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Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Conductor Nicolaus Harnoncourt

Mon, Nov 30 Listen

On December 6th, Conductor Nicolaus Harnoncourt celebrates his 80th birthday. Described by many as a musician's musician, he is one of the most profound and intriguing conductors of our time. Considered one of the world's leading specialists of Baroque music, he has long since turned his attention to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and even to Jacques Offenbach and Johann Strauss. Regarded as a leading authority on "authentic" performance practice, Harnoncourt himself says, "I have always hated...

Inspired Minds: One-to-one with writer Jason Star

Mon, Nov 16 Listen

Jason Star first thriller "Cold Caller" came out in 1997, and he has been publishing about a book a year ever since. In his novels, Starr describes the everyday madness in urban life, often taking it to harrowing extremes. Jason Starr’s latest novel is called "The Follower." It tells the story of Katie Porter who has just started her first job after college in a PR firm in downtown Manhattan. She finds the dating circus in the city confusing and tiresome so running into an old friend from...

Inspired Minds: One-to-one with violinist Sherban Lupu

Mon, Nov 9 Listen

In this week’s Inspired Minds, Sherban Lupu talks to Breandin O’Shea about Rumania’s very special violin school, the influence of the country’s folk music and his passion for the music of George Enescu. Sherban Lupu has performed as a soloist though-out the world. He is renowned both for his interpreatations of main-stream Western classics, and for his contemporary Rumanian repertoire. He has worked with leading Rumanian composers such as Theodor Grigoriu, Gheorghe Costinescu and Violeta...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Author Robert Littell

Sat, Oct 31 Listen

Littell’s latest novel “The Stalin Epigram,” is based on a riveting historical episode and is a fictional rendering of the life of the great twentieth century Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, one of the few artists in Soviet Russia who daringly refused to pay creative homage to Joseph Stalin. A former Newsweek journalist, New York born Robert Littell has been writing about the Soviet Union and Russians since his first novel, the espionage classic The Defection of A.J.Lewinter. He is the author...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Cellist Sol Gabetta

Mon, Oct 26 Listen

Sol Gabetta performs on one of the most rare and valuable cellos in the world built by G. B. Guadagnini in 1759. The cellist Sol Gabetta was born in Argentina, the daughter of French and Russian parents. She was only ten when she won her first competition in Argentina, and has received many more awards since then including the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition and the ARD Competition in Munich and the Natalia Gutman Prize. In 2004 Sol Gabetta made her dbut with the Vienna Philharmonic under...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with author Colm Tibn

Mon, Oct 12 Listen

Tibn’s latest novel “Brooklyn” portrays the immigrant experience and the complexities of what finally makes a place home. It tells a seemingly simple tale of a young girl and her immigration from Ireland to New York. The Irish novelist and journalist Colm Tibn was educated at University College Dublin where he read History and English. The author of a number of fiction and non-fiction works, Tibn is also a regular contributor to various newspapers and magazines. His novels include the titles...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with composer Krzysztof Penderecki

Mon, Oct 5 Listen

"I am very lucky that artists the likes of Jean-Pierre Rampal, Anne-Sophie Mutter or Mstislav Rostropovich liked to play my music. I like to know who I am writing my music for." The Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki studied composition at the Krakow Academy of Music where he was subsequently appointed as professor in 1958. One year later, Penderecki won all three available prizes at the II Warsaw Competition for Young Composers. To date, Penderecki has composed over 130 works - some of...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Author A S Greer

Mon, Sep 28 Listen

Greer's "The Confessions of Max Tivoli," was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune - while his latest book "The Story of a Marriage" has been described by The New York Times as ascending to the heights of masters. Andrew Greer initially studied writing at Brown University, and later worked in various jobs in New York before completing his studies at the University of Montana. His first novel," The Path of Minor Planets," was published in 2001. His...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Theodor Paleologu Rumania’s Minister of Cul

Mon, Sep 21 Listen

Rumania has always had a strong cultural tradition and the month long George Enescu Music festival is just one example of the country’s vibrant cultural life. Theodor Paleologu has been Rumania’s Minister of Culture, Religious Affairs, and Cultural Heritage since 2008 and is a member of Rumania’s Democratic Liberal Party. Born in Bucharest, Paleologu completed his secondary schooling at the city's German High School. Tertiary studies took him to Paris where he obtained a masters degree in...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Choreographer Royston Maldoom

Mon, Sep 14 Listen

For the past 30 years, Royston Maldoom has been the initiator and leader of numerous dance projects around the world. His work was especially honoured with the project “Rhythm is it”- where 250 kids danced Stravinsky’s "The Rite of Spring", with Simon Rattle and the Berlin PhilharmonicMaldoom initially studied agriculture, but his passion for dance was ignited, after seeing a movie of the Royal Ballet. Although already in his twenties, he immediately joined a local Cambridge dance school and...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with conductor John Axelrod

Mon, Sep 7 Listen

"Lenny (Bernstein) said to me – music is music! There is good music, there is bad music. Just do the good music and it doesn’t matter what it is!" John Axelrod was born in Texas and studied music initially at Harvard, with advanced studies with the renowned musicians Leonard Bernstein, IIlya Musin and Christoph Eschenbach. In 1996 he founded the Houston Orchestra X and has since been Conductor Laureate of that group as well as Principal Guest Conductor of Sinfonietta Cracovia and Music...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with the translator Ulrich Blumenbach

Mon, Aug 31 Listen

This month an unusual piece of American fiction finally appears in German - the novel "Infinite Jest" by the late David Foster Wallace. Ulrich Blumenbach spent six years translating this work. For many years, David Wallace’s more than a thousand page novel, "Infinite Jest", first published in 1996, was generally deemed untranslatable. Over six years ago the well-versed literary translator, Ulrich Blumenbach, decided to take on the task of translating this much-acclaimed book. Initially he...

Inspired Minds: One–to-One With Academy Award-Winning Director Adam Elliot

Mon, Aug 24 Listen

Elliot's films "Uncle," "Cousin," "Brother" and "Harvie Krumpet" have been viewed by millions of people around the world. He presented his latest film "Mary and Max" at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. Adam Elliot grew up in outback Australia. After his father's business went bankrupt, the family moved to Melbourne. As a child he spent hours drawing and creating characters out of pipe cleaners and egg cartons. Elliot went on the study at The Victorian College of the...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Composer/Conductor George Benjamin

Mon, Aug 17 Listen

Benjamin’s first orchestral work was played at the BBC Proms when he was just 20 and his work," Antara" was a commission to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Pompidou centre in 1987. George Benjamin started to play the piano at the age of seven, and began composing almost immediately. In 1976 he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study composition with the renowned Olivier Messiaen and piano with Yvonne Loriod. From there he studied at King's College Cambridge, where he is today, the...

Inspired Minds: One-to-one with baritone Alan Titus

Mon, Aug 10 Listen

After a four-year break Alan Titus returned to the Bayreuth Festival this year to sing Hans Sachs in Katharina Wagner’s staging of Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg. Born in New York, Alan Titus studied voice at the Juilliard School. Among his earliest performances - a Leonard Bernstein's Mass under the direction of the composer. Titus’s opera debut was as Marcello in Puccini’s La Bohme in Washington and this was followed by guest appearances in all the great American opera houses, including New...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with the singer Michelle Breedt

Mon, Aug 3 Listen

In the 2009 Bayreuth Wagner festival, Michelle Breedt may be heard as Fricka, the Ring cycle and as Brangne in Tristan and Isolde. A graduate of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Michelle Breedt started her training at the opera houses in Cape Town and Pretoria, and continued her studies at the Guildhall School in London. In 1990 she moved to Germany – initially as a member of the Opera Studio in Cologne, thereafter joining the Ensemble of the State Theatre in Braunschweig. It...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with the late author Frank McCourt

Mon, Jul 27 Listen

McCourt wrote his first book “Angela's Ashes” at 66. An international best-seller, the book won many top literary accolades including the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.The world acclaimed author, Frank McCourt, died on July 19th in New York.He was born in New York in 1931, to Irish immigrant parents. Unable to find work in the depths of the Depression, the McCourts returned to Ireland, where they sank deeper into poverty. It is this time, in Limerick Ireland that Frank McCourt describes in...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with the singer Michael Chance

Mon, Jul 20 Listen

The British countertenor Michael Chance is in demand all over the world for his interpretation of male alto parts in opera, and as a recital, concert, and recording artist. Chance was a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge where he completed a degree in English. Chance is active in opera, oratorio and song recitals and is also a guest professor at London’s Royal College of Music. His operatic roles include major baroque repertoire as well as contemporary works, the likes of Judith...

Inspired Minds: One-to-one with the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Mon, Jul 13 Listen

Aimard has championed the works of many contemporary composers the likes of Messian, Boulez and Elliott Carter and collaborated closely with Gyrgy Ligeti for more than 15 years, recording his complete works The pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed both as a key figure in the new music world and a uniquely significant musical voice in the performance of established repertoire. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Yvonne Loriod, and in London with Maria Curcio. Early career...

Inspired Minds: One to One with Composer Elliott Carter - Part 2

Mon, Jul 6 Listen

100-year-old Elliott Carter is internationally recognized as one of the leading American voices of the classical music tradition Elliot Carter has known all the great leaders of contemporary music, from Charles Ives, Edgar Varese, Aaron Copland, Stravinsky and many, many others. Carter was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and was the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, as well as Germany’s Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize.One of the extraordinary features of his...

Inspired Minds: One to One with Composer Elliott Carter - Part 1

Mon, Jun 29 Listen

100-year-old Elliott Carter is internationally recognized as one of the leading American voices of the classical music tradition Elliot Carter has known all the great leaders of contemporary music, from Charles Ives, Edgar Varese, Aaron Copland, Stravinsky and many, many others. Among his most vivid early memories, is the premier of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, where he sat next to George Gershwin. He has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and was the first composer to receive the United...

Inspired Minds: One to one with writer Nuala O'Faolain

Mon, Jun 22 Listen

The late Irish author enjoyed much international success, and was particularly popular in Germany, where her books lingered for months on bestseller lists. “Best Love, Rosie,” her last novel written before her death, was published this month. The journalist, TV producer, book reviewer, teacher and author Nuala O'Faolain became internationally well-known for her two volumes of memoirs, “Are You Somebody?” and “Almost There”, and her novel, My Dream of You. She also wrote a history with...

Inspired Minds: One to One with writer & filmmaker Scott Millwood

Mon, Jun 15 Listen

Scott Millwood recently completed a feature documentary called “Whatever Happened to Brenda Hean?”. The film tells the story of one of the first leaders of an environmental political party in the world, whose fight to save Tasmania’s Lake Pedder, led to her mysterious disappearance in 1972. The Australian filmmaker Scott Millwood has been living in Germany for more than five years. He was born in Tasmania in 1973 and initially studied law at the University of Melbourne, specialising in...

Inspired Minds: One–to–One with author Charlie Huston

Mon, Jun 8 Listen

Author Stephen King described Huston’s writing as "one of the most exciting voices this century." Charlie Huston initially made a name for himself writing thrillers, before turning his hand to the supernatural with his series of vampire novels featuring “undead”(to use Huston’s own special terms) investigator Joe Pitt . Huston’s first two books – “ Caught Stealing” and “Six Bad Things,” along with his fourth, “ A Dangerous Man,“ follow the loveable anti-hero, Hank Thompson as he works his...

Inspired Minds: One–to–One with opera director David Pountney Part 2

Mon, Jun 1 Listen

"Classical music, opera, theatre - people turn to these in times of crisis, and to some extent, times of easy prosperity are often when the arts are ignored" Born in Oxford in 1947, David Pountney and was educated at Cambridge. It was a production of Janacek’s opera Katya Kabanova for the 1972 Wexford Festival that first brought his work as an opera director to world attention. From 1975 to 1980 he was Director of Production for Scottish Opera where, in collaboration with Welsh National...

Inspired Minds: One–to–One with opera director David Pountney Part 1

Mon, May 25 Listen

Pountney has directed over ten world premieres, including two by renowned composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, for which he also wrote the libretto.Born in Oxford in 1947, David Pountney and was educated at Cambridge. It was a production of Janacek’s opera Katya Kabanova for the 1972 Wexford Festival that first brought his work as an opera director to world attention. From 1975 to 1980 he was Director of Production for Scottish Opera where, in collaboration with Welsh National Opera, his...

Inspired Minds: One-to-One with Australian Poet Robert Gray

Mon, May 18 Listen

"I think I like to write because I discover what I think about things that way. I wouldn’t understand my own experience if I didn’t write about it." Robert Gray began writing poems while working as a journalist and, later worked in various jobs which included teaching and as a reviewer for the ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald. The recipient of numerous grants and Gray taught at various universities in Australia and at Tokyo’s Meiji University. He is regarded as an outstanding landscape poet...

Inspired Minds: One to One with the pianist Andrs Schiff – Part 2

Mon, May 11 Listen

In 1999 Schiff founded his own chamber orchestra, "The Cappella Andrea Barca," which consists of international soloists and chamber musicians. Hungarian born Andrs Schiff started piano lessons at the age of five. Subsequently he continued his musical studies at the Liszt Academy with Gyrgy Kurtg and in London with George Malcolm. Recitals and special cycles, i.e. the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Bartk form an important part of...

Inspired Minds: One to One with the pianist Andrs Schiff – Part 1

Mon, May 4 Listen

"When I was a young man I rebelled against the music of Beethoven. I needed to reach the age of 50 to really appreciate this and now I really got the message." Hungarian born Andrs Schiff started piano lessons at the age of five . Subsequently he continued his musical studies at the Liszt Academy with Gyrgy Kurtg and in London with George Malcolm. Recitals and special cycles, i.e. the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Bartk form an...

Inspired Minds: One–to–One with Anne Sofie von Otter - Part 2

Mon, Apr 20 Listen

The mezzo-soprano is considered one of the finest singers of her generation and is thus sought after by many of the world's major conductors, orchestras, opera and recording companies.Born in Stockholm Anne Sofie von Otter studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Vera Rosza. She also attended classes in lied interpretation with Geoffrey Parsons in London and Erik Werba in Vienna. Von Otter is a regular performer at Covent Garden, The Metropolitan Opera and in the...

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