This was a bit of a change from the normal routine. Last week, I had the opportunity to interview pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, in Phnom Penh as part of an initiative of the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation. Currently, Ashkenazy is the chief conductor and artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and he had flown in after conducting a concert in Melbourne, of all places. I’ve long been a fan of Ashkenazy’s: his recordings of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto Chopin’s third piano sonata (the last and best) are both favourites – especially his rendering of the latter’s majestic opening movement. In our interview, we spoke about Ashkenazy’s upbringing in Soviet Russia, his exposure to Western music after moving to London in 1963 and Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which has united young Israelis and Arabs in a “project against ignorance” of the crisis in the Middle East.
You can read the full article here.
Here’s a young Ashkenazy peforming the first of Chopin’s 24 etudes, in C Major, probably sometime in the 1960s:
This was a bit of a change from the routine. This week, I had the opportunity to interview pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, in Phnom Penh as part of an initiative of the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation. I’ve long been a fan of Ashkenazy’s: his recordings of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto Chopin’s third piano sonata (the last and best) are both favourites – especially his rendering of the latter’s majestic opening movement. In our interview, we spoke about Ashkenazy’s upbringing in Soviet Russia, his exposure to Western music after moving to London in 1963 and Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which has united young Israelis and Arabs in a “project against ignorance” about the Middle East. You can read the full article here.
