On May 25th, 2017, violinist Maestro Gidon Kremer is to stage performance during NCPA May Festival 2017. As part of the anniversary tour to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2017, Kremer will give his performance with Kremerata Baltica and Concerto Budapest Symphonic Orchestra, presenting essential music pieces by Bach, Philip Glass, and Mussorgsky, in collaboration with conductor András Keller and cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite. Before the performance, Maestro Kremer gave a brief introduction of this concert and shared stories in his distinguished career through an email with NCPA.
Violinist Gidon Kremer
NCPA: You played chamber music in NCPA concert hall in 2013. What is your impression of this modern concert hall?
Kremer: I am very open to discovery - be it new compositions, new artists or new halls. Having a positive impression allows you to wish to return and therefore I am looking forward to meet, while playing at NCPA, a “friend” again.
NCPA: Could you talk about your partner cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite at the NCPA concert?
Kremer: Giedre Dirvanauskaite is one of the founding members of Kremerata Baltica. I cherish her partnership - as a musician and as a human being. We did together along the shared work with Kremerata, many special recording projects. The latest was dedicated to the Rachmaninov’s Piano Trios released by DGG with the exceptional young pianist Daniil Trifonov.
NCPA: Compared with romantic period composers, are you more likely to perform contemporary works?
Kremer: I love Romantics not less than contemporary composers. Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius still rest very much on my “agenda”, but it was and remains my goal - not to play only music by “dead” composers, but to go step in step with music created around me too. I am happy to have followed this challenge for years, without having lost my integrity and without giving in to an intellectual approach towards sounds. Music is for me related to emotions and I do find them in sounds from Vivaldi to...Glass...
NCPA: This year marks your 70th birthday, and also the 20th anniversary of Kremerata Baltica. Could you describe your relationship with this Grammy award winning chamber orchestra?
Kremer: I am happy to have created this group and associate with it not so much awards, as many interesting and original projects. We never stopped to look for special and unexpected combinations of works and collaborations with other artists. This tour as the concert at NCPA is just another evidence of it.
Kremerata Baltica
NCPA: As we knew that you inspired several young artists such as Clara Jumi Kang, Lucas Debargue, Pablo Ferrandez and Martynas Stakionis to international stages. Why do you pay such attention to young artists?
Kremer: In the same way I did build a bridge for the musicians from the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) into the world. I want to be of support to the many talents of the next generation in their aspirations.
NCPA: Your book Lettres à une jeune pianiste is more popular among young musicians. Do you have any advise to Chinese young musicians?
Kremer: I do worry and regret, that many gifted young musicians feel their main goal is – to become a “celebrity” and therefore they try to follow the demands of the market and follow its rules.
I am not the one to stop this tendency, but it fills me with sorrow to see how many talented artists become (along with audiences) victims of such an orientation. Let me at least remind everybody - you have to search for your own path. Life is given to you not to be only “successful”. Be true to your ideals and do not give up them easily - be it compositions, partners, your own ideas.
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