Interviews and Recordings
Abigail Dolan (flute)
Studying historical flute recordings introduced Abigail to techniques no longer taught to musicians, let alone heard in performance. Her recordings here draw on lost techniques to make ten very different performances of Debussy’s Syrinx.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/abigail-dolan-2/
Anna Scott (piano, historical performance)
Pianist and researcher Anna Scott uses recordings of pianists whom Brahms knew to inspire both historical and highly original interpretations of his late Intermezzi.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/anna-scott/
Bobby Mitchell (piano)
Bobby uses improvisation and exceptional spontaneity in performances of the Liszt Sonata (with introduction), Brahms (Handel variations), Chopin (Fantasie-Impromptu) and Haydn (Sonata 38).
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/bobby-mitchell/
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson (musicologist)
Studying early recordings showed Dan that few normative beliefs about classical performance can be justified. His work with performers on this site tests alternative approaches and promotes non-conformity.https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/daniel-leech-wilkinson/
David Dolan (piano, improvisation)
David Dolan is Head of the Centre for Creative Performance & Classical Improvisation at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
His improvisational performances here include Mozart, R. Schumann (with cellist Thomas Carroll) and Webern (with cellist Tom Watkins).
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/david-dolan/
Diana Gilchrist (soprano)
Diana’s career as an opera singer has taken her across Europe, North America and to the Far East. Here she creates ten breathtaking performances of Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ in voices aged 3 to 80 and covering many states of mind.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/diana-gilchrist/
Eszter Osztrosits (violin), Imre Dani (piano)
Eszter and Imre used early recordings as students at Budapest’s Liszt Academy in order to recreate the character of Grieg’s own performances of his scores, applied here to his Violin Sonata no. 3.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/eszter-osztrosits-and-imre-dani/
Martin Lawrence (horn)
Martin explores ways of using performance anxiety to discover new relationships with one’s instrument and repertoire, here in highly personal performances of scores by Mozart and Schubert.
https://challengingperformance.com/the-book-23-4/
Mine Doğantan-Dack (piano)
Mine Doğantan-Dack, Professor of Music at Cambridge University, has been challenging performance norms since 2006. Here she offers a transgressive but entirely persuasive performance of a Rachmaninoff ‘Moment musical’.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/mine-doğantan-dack/
Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin)
Patricia Kopatchinskaja is one of a tiny number of classical musicians since the Second World War (Glenn Gould was another) who have managed to maintain a superstar career while playing well-known scores in highly unconventional ways.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/patricia-kopatchinskaja/
Shelley Katz (piano)
Many potential performances lie dormant within a single score. Shelley Katz considers it his duty as an artist to deliver these to audiences through his playing.
https://challengingperformance.com/interviews-recordings/shelley-katz-2/