Interviews

Appointed in 2007 as director of Château de Versailles Spectacles, Laurent Brunner created their own record label in 2018. This Lorrain revives in Versailles with the success he had with a festival in Verdun, then with Le Carreau in Forbach, with, always, the search for excellence. In 2022, four years after its launch, Château de Versailles Spectacles became Label of the Year of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA). Remy Franck met Laurent Brunner for an interview.

 Your record label was launched in 2018, so about ten years after the creation of Château de Versailles Spectacles, a private subsidiary of the public institution. How would you assess the situation?
The result is very particular because our activity comprises two years of pandemic. On the one hand, there was a slowdown in sales and on the other hand, the transition to digital, which was reinforced by the absence of concerts with an audience almost everywhere. Read More →

German pianist and conductor Frank Dupree has won the ICMA (International Classical Music Awards) prize in the Assorted Programs category with a CD of concertos and a Chamber Symphony by Nikolai Kapustin. Remy Franck talked with the musician.

Kapustin’s music combines jazz and classical music. The interpreter has to be able to reproduce this mélange. Is that actually difficult?
I grew up as a classical pianist and enjoyed a really classical piano education. Through my drum teacher, whom I had since I was a little boy, I got to know jazz and also African and Latin American music. As a teenager, I combined both and played a lot of jazz in addition to classical music, including Gershwin and Kapustin. Read More →

Romanian composer Sebastian Androne has won the Composer Award at the 2022 International Classical Music Awards (ICMA).  « He is a true talent, showing creativity and versatility in contemporary music as well as in soundtracks for film and theatre. » the ICMA jury said in a statement. An interview with the awardee is available at this link.

His fellow students at New York’s Juilliard School called Michael Korstick « Dr. Beethoven. » But it was only at the age of 43, after 20 successful concert seasons, that his first CDs appeared – and promptly caused a sensation. Since then, he has released some sixty productions, for which he is receiving a Special Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) this year. ICMA Jury member Remy Franck (Pizzicato/Luxembourg) talked to the pianist.

In the music world, there are the so-called stars and there are a myriad of artists that not everyone necessarily knows. You belong to the latter, as someone who works quite seriously, gives a lot of concerts and makes a lot of records, and I suppose you don’t like the media hype either?
I once read in an article that I was the antistar of the scene, and I actually liked that quite a bit, because I can live with that attribute better than anything else. For me, the first question is: for whom do I make music and for whom do I want to make music? Read More →

Ermonela Jaho is the winner of the ICMA 2021 award in the « Vocal Music » category with the album « Anima rara », published by Opera Rara and dedicated to the repertoire of Rosina Storchio, with particular emphasis on that commonly defined as verista-naturalista. The great Albanian singer, who has lived in Italy for 18 years, now resides in New York, but did not think twice about getting on a plane and coming to Vaduz expressly to receive the award and to sing, at the gala with the Sinfonieorchester Liechtenstein, a simply memorable ‘Addio del passato’, which earned her a standing ovation from the audience present. The day before the concert, ICMA Jury member Nicola Cattò (Musica, Italy) met her for a long conversation, in which Jaho spoke about many topics, starting from her arrival in Italy in 1993.

How was the world of music back in 1993?
I came from Albania, which had been under Communism for 50 years: everything was closed, what happened outside was unknown to us. And the world of opera was for us the one that passed through the Italian films in black and white, with the biographies of Bellini and Verdi. Read More →

The Sinfonieorchester Liechtenstein (SOL) is hosting this year’s International Classical Music Awards Gala on 27 June in Vaduz. In an interview with René Brinkmann, the president of the orchestra’s foundation board, Dr. Ernst Walch, and the head of the SOL’s artistic operations office, Florian Thierbach, talk about the past, present and future of the orchestra, which has been appearing more and more frequently on the « classical music map » in recent times.

 When you look at the history of the Sinfonieorchester Liechtenstein, the first thing that strikes you is that the orchestra, with its founding date in the 1980s, is quite a young orchestra compared to the orchestras in the surrounding countries of Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Could you perhaps first give our readers a brief summary of the orchestral tradition in Liechtenstein: Was there no professional symphony orchestra in Liechtenstein at all before the foundation of the Sinfonieorchester Liechtenstein?
EW: That’s right, the Liechtenstein Chamber Orchestra was founded on 10 September 1988 with the pragmatic aim of providing the music teachers of the Liechtenstein Music School with their own orchestra. Otherwise, the Vereinskultur has always been very strong in this country, so that in a broader sense there are many ensembles, but until 1988 there was no professional (national) orchestra. Read More →

Currently based in Paris, Italian violinist, conductor and record producer Johannes Pramsohler and his Ensemble Diderot won an award in ICMA’s category of Baroque Music with The Berlin Album, works by Benda, Graun, Janitsch, Kirnberger, von Preußen and Schulz (Audax ADX13726).
Born in 1980 in Sterzing in the autonomous Italian province of South Tyrol he studied in Bolzano, in Paris, at the Mozarteum Salzburg, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Read More →

Since the age of 4, Munich-born Maya Wichert has been playing the violin. Her enormous talent became apparent very early on. Master classes with Julia Fischer, Christoph Poppen, Ingolf Turban, countless competition successes, sponsorship awards and scholarships underline the potential of the young violinist. Many reasons for the jury of the International Classical Music Awards to present Maya Wichert with the Discovery Award 2021. Jury member Guy Engels (Radio 100.7, Luxembourg) made the following interview with her.

At the age of 15, you are still fully involved in the daily school routine, which is not easy to cope with, especially in times of a pandemic. Apart from the current difficulties, how do you generally manage school and music studies and still keep some free time as well?
I just try to combine everything well: the time for school, for practicing and for myself.  I usually do my schoolwork first, then I get out the violin.  Read More →

We no longer present Paul van Nevel, to whom we owe a unique work on the choral repertoire and so many unexpected discoveries. At the helm of his Huelgas Ensemble, van Nevel recorded Simone de Bonefont’s Messa pro Mortuis. This album Cyprès won in ICMA’s Early Music category. ICMA jury member Pierre-Jean Tribot (Crescendo)  made the following interview with the conductor. Read More →