Japanese Musicians Play “Amazing Grace” with 273 Theremins Placed Inside Matryoshka Dolls
Vienna Is The Best City To Live
- Infrastructure is pivotal in determining quality of living for expats and cities
- Vienna ranks highest for quality of living for the 8th year in a row
- Singapore ranks first for city infrastructure
- UK’s highest ranked city, London, ranks 40th for quality of living, 6th for infrastructure
The annual Mercer rankings are out and Vienna comes top for the eighth year running as the best city in terms of quality of life, measured on public services, political climate and recreation (including arts).
London is 40th, New York 44th.
1 Vienna, Austria
2 Zurich, Switzerland
3 Auckland, New Zealand
4 Munich, Germany
5 Vancouver, Canada
6 Dusseldorf, Germany
7 Frankfurt. Germany
8 Geneva, Switzerland
9 Copenhagen, Denmark
10 Basel, Switzerland
10 Sydney, Australia
12 Amsterdam, Netherlands
13 Berlin, Germany
14 Bern, Switzerland
15 Wellington, New Zealand
16 Melbourne, Australia
16 Toronto, Canada
18 Ottawa, Canada
19 Hamburg, Germany
20 Stockholm, Sweden
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Interview: Nathalia Milstein, Pianist
Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?
I was born into a musical family – my mother is a violist, my father is a pianist – and I always heard music at home while my parents were practicing or teaching pupils. I don’t remember choosing the piano consciously, I just played the keyboard whenever I could and my father finally started to give me lessons. I am often asked when I knew that I wanted to make it my profession, but I am unable to answer because it was somehow always obvious to me that I would play the piano. No other choice has ever occurred to me!
Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?
Most of all are my teachers – my father, with whom I studied until I was eighteen and who still advises me, and Nelson Goerner.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
The greatest challenge, which will probably last all my life, is trying to understand how to be completely myself on stage, how to convey my own ideas without getting distracted by anything else and be 100% into the music.
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Mentre Gonfiarsi l’Anima – Attila, Giuseppe Verdi
Musician Rob Scallon Shares Everything He Knows About Playing Slap Guitar
Does Theatre Matter?
The answer of course is that we still have theatre for the same reason the advent of the novel didn’t kill the play, and the advent of film didn’t kill both: because humans love to share stories, and each new way of doing that gives us more opportunities for, respectively, escapism from and better understanding of the world around us. Reading novels about people different from us engenders empathy and watching sad films boosts feelings of group bonding: theatre has an added feeling of liveness and shared experience – like a cross between a gig and the cinema.
Sometimes you want to experience art on your own in the bath, and sometimes you want to share that experience with a bunch of strangers in the dark. We live in a busy, complicated world – there’s every chance you’re reading this on public transport, or on your lunchbreak, or in a few snatched minutes away from your emails – and it’s hard to carve time out to interact with most art forms without checking your phone occasionally, or “double screening”. Doing several things at once makes us less efficient at all of them, and is bad for our brains – but theatre demands your complete attention. (Not least because if you do get caught using your phone, Kevin Spacey might shout at you.)
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Interview: Elisabeth Turmo, Violinist
Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?
When I was younger my biggest inspiration was Anne Sophie Mutter, who I simply adored for her temperament and colouring in her playing. In later years there have been a handful of people who have had a huge influence on my musical life and career, as well as my personal life. My experience is that being a musician is an opportunity for learning more and more about yourself, which is one of my favourite things with being a musician. It always challenges me to get to know myself on a deeper and deeper level physically, psychologically and emotionally. The more I learn, the easier it gets and I become more and more like a curious child! One of those who have had the greatest influence on my musical life and career the last few years is Timani teacher Tina Margareta Nilsen, who is an expert on how to use the body as a musician in order to reach your potential as a musician. My Alexander Technique teachers at the Royal College of Music, Judith Kleinman and Peter Buckoke also had an extraordinary influence on my playing as well as life in general. I am very grateful to these dedicated teachers who have included body and mind to music. How to use my body in a healthy, uplifting and musical way while playing is truly one of the greatest gifts and wisdom I have ever received, and every day I am exploring new things and deeper and deeper layers of it.
Another huge influence in my musical life, career and life in general is Ascension meditation. I started to practice this meditation every day one year ago. This has helped me getting back to the joy and love of playing and performing music that I had when I was younger, but somehow got somewhat lost on the way with pressure and stress associated with playing the violin. It has also helped me with creativity and being more efficient in every aspect of my life, including in the practicing room. I have never practiced as little as I do now, and never developed as fast! It has helped me become more present during performances, which is probably one of the most important aspects as a performer.
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