, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Having lived in the US throughout his teens and twenties, his roots are deep there, and with his dizzy touring schedule in every part of the globe barring his native Russia - he is hard to pin down.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Music Magazine.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Music Magazine.
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Discovering Donizetti - Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day
Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day. For most people, undertaking a lockdown project meant learning to bake sourdough bread, getting fit with Joe Wicks, or taking up a language. But Professor Roger Parker, the eminent historian of Italian opera and emeritus professor at King's College London, had something far more ambitious in mind. He set about unearthing songs by Gaetano Donizetti - many of which had been lost since the composer's lifetime - and the enterprise turned into a two-year labour of love.
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Do Notes Win Votes? - There are multi-dimensional ways that music is used by political campaigners and their supporters today.
It was a little bit of history repeating when Rishi Sunak announced the UK General Election to the heckling of his political opponents blasting out D:Ream's 'Things Can Only Get Better'.
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The spirit of soprano Birgit Nilsson is alive and well in the town of her birth, home to a festival dedicated to her memory
Federico Colli
\"At this moment in time we don't need more virtuosi. We need musicians to engage with the philosophy of music
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What happens when classical music-style levels of ambition, invention and sheer length are brought to pop? The answer, as Meurig Bowen explains, is Prog Rock
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Young musicians may be physically fit, but with age come the advantages of wisdom and experience
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