BY ELEANOR WOOD
Pianist Simon Tedeschi and flautist Jane Rutter unite to conjure up The Vampire Diaries – featuring a passionate Eastern European program. The musically telling performance will bring us romantic works by Bartok, Doppler, Liszt, and Brahms. Ahead of his performance at the Hungarian and Transylvanian-inspired show in The Concourse Concert Hall tomorrow, Simon settles in for a chat.
Your career boasts a dauntingly long list of accomplishments, from performing a Mozart Concerto at the Sydney Opera House aged 9, to winning a slew of international prizes including the Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London and the Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year. What has been the most unusual performance you have given?
The list is long. Performing in a remote Cambodian Village on a keyboard hooked up to a generator (that sounded like a lawn mower) would have to take the prize.
Along with your musical accomplishments, you donate your time to a range of social justice and humanitarian causes. Do you think musicians have an obligation to engage with their social and political environment?
Yes, certainly. I don’t think music, or any artistic pursuit, can be divorced from the effect that it is striving for – the redemption of humanity, the capacity for humans to be more than borders, petrol bowser prices and political wrangling. I’ve always been this way, largely inculcated because of my parents’ interest in social justice.
You’ve said previously that music is a medium that should be listened to, not talked about. Do you think this makes the role of the music critic somewhat redundant?
No, not at all. No industry is immune from critique, especially when one is part of it. Music, like any sphere of thought, can never stop changing and adapting.
What’s the best piece of advice you have received, musical or otherwise?
To practise hard, don’t try to sound like anyone else, and never to take oneself too seriously. It’s not worth the bother.
Your work involves an enormous amount of technical mastery. Is this, in part, what attracts you to playing the piano, or does the act of playing piano not feel like work at all?
It’s absolutely work – but work I love. To relax, the last thing I do is listen to music. That’s what a lot of audience members can’t wrap their heads around. Piano playing is, as you touched upon, very much a ‘skill’, and as such, requires a lot of donkey work that is not necessarily ‘fun’.
Your upcoming concerts The Vampire Diaries are inspired by a love of Hungarian and Transylvanian music. What draws you to these composers?
I love the old black and white movies, love vampire stories and love gypsy music – so this is going to be like heaven for me! I love the rhythms, the darkness, the quixotic quality, the mystery, and the huge aural tradition that these cultures draw on.
Live at Lunch presents The Vampire Diaries, 12pm November 17 at The Concourse Concert Hall, Chatswood. Tickets available online.
Image supplied.
