{ Stories }

"As I wrote this piece, I realized that one of its purposes was to bring together different facets of my own life experience. As a classical musician, the vast majority of my colleagues have little knowledge or understanding of Black culture, nor of how it influences my music-making."

– Steven Banks

“He did it in an admirable way. Not one word about the piece, not one comment. All simple, yes, but only through the music.”

– Pierre-Laurent Aimard

"I love that with Antara, finally, you feel that you are a musician, an executor, a performer, not a pianist, you know. So that's much more interesting to learn."

– Pierre-Laurent Aimard

"Listening to his symphony today, you hear ideas that later became associated with Mahler: the gestures, the orchestral language, the sense of a new symphonic world."

– Paavo Järvi

“I realize now that it's just like playing the instrument; you learn and you hone your craft, and there is a craft, not just an art, and the craft requires a lot of work.”

– Inbal Segev

"I do not want to be alone in exploring this genre. I want to see a world where there is music for art everywhere, like how every film has a score."

– Niles Luther

"So much of acting is about the relationships you have with other people you're on stage with, so unless you've sung this with them a bunch of times, I don't know how I would do it."

– Jacquelyn Stucker

"Schumann’s songs are as much piano pieces as they are music for voice, and the piano often completes what the voice has said."

– Ian Bostridge