Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar, 2026) As the recalled titles for the Cannes awards ceremony began circulating hours before the closing ceremony, the festival’s guessing game entered its most suspenseful phase. It happens every year. This time, the shortlist reportedly included Fjord, Minotaur, Fatherland, The Black Ball, The Dreamed Adventure, A Man of His Time, All of a Sudden, and Coward. These eight films would ultimately divide the festival’s seven major awards. Either a tie would emerge in one category, or Cannes might once again create a special distinction for a particular film, as it had done for The Seed of the Sacred Fig in 2024 and Bi Gan’s Resurrection in 2025. Until shortly before the awards ceremony began in the evening, journalists and critics continued to publish predictions. Meanwhile, a vast legion of cinephiles who weren’t even in Cannes took to social media for a virtual Cannes experience and weighed in with their own forecasts, often relying on jury grids by numerous outlets or reviews from critics whose tastes aligned with theirs. This phenomenon further underscores the inherent game nature of the awards mechanism—it is as rich in dramatic tension as it is in interactivity. The final results were hardly surprising. Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu claimed a second Palme d’Or with Fjord, nearly two decades after winning with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in 2007. Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, now based in France, received the Grand Prix for Minotaur. Best Director was shared by Paweł Pawlikowski for Fatherland and the directing duo Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for The Black Ball. Whether such a lineup possesses credibility remains, as always, a matter of individual judgment. Yet the significance of Cannes has never rested solely on its prize winners. As the world’s most influential film festival, its value emerges from the totality of the works it presents. Together, these films tell stories about individuals while simultaneously reflecting the condition of the contemporary world. Artists’ Cinema Across its Official Selection and parallel sections—including Directors’ Fortnight, Critics’ Week, and ACID—the 79th Cannes Film Festival screened 122 feature films. Among them, the 22 titles competing for the Palme d’Or represent the highest-profile showcase of contemporary auteur cinema. What is striking is that at least thirteen of these twenty-two competition films place artists at the center of their narratives, either as protagonists or as essential mediators through which the story unfolds. The first competition title, Fukada Koji’s Nagi Notes, revolves in part around Yoriko (Matsu Takako), a sculptor whose reunion with an old friend, Yuri (Ishibashi Shizuka), quietly sets two emotional trajectories in motion. Yoriko’s studio is filled with wooden portraits carved from live models, yet one sculpture hidden beneath a cloth is modelled after Yuri herself. Through sculpture, Yoriko materialises feelings she chose not to openly express, creating a vessel for emotions otherwise left without form. It is a strategy common to artists across many of this year’s films. Novelists use writing to observe and intervene in the lives of those they study, as in Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales. Photographers turn the camera toward their objects of desire, as in Arthur Harari’s The Unknown and Marie Kreutzer’s Gentle Monster. Film directors write friends and family members into their scripts in search of reconciliation, as in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved and Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas. At its core, artistic creation repeatedly appears as a form of fulfilment, even possession, achieved through fiction. Nagi Notes (Fukada Koji , 2026) Bitter Christmas goes further by examining the way artworks can turn back upon their creators. This dimension emerges through Almodóvar’s elegantly structured screenplay. Within the film, director Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and the fictional filmmaker Elsa (Barbara Lennie), a character created by Raúl himself, simultaneously engage in acts of writing. Their narratives mirror and interrogate one another. Near the conclusion, just as Raúl finally discovers a way of writing about friends and family that feels both morally defensible and formally satisfying, he smiled. The camera immediately cuts to Elsa sitting on a sofa, gazing at him with something close to judgment. In that moment, the artist’s authority dissolves. By his twenty-fourth feature, Almodóvar appears to have redirected his critical gaze toward himself. A second group of films focuses on the precarious conditions of artistic existence. In Jeanne Herry’s Another Day, Adèle Exarchopoulos plays a struggling actress trapped by alcoholism. In Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s All of a Sudden, theatre director Mari (Okamoto Tao) continues pursuing seemingly impossible productions while dying of cancer. Ira Sachs’s The Man I Love follows an AIDS-stricken artist, played by Oscar winner Rami Malek, navigating friendships, family ties and a complicated love triangle in 1980s New York. Even Thomas Mann in Fatherland, though spared immediate material hardship, finds himself caught between competing ideological camps eager to transform him into a symbolic figure. His son has already sought posthumous vindication through suicide, while his daughter, his closest companion, never hesitates to challenge him directly. Other films feature artists less prominently, yet their presence remains crucial to the narrative. Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s A Woman’s Life deconstructs the life of a surgeon (Léa Drucker) into a dozen episodic chapters, a clever device that sidesteps the pitfalls of conventional dramatic structure. In several pivotal chapters, the surgeon meets her temporary true love—a novelist whose creative premise involves observing the surgeon’s life. She is possessed within the writer’s literary imagination, only for the novelist to vanish the moment he secures a Japanese writing grant. The Black Ball, inspired by Federico García Lorca’s unfinished work of the same name, gradually drifts into fiction. Lorca’s late-life companion Rafael Rodríguez Rapún enters the narrative, which imagines a secret emotional bond developing between the imprisoned Rapún and one of his guards during the Spanish Civil War. In the twenty-first century, the guard’s grandson attempts to reconstruct both the lost manuscript and the hidden love story buried within it. Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Sheep in the Box moves into the future, imagining a world where artificial intelligence can resurrect the dead. The architect played by Ayase Haruka spends her life designing ideal homes for others, while her AI-empowered son develops his own vision of home through accelerated learning, ultimately constructing an entirely new one for himself. These films may point toward a tendency worth scrutinizing. Cinema, by virtue of the camera, is built upon a relationship between observer and observed. However, as an increasing number of directors choose to place the artist—a proxy for themselves—into the position of the observed, one may wonder whether contemporary cinema risks becoming trapped in a closed circuit of self-reference. At its worst, it can slide into a form of artistic narcissism. The tendency arguably reached an extreme two years ago with Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio. When Chiara Mastroianni plays her father Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve plays Chiara’s mother, the film ultimately becomes a fully internalized act of cinematic fan fiction, no longer a window onto the world beyond itself.

阅读中文版 Umberto Giordano’s opera Marina, written 138 years ago, was rediscovered during the pandemic and finally given its world premiere at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme in February this year. The premiere recording, starring tenor Freddie De Tommaso and soprano Eleonora Buratto, was released by Decca Classics at the end of July, allowing listeners to hear the earliest work of the composer who would later write Andrea Chénier. With British and Italian heritage, De Tommaso is one of the lyric tenors to have risen rapidly through the international opera world in recent years. Shortly before the release of Marina, I met him for a drink at the bar of the Royal Opera House in London. That evening, he was due back on stage to sing Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème. A year earlier, I had watched him at the same theatre opposite Anna Netrebko in the new production of Tosca. Freddie De Tommaso and Anna Netrebko in Tosca © The Royal Opera 2025 Marc Brenner De Tommaso has a warm, supple voice, but his characterisation is just as striking. His Rodolfo was young, sensitive and slightly awkward in his sincerity; his Cavaradossi was passionate and deeply affecting. When we met, he told me that he had already had experience as an actor as a child. From the age of five or six, he sang in his school choir, played the piano, and later joined the chapel choir and school orchestra. At around 11, his mother took him to Glyndebourne to see Puccini’s one-act opera Gianni Schicchi. He had already heard its famous aria O mio babbino caro many times on the radio and in his father’s Italian restaurant. “Then hearing that in the context of the opera world, it was very exciting,” he recalled. Looking back, he says it was probably in the choir, as a young boy, that he “caught the bug for singing”. Many of the roles he sings are tragic, and he says the challenge is to find a balance between emotional immersion and the demands of singing. “Obviously, if you go too deep into it, then it can affect your singing. And obviously that’s not good. But also, if you don’t go deep enough, you don’t give an interesting performance.” Experience helps. The more often he sings a role, the more it becomes part of his body; once the singing is secure, he can go further into the character. Take Rodolfo. When he first sang the role in 2022, his attention was largely on the singing itself. He has now performed it at least 50 times. “The singing is, you know, it’s completely taken for granted, basically.” That gives him more freedom in rehearsal to develop his relationships with Mimì, Marcello and the other characters, and to find more layers in the role. Freddie De Tommaso in La bohème © The Royal Opera 2026 Ian Hippolyte Marina was a very different experience. There was no established performance tradition and no recording to refer to, so De Tommaso had to look to Giordano’s later works, including Andrea Chénier and Fedora, for clues to the young composer’s musical language. “In its musical style, it is thoroughly verismo,” he says. Giordano was only about 21 when he wrote it, yet already seemed to have “his sound and his style well in his hands”. De Tommaso plays Giorgio, a wounded Serbian soldier, whom he sees as somewhat similar to Cavaradossi in Tosca: “a heroic romantic character”. Much of the music is lyrical, he says, but there are also more forceful dramatic passages, giving the role something in common with the poet and revolutionary of Andrea Chénier. To learn the role, he gave the full score to his London coach Jonathan Papp, who made him a learning track by playing the orchestral part as well as his vocal line. “Then, yeah, we just studied and coached it.” Without an established tradition to follow, the singers had to make their own decisions. “To a point, you can kind of really put your own individual stamp on it.” The first ever album release of Marina by Decca At around 55 minutes, Marina is short enough to make an appealing double bill, and De Tommaso would love to see it on stage. He thinks it would work particularly well with Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. The two operas were submitted to the same Sonzogno competition in 1888: Cavalleria rusticana won, while Marina came sixth. One went on to become a staple of the verismo repertoire; the other disappeared for almost 140 years. Talking about Italian opera inevitably brings him back to Puccini. “He really understood human nature,” he says. “For romance, for love, he really had it.” He also points to aggression, recalling the second act of Tosca, particularly the confrontation between Tosca and Scarpia. Puccini, he says, understood human emotion and was able to translate it into sound, “possibly better than anyone else”. His own voice, meanwhile, has changed considerably since 2022. “The voice is the muscle. It changes with time and with maturity.” His voice now feels more dramatic to him, ready for heavier repertoire. He still enjoys singing lyrical roles such as Rodolfo, but is looking ahead to larger Verdi and Puccini roles. Born and raised in England, De Tommaso can sound, on stage, unmistakably Italian. Away from the stage, however, he is distinctly English: he likes going to the pub, playing golf and watching rugby. He describes himself as “very much a half-and-half kind of person”. His musical identity feels more Italian, while his everyday life retains what he sees as his Englishness. Freddie De Tommaso in Tosca © The Royal Opera 2025 Marc Brenner He also feels strongly about opera’s place in contemporary culture. Over the past few decades, he says, opera in Britain has become increasingly removed from the mainstream. He sometimes uses social media to introduce opera to younger audiences, but he knows it is a difficult line to walk. “We know that we must do that sort of thing, but also we don’t want to appear cringe.” “There’s so much choice for people,” he says. “There’s Netflix, there’s Amazon Prime, there’s Disney, all this stuff to take people’s attention away.” Opera has to fight for its own space: “Yes, I am still here. I’m still important. You must come.” If opera were to disappear simply because people did not know about it, he says, “it would be a tragedy”. I ask him why he feels so strongly about bringing opera to more people. “Because it is the only way that a human being can sense, literally sense in their body, the vibrations created by another human being.” There is nothing between the singer and the listener: “There’s no piano or violin or whatever. There is no microphone, nothing electric. Nothing.” “It’s me to you. And the air, the vibrations.” For De Tommaso, that direct physical connection is what makes opera so special — and what allows it to move people so strongly. A sound you never get tired of I really like the sound of a match striking. That, like, you know, the— and then as it catches. That’s the sound I really like. The last piece of music that moved you to tears The end of Suor Angelica. Something audiences often get wrong about opera singers That we’re not normal people. We are just completely normal, run-of-the-mill, normal people. And I think they think sometimes that we are, I don’t know, not normal. Bits of it can be glamorous, but a lot of it is travelling by yourself, staying in hotels or Airbnbs, just by yourself with your suitcase. It’s hard. You’re away from your family and loved ones a lot. It’s not all glamorous and fun all the time. Your idea of perfect happiness Peace. Peace, tranquillity. Your most marked characteristic Oh, I don’t know. Cheerful, I would like to say. I would like that to be the case. What are you worst at? Ignoring other people’s opinions. The quality you most value in a person Kindness. The musicians who mean the most to you Well, that’s a really hard question. My wife is a musician, so my wife and several of my best friends are musicians. So, yeah, my loved ones, I would say. The thing you wish people noticed the most Hard work. The most incredible thing that has ever happened to you The most incredible, the best thing that happened to me? My daughter. Your advice to a young singer Get good at singing and then do competitions. That’s how you do it these days. Freddie De Tommaso In 2018, De Tommaso won the Viñas International Singing Competition, receiving the Plácido Domingo Tenor Prize and the Verdi Prize, before joining the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera. In 2021, at 28, he stepped in at short notice as Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Royal Opera House, an appearance that opened the door to international recognition. He has since appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Vienna State Opera and the Paris Opera, and is now one of the most closely watched young tenors of his generation.

Matt Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026) Universal Pictures 阅读中文版 The Odyssey is a thoroughly “big” movie. Its bigness extends far beyond the silver screen. Even outside the film itself, the scale of the conversation it has generated is unprecedented. The film was dated for release and put on advance sale as early as a year before its premiere. This is hardly standard practice for a film. It is more reminiscent of a sold-out Broadway or West End musical, or a Taylor Swift-level stadium concert. Live performances have always possessed an inherent scarcity: they can only take place in one location at one particular time. Film, by contrast, is different. A movie can open simultaneously in tens of thousands of cinemas around the world. By definition, it could never suffer from the same scarcity. And yet The Odyssey has created precisely this kind of concert-like scarcity through its IMAX 70mm version, supposedly the “ultimate format” for cinema. Only 40 cinemas worldwide are capable of screening this so-called “complete” version. As a result, some audiences have taken trains, even planes, simply to experience it. The screenings at London’s BFI IMAX have been almost continuously sold out through September, with only seats in the corners of the first two rows remaining. In France, some viewers have driven hundreds of kilometres to Montpellier simply to see the film at the country’s only cinema capable of screening the “complete” version. Before it became a “big” movie, The Odyssey was first and foremost a “big” cinematic event. If we look back at film history, we find that “big” has never been merely a question of size. In the 1950s, CinemaScope used anamorphic lenses and widescreen projection to show audiences more, but it expanded horizontally. Widescreen eventually became the dominant format in cinemas today. With IMAX 70mm and IMAX GT digital projection, however, “more” has shifted vertically. One is wider; the other is taller. How are we supposed to determine which one is “more”? This is no longer simply a technical question. It is a question of who has the authority to define what “big” means, and to define how a film ought to be seen. Christopher Nolan and the media discourse surrounding him have transformed IMAX from a technical format into a standard of viewing. Their voices are like the Sirens’ song, luring audiences toward IMAX cinemas. In recent years, the release of a Nolan film has always been accompanied by this kind of “format chaos.” The Odyssey exists in at least three aspect ratios, from “big” to “small”: 1.43:1, 1.90:1 and 2.39:1, with the latter two cropped from the former. The 40 cinemas worldwide capable of screening IMAX 70mm film, together with a small number of IMAX GT cinemas supporting the 1.43:1 ratio, can show the so-called “complete” version. The remaining tens of thousands of cinemas can only screen the cropped versions. Traumpalast in Leonberg, Germany, has the largest IMAX screen in the world, yet it can only show the cropped 1.90:1 version. And so we return to the same question: what, exactly, counts as “big”? The Odyssey in 1.43:1 Universal Pictures Another question follows. Leaving aside whether such aggressive vertical cropping actually affects the perspective of the image, there is nothing inherently impossible about projecting a 1.43:1 image onto most widescreens. The only problem is that the image cannot fill the entire screen, leaving blank space on either side. At least in Europe, many older cinemas still have motorized curtains in front of their screens. These not only provide the ceremonial pleasure of the curtain slowly opening at the beginning of a film; they can also physically adjust the effective size of the screen, allowing it to accommodate different aspect ratios. In other words, the screen adapts to the film, rather than the film adapting to the screen. The difference becomes particularly apparent at film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin and Venice. The same screen may show dozens of films over the course of several days, possibly each with a different aspect ratio. The curtains can be adjusted from film to film, giving every aspect ratio the full space it deserves. Respecting the integrity of the frame is also a way of respecting the film itself. The paradox of The Odyssey, however, is that Nolan has gone to enormous lengths to shoot with IMAX film cameras in pursuit of an image that reaches “from floor to ceiling,” yet only a tiny fraction of audiences will ever see that image in its entirety. For the vast majority of viewers around the world, what they see is a cropped Odyssey. Another aspect of The Odyssey that became a talking point long before its release was its casting. Discussions surrounding the casting of a “Black Helen” and transgender actors as Greek soldiers had already become heated well before the film opened. A simple analogy might be this: can a non-Western actor play a character in Shakespeare, a ballet by Tchaikovsky, or an opera by Puccini? The answer has long been self-evident. In opera alone, the Chinese soprano Hui He has performed across Europe for years in Madama Butterfly, Turandot, Tosca, La Bohème and Aida, playing Japanese, Chinese, Bohemian and Ethiopian characters respectively. In recent years, opera has also seen an increasing number of transgender performers. The American transgender singer Lucia Lucas is a typical example. She presents as a woman and has a baritone voice, and therefore frequently performs male roles in opera, such as the bullfighter Escamillo in Carmen. So why does similar casting in film still provoke such controversy? Perhaps because film is a more mass-oriented art form? And perhaps the “bigger” the film, the more it is expected to represent some notion of “popular” identity, history and culture. The Odyssey (2026) Universal Pictures As a filmmaker, Christopher Nolan can no longer make “small” films. From Oppenheimer to The Odyssey, he first used the “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer, to tell a story about the end of civilization, before travelling back to the period in which The Odyssey is set—the origins of Western civilization. Yet, as many critics have already pointed out, The Odyssey is undoubtedly a continuation of Oppenheimer at its core. Nolan has achieved a curious synthesis here: using an epic about the origins of Western civilization to tell a story about the destruction of civilization. That destruction begins with the violation of Zeus’s law. And the violator is none other than the “great hero” Odysseus. Odysseus spends more than twenty years slowly making his way home, enduring one ordeal after another and overcoming each through his ingenuity. In The Odyssey, however, Matt Damon’s repeated “tricks” trigger wars and conflicts that result in the deaths of civilians and Greek soldiers. The “great hero” therefore seems perpetually steeped in sorrow, as if he had wandered in from a Terrence Malick set. At this point, the anti-war impulse of Nolan’s The Odyssey becomes unmistakable. Naturally, it is easy to read this as political allegory. Odysseus could be Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, or even Musk. But obviously, none of these “great men” are going to change because of a film. The true recipients of the film’s message are therefore still ordinary people like us, who have no ability to influence the course of events. What The Odyssey offers us is a form of spiritual consolation: through an entirely safe, lowest-common-denominator anti-war narrative, Nolan, himself a member of the cultural elite, places himself alongside the masses. Nolan clearly believes in the righteousness of anti-war sentiment, and there is of course nothing controversial about that righteousness. Yet the ending of The Odyssey inevitably reminded me of the ending of Spielberg’s Disclosure Day: Emily Blunt is about to reveal to the world the existence of extraterrestrial life, and Spielberg seems to have such faith in the universality of this revelation that he has the entire world watching the livestream simultaneously. Nolan is, of course, not quite that single-minded. After an exhausting and chaotic indoor fight scene, he has Odysseus and Penelope speak to each other through a closed door. This is not a monologue but a dialogue; not a declaration addressed to the entire world, but an almost private act of self-examination. Through Odysseus, Nolan says what he feels he must say, but those words do not, and cannot, extend beyond the realm of confession and atonement. In the famous interview Nolan did with a Chinese influencer, he defended the film by arguing that even if you recognize the conventions of a movie, that does not mean those conventions invalidate themselves. Of course. This is a familiar, success-manual style piece of rhetoric, grounded in the fact of his own already proven success. Or perhaps, from Nolan’s perspective, it is simply the way an elite figure attempts to communicate with the masses. But it is precisely these conventions that make the film feel bland. Alongside this blandness, the film attempts to generate tension through action sequences in which one man takes on dozens. The problem is that such tension is almost impossible to sustain, because audiences either already know, or have already anticipated, that Odysseus will not die here. Anne Hathaway’s performance is similar. She appears spicy, even faintly feminist, but the performance is relatively one-dimensional. At the moments when the audience is supposedly meant to empathize with her, it is precisely the attitude she projects—that of someone who seems to believe “the whole world owes me something”—that blocks the emotional connection. Matt Damon may claim that he got into much better shape for The Odyssey, but his Odysseus is a character lacking both charisma and the traditional aura of a hero. And so this “big” movie finally manages to justify itself: it has an enormous production scale, an enormous cast of stars, an enormous screen, an enormous market, and an enormous theme. In the end, all these forms of “bigness” converge on a very safe, very familiar moral conclusion. Samantha Morton as Circe in The Odyssey (2026) Universal Pictures Yet The Odyssey is not without its memorable set pieces: the terror of the Cyclops’ cave; the visceral horror of Circe, played by Samantha Morton, turning soldiers into pigs through practical effects; the flashes of humor that Robert Pattinson’s Antinous occasionally brings to a film otherwise steeped in tragedy; and Charlize Theron’s Calypso, who has the goddess-like glamour of a perfume advertisement, though that quality will undoubtedly divide audiences. Circe in particular—the bodies, skin, food, fur and animal hides, and the tangible, unclean physicality of her contact with the men—made me realize something: images that are truly alive do not necessarily have to be the biggest ones. That is also why, after watching The Odyssey, I found myself missing “small” films. Radu Jude’s The Diary of a Chambermaid is one of them. It too is an adaptation of a literary classic, and it too possesses a strong sense of modernity, yet it is much “smaller.” It does not attempt to represent civilization. It does not attempt to become a global event. Nor does it require some supposedly “ultimate format” to prove that it is worth watching. But it is closer to our lives, and closer to our history. Amid flashes of brilliance and an overwhelming sense of blandness, the nearly three-hour journey of the simplified Odyssey came to an end. The Odyssey is, of course, a great product of the film industry. It has given audiences around the world a reason to reconsider the cinema. It has allowed a somber blockbuster, one not particularly driven by entertainment, to earn more than a billion dollars at the global box office. And it has once again made the cinema a place worth making a special trip to. This is Nolan’s gift to cinema. Three weeks after its German release, on a weekday afternoon, I went to see a non-IMAX digital screening. The aspect ratio was 2.39:1, in an ordinary cinema.

Yuja Wang © Julia Wesely 12 August, pianist Yuja Wang made her debut with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) at the Edinburgh International Festival, in a world premiere. The programme was jointly curated and selected by Wang and Wynton Marsalis, with ten arrangers reworking jazz classics by Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck and others. Wang performed transcriptions of works by these jazz piano titans, accompanied by newly commissioned band arrangements created specifically for each transcription. What captivated Yuja was not simply the jazz, but its sense of community and play. Classical music, she says, is usually centred on a soloist, or a soloist with an orchestra, and as a solo musician there can be a certain sense of solitude. This was different: “We rehearse together, everyone writes music together, everyone arranges together.” There is a sense of everyone participating, she says, rather than striving for perfect precision. “Good music is a sense of play.” This is my third interview with Yuja. When I first met her in 2009, she was 22 and had just stepped into the international spotlight. When we met again in 2014, she had already begun talking about jazz and contemporary art. More than a decade later, she has gone much further: collaborating with jazz musicians, exploring conducting, taking part in Latin music projects, working with David Hockney on an immersive art experience two years ago, and more recently bringing her playing into a VR project now being presented internationally. Yet classical music still makes up the majority of her more than 100 performances around the world each year. From this autumn, she will also be an artist in residence at Vienna’s Musikverein, performing a series of concerts. She continues to admire pianists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who combine deep musical study with an open mind. “I didn’t change direction, I just expanded.” She does not like looking back at who she was ten years ago. Everything that happened simply brought her to where she is today. What interests her now is what she can do with everything she has accumulated along the way — and where it might take her next. We also talked about her teacher Gary Graffman and her friend and mentor Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT), both of whom passed away over the past year. MTT was part of Wang’s life from the age of 17 into her 30s. “He could understand me without saying anything,” she says. People like that, she feels, are increasingly difficult to find. She has also come to understand that life outside music matters: the richer her life is, the more she has to express when she sits at the piano. Our conversation therefore began with jazz and ended with music and life — and with the question of where a pianist who has spent more than two decades at the very top of her profession might want to go next. Good music is a sense of play Music is still what gives me the greatest pleasure. A while ago I played some Latin music. Two years ago, my friend Teddy Abrams — we have been very close friends since our days at the Curtis Institute of Music — took me to hear Latin music one summer. I felt that the musicians on stage had such a love for music and for life. Everything came through the music — very directly, very naturally, and with such infectious energy. I was completely drawn in, and I thought, I wish I could play with them one day. And eventually I did. We have four concerts this summer, all at fairly big music festivals, but in smaller venues. A lot of things are different from what I am used to. We need amplification; two trumpets and two percussionists can already be very loud. There is also improvisation, although most of it is written out, and I have one improvisational section too, which is mostly written down beforehand. It is completely different from classical music. I have played the piano since I was a child, and before I play, I read the score, so my music is very visual. Theirs is very auditory. I have to turn off the visual first and then listen. It is completely different. I don’t have that experience, but I also don’t think I necessarily need to. I just want to be immersed in it, to be with them. For me, there is only good music and bad music. There are no boundaries between genres. Listening to jazz is a little like reading Haruki Murakami. It takes me somewhere else. I don’t know if you would call it escape, because it takes me somewhere else, where I don’t have to think about my own life for a while. There is something deep in it that speaks directly to the soul. I never really separated jazz and classical music, because my father used to be a percussionist and played jazz. So I was exposed to these things from an early age, and I have always liked them. To me, they were never two completely different worlds. On stage, it is not about everything having to be perfectly precise. It is just that everyone is playing around together. Classical music is usually a solo recital or a concerto, and as a solo musician myself, I sometimes feel a little isolated. This is different. There is a real sense of participation: we rehearse together, everyone writes music together, everyone arranges together. I like that. I started conducting around 2018, when I began working with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. It feels like a community, with everyone serving the music together. I think there is a misunderstanding about conducting: people think the conductor is standing in front and leading everyone. But I’m not a leader. It’s just like chamber music with a bigger group. The cello, the violin, and the piano should be in the middle. It is a sense of community, everyone playing the score together. From Hockney to VR: finding new medium to experience music For many years, I have been thinking about whether there are new ways for me to express myself through music, and whether there are new media through which music can be experienced. I recently did a VR project, Playing with Fire. A lot of people said, “Oh, artificial intelligence.” But it had nothing to do with artificial intelligence. I spent a very long time recording on site. First, I played every piece live and recorded it in full. Then I played it again based on those live performances and recorded footage of how I played. So it really took me a very long time. The “me” in it is always really me. There was no machine involved, and we kept adjusting things and trying to make everything as good as possible. It is just that the music was eventually put into another medium: you have to put on the glasses to enter that world. I really liked the immersive project I did with David Hockney at Lightroom in London. That was very inspiring to me. I feel that after playing the piano for so long, I really need to absorb nourishment from other art forms, otherwise my playing might lose its soul. Playing with Fire took that one step further. With Hockney, I was there and Hockney was there. This time, I had already recorded everything and then went back to see it. Later I wanted to add smell as well, so I found a perfumer who works for Dior. He is also interested in music, so we recorded a video together. There are about seven or eight pieces in it. He first had me smell several different scents, and then I chose one for each piece. The theme was fire, but fire can be bright, or a little frightening, or warm, like a fireplace. For each piece I used a more abstract feeling, and chose it together with the director. There was also an Icelandic artist I had never met before. He listened to my music and then painted what he heard. The first time I put on the glasses and saw the finished project, I had something close to an out-of-body experience: seeing myself seeing myself, and it felt very real, while I could also see other people. I think it is at least quite creative. It is like combining a music video with immersive art. The classical music world has changed generations now. In terms of age, I used to look up, and now I look down. These new concerts and new things are very easy to misunderstand. People always seem to want to define something first, as if they need to define it before they can understand it. But if you don’t understand it, I think you should just enjoy it first. There is no need to define it. Yuja Wang with JCLO at Edinburgh International Festival © Andrew Perry I never set out to break the rules I never deliberately wanted to break the rules, but sometimes I really feel constrained. I never deliberately set out to do these things, but somehow I always end up doing them. I’m really only thinking about the music. I’m on my own all the time. I have to prepare musically, and before I travel I have to pack. I pack smaller dresses, because it’s easier, I can bring more dresses, and I am visually creative, so I don’t want to wear the same dresses all the time. And I do think about acoustics, how the hall is, the walls, how the piano is. There are so many things to think about on site, but in the end, it all gets reduced. Sometimes I wonder if it is because I am a woman, and this is all people can remember. If that is really the case, it is very sad. They remember the way I bow, how I wear heels, but that has nothing to do with what I am trying to do. I want people to be moved by the music I want people to come to the concert and be moved by the music, even have their souls touched by it. And then I walk off stage and they say, “Oh, she dressed in a really short dress.” That is really soul-crushing. I don’t know if it is because I am a little older now and everything is more easily accepted, but these things do take time. Now, when I do recitals, I am actually influenced by jazz. Like these two concerts in Edinburgh, each one an hour: Wynton warned me in advance that we might change the order of the programme on stage. We have a set of pieces, but we don’t know how many we will play, or in what order. What’s funny is that he only told me this yesterday, but this is exactly how I have been designing my own recitals this year. I say, 60 to 70 minutes, and I don’t want the audience to clap in the middle, because that breaks the concentration. My programme has a structure. The piece before affects how you hear the piece after it; they are actually connected. For me, it is a little like a film director building the structure of a programme. But I don’t want to do it the same way every time. So I said: 60 to 70 minutes, no applause in the middle. The first reaction is usually, “What? Then how are we going to print the programme?” I say, you don’t need to print it. The tickets are already sold. People are coming to hear me, and I promise them good music. And afterwards, people really liked it. I did it this way in China and Japan, and just now in Boston. After tomorrow’s concert, I am going to Salzburg. As soon as they hear Salzburg, they say, “Oh my God, Salzburg! We need to print the programme!” As soon as you are not completely following the usual way of doing things, as soon as you are a little flexible, there is so much unnecessary noise around it. But if I believe this is the way I can make music, now I can actually do it. Remembering MTT: “It was almost like telepathy” My teacher Gary Graffman passed around last Christmas. Then MTT left us, and David Hockney passed away. It really feels like a generational change. Before, if I had something going on in my life, something about the human side of being a person, I would talk to them about it. But one by one, they are gone. Those people accompanied you through the first half of your life, and then suddenly all those shared memories and shared experiences are gone. MTT was with me from the age of 17 into my 30s. He watched me grow up. He could understand me without saying anything, almost as if there was some kind of telepathy. It is harder and harder to find people like that now. MTT’s teacher was Bernstein. When I was 11, I watched Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts and felt that he could make classical music so interesting. Later, MTT had Keeping Score, talking about Mahler and Beethoven, explaining the logic and emotion of the music so that you could understand it both intuitively and rationally. Learning music with him was like that too. I remember the first time I played Ravel with him. When we got to this part, he started singing jazz. Then when we got to this part, it was the Can-Can, and he started dancing. He made the music so vivid. So they connect music with everything in life, and make you feel that music is an expression of life. That is why I also want to have a very rich life, with many things that I can express through music. I learned all my concertos with him. He didn’t just talk to you about music; he connected music with life. Touring can be very boring, but he and his husband Joshua would take me to the Grand Canyon, to the San Diego Zoo. What he left me was not just music, but a way of life. Otherwise, you just sit at the piano in a little dark room, and you never know what is happening in the world outside. Later, MTT developed a brain tumour, and in his final years it became difficult to talk to him. So over roughly the past five years, I have also slowly learned to rely on myself. I have been playing for such a long time. Before, I was always absorbing so much nourishment from music, but now I need to absorb things from other art forms, from film, from other areas. I feel that Latin music, jazz, Hockney and VR will all stay with me and eventually become part of my music. Yuja Wang © Rolex / Christopher Anderson Open-mindedness and deep study go hand in hand Of course I still like pianists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard. That hasn’t changed. It is completely different; it is just expanding. I really like his state of mind. He is always open-minded, and he studies everything he does very deeply. Open-mindedness and deep study are really two sides of the same coin. I still play classical music, and classical music still makes up a large part of my performances. I live in New York now, but next year I will be an artist in residence at the Musikverein; in fact, it starts this autumn. I will play Barber, Bartók and Prokofiev. So the things I liked before are still continuing. I haven’t thrown them away. I just want to keep expanding. I still love Schubert, as always. And I still love listening to Chopin. I like listening to Schubert and I like playing Chopin. But if you see me in ten years, please don’t quote me on this. Because I am not a fixed person. Ten years ago feels like another lifetime. I change every day. Every morning I look forward, not back. I don’t really understand the concept of a “vacation” What happened in the past has happened. It brought me here. What I need to focus on is: now that I have all these resources, what can I do with them going forward? If you keep looking back and comparing yourself with who you were ten years ago, you fall into a very big black hole. I like Paris, I like museums, I like absorbing things, and I like walking in parks and looking at the city. I have been to Edinburgh several times. This time I stayed the longest, but had the least time to myself. When I go back to China and I’m not performing, I like shopping and going to the cinema. I also like Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Every city in China is so different. There are still many places I haven’t been to. I have never been to Sichuan. I would also like to see Xi’an; it is so fascinating. Tang poetry and Song poetry are also very fascinating to me. There are so many treasures in China. I have been living and performing outside China since I was 16, so it has been more than 20 years. I feel a little tired of Europe and America. I have been to most of the cities in Europe and America. I would like to go to New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Egypt, Africa — places I haven’t really been to. I want to eat Chinese food every day. I love it so much, but Chinese food abroad is still different from Chinese food in China. I don’t really understand the concept of a “vacation”. If I’m in a good place, not performing every day and not too busy, that’s fine, because I need music to survive. If I had 20 days of vacation, I would go crazy. I would think, what am I going to do? Of course I want a vacation, but how do I know whether three years from now I will want to perform? That’s the crazy thing about classical music: you may have to start preparing for a concert two years in advance. The stressful part is really the travelling — going through security, dealing with so many people. It is really stressful. But I don’t usually think of playing the piano as work. So why do I need a vacation? I hope my love of music will never change. That is the most important thing.

阅读中文版 Pavel Kolesnikov has just been nominated for the 2026 Gramophone Award for his two-piano recording with Samson Tsoy of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps and Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye. On 18 August, at Snape Maltings, I watched him play all 21 of Chopin's Nocturnes in a single evening. Before the concert, we sat beside the reed beds and talked at length. Born in Akademgorodok, the “town of scientists" near Novosibirsk in Siberia, Kolesnikov studied with Sergei Dorensky, Norma Fisher and Maria João Pires. He won the Honens International Piano Competition in 2012, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2014 to 2016, and became an Artist in Residence at Wigmore Hall during the 2020/21 season. He has also worked extensively across disciplines, collaborating with artists including David Hockney and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. With Tsoy, he co-founded Ragged Music Festival, exploring what can happen when music is taken outside the conventional concert hall. His new recording of Chopin's Nocturnes will be released in October. In the conversation below, Kolesnikov talks about the two versions of the C-sharp minor Nocturne, why he decided to perform all 21 in one night, and why he believes Chopin has been “very misunderstood”. He also reflects on growing up in Siberia, leaving Moscow for London, his friendship with Hockney, his partnership with Tsoy, and the continuing influence of visual art on the way he thinks about music. On September 18, Pavel will return to the stage at Wigmore Hall, joining forces with Samson Tsoy, Adrian Brendel and tenor Bogdan Volkov for a concert commemorating the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov. In Conversation with Pavel Kolesnikov LC=Lucy Cheung PK=Pavel Kolesnikov The Two Versions of the C-sharp Minor Nocturne LC: Could you tell me a little about your new Chopin: Nocturnes album, which is also the programme for tonight? First of all, I’m curious about why there are two versions of the C-sharp minor Nocturne. PK: It’s not entirely clear why there are two versions. It’s a little bit undocumented. Generally, with those early Nocturnes, even between scholars, there are some arguments about whether they are actually in minor or not. There is one that was recorded much later in his life, and the only autograph that we have is a late autograph. I still believe that, stylistically, it’s definitely an early piece. What is interesting is that he was returning to some of the elements of his very early style late in his life. It’s not a very long line, but by the time he was about to die, he was returning to some of those elements. I find it interesting in that respect that he recorded the minor Nocturne. And with the C-sharp minor Nocturne, it exists in a few different autographs. One of them contains a very interesting rhythmic variation. It is slightly different altogether, but it really contains a rather magical and unique variation in the rhythmic arrangement in the middle section, where he crosses into a different time signature without changing it. It’s very interesting, and I came across it only when I was working on this album, so I decided to record it. Also, I find it a very important piece. It was written when he had just left Poland, and it seems probably to have been a kind of letter to his sister. It was sent to his sister. I find it an incredibly personal piece in that sense. It is a very interesting sound world, which is a little bit harsh. It has lots of open fifths and fourths, but very long-distance, kind of empty intervals that ring. It makes me think of Chopin’s voice. It’s so special in particular, and this is why I decided to record it. I recorded the two versions, and then I was thinking, do we need to put them both on? And then I thought, why don’t we put them both on the same level? Playing All the Nocturnes in One Night: A Challenge Inspired by Yohji Yamamoto LC: And when you’re going to play all of them together in one night, you haven’t played yet, but in your mind, comparing with playing them individually, what’s the difference? PK: It’s very different, and it’s difficult. I’m still figuring out what it is like. Of course, it’s very different from recording. Needless to say, I always treat recording as a different kind of process. It’s like making a movie rather than making theatre. Live performance is completely different. You know, we’re using today the piano that I used for the recording of that album. It’s the exact same one. I was just talking to the technicians about how we need to tune it in a completely different way. It cannot be tuned in the same way as it was for the recording because it’s a different process. I need to project into the audience rather than create this world for the microphone. But, yeah, I’m digressing. You’re asking me about playing all the Nocturnes together. It’s a complicated task because these Nocturnes were created over a very long period, the 21 of them. They range from very early teenage pieces to very late and very important pieces. The last three Nocturnes, I think, are some of the most important works that he has done. Some of them are very well known to the audience, extremely well known, and that’s always problematic because the audience has an expectation. It’s very difficult to make a listener really switch on in the moment, to listen to what is happening rather than listening to what is happening in their mind. And that is, of course, a task of performance. Then there are pieces that are almost unknown to the general audience. I’m sure that everyone will find a piece that they were not very familiar with tonight in this set. But they require a lot of concentration, and of course a lot of that music is very introspective. It’s a large performance. It takes about two hours, so it is an intense task. I was very scared of this, and I wasn’t even thinking of doing them in concert altogether until last autumn, when I was on tour and had an invitation to come to a Yohji Yamamoto show in Paris. I wasn’t going to go there, but on the day I suddenly realised I had this free day and technically I could go to Paris and make it. It would be a bit hard, but I could. For some reason, I felt I really must go there. Samson was with me as well. We were touring together. We found on our seats a little card asking us to turn off our mobile phones and not photograph or film during the performance, but to connect to the moment. I thought it was a wonderful idea. I very much sympathised with that. It was done in a very respectful way, and I thought it was the right thing to do. Then the show began, and it was one of the best shows of anything that I have seen. It was exactly that kind of task that I wanted to achieve, because the clothes were extremely rich in detail, and they were all occupying similar emotional territory. But the flow was arranged so that the small change that would keep you afloat would come at exactly the right moment. The pace was never interrupted. It was the most fascinating thing because it was such a risky thing to do. I was sitting there thinking, you can only do something like this if you have been doing it all your life, and whoever told you you shouldn’t be doing it, you simply weren’t listening to them. And that’s when I decided, well, I need to try to do it because it’s possible. It’s actually possible. It just takes a lot of experience and energy, but it’s so beautiful when it works. So I took it as a kind of challenge inspired by Yohji Yamamoto. Pavel Kolesnikov at Snape Maltings © BPA Chopin: “A Very Misunderstood Composer” LC: So when you were talking before about some pieces that the audience are very familiar with, I wonder, were you sometimes worried that the sound of Chopin’s music becomes a cliché, and sometimes it’s too beautiful? Do you sometimes resist the temptation to make it dramatic? PK: I think Chopin is generally a very misunderstood composer. We were just talking about it with my friend Glenn Brown yesterday. I think Chopin is a very misunderstood composer because he is a Romantic composer who used a language which is very centrally Romantic, but the kind of writing, the way he works with ideas, is very much not the central 19th-century thing. It has nothing to do with it, really. It’s much more an early 20th-century, or even mid-20th-century, sensibility that he had. And there is this barrier of beauty. I call it the “barrier of beauty”, which can be almost impenetrable. As a performing art, I think there are certain techniques that you can use to help the listener overcome the barrier and get connected to the music in the moment. Some of those things are very difficult to verbalise, and some of them just have to do with your charisma and stage presence, which you are either gifted with or not. But then there are some purely technical elements, elements of slight disruption. I first started thinking about it, actually, learning again from visual arts. I was reading a book of interviews with Francis Bacon, one of my favourite artists, interviewed by David Sylvester. He speaks very openly and very eloquently about introducing chance into painting and disrupting the painting in this way to make it more real. Ever since, I’ve been experimenting with that and seeing what can be done. I think I developed my own little inventory of small disruptions to the line or harmony during a performance, which I think are mostly unnoticeable. Whenever I do checks on my friends and listeners whom I trust, I never manage to witness them catching it in the process of doing that, but I think that it works. There are certain ways of manipulating the phrase slightly that bring the listener in without them noticing that something is slightly wrong, slightly unnatural. It’s a very big problem, particularly for well-known music. And sometimes there is no way to do it with the music itself. So, let’s put it this way: sometimes it’s more efficient to do something else in order to disrupt or displace this familiarity rather than manipulating the music itself. Actually, here in this hall I made an experiment which was very important for me, and I think was generally very successful. It was a performance that I did for the opening of the festival four or five years ago. It was a kind of theatrical performance inspired by one of my favourite artists, Joseph Cornell. It was a kind of surrealist spectacle, putting together music, a little bit of light, a little bit of film and words, done in collaboration with Sophie Hicks and Martin Crimp. I didn’t have to do anything with the music itself, but the way the stage was arranged and the way the light was done was very subtle. It would not interfere with the music, really, but it was slightly surprising to the audience, I think, and slightly mesmerising. That already put them out of their comfort zone and allowed me to play pieces that were very familiar, but suddenly felt slightly outside their conventional context. And that helps as well. Lots of my programmes function in this way. I think another very efficient way of doing it is creating a programme where there are some unusual combinations, where one piece influences the way you are perceiving the next one. In the last five, six, seven years, I’ve really only been doing those programmes. And this Chopin recital is a very new thing for me because I haven’t done a single-composer recital like that for a very long time. LC: Why now? Is it a timing thing? PK: Yes. I think it’s a little bit of a change of gear. I like the challenge and I like doing something else. I found that I’ve done quite a lot of that, and now I’m doing something that, for me, seems to be a little bit more difficult, actually. And also because I like the idea of presenting all the Nocturnes together. I think it’s an incredible, very poetic, very unique collection of pieces. It’s very impressive, but it’s demanding, both for the pianist — it’s immensely demanding — and I think quite demanding for the audience. Dreams, Memories and Visions LC: I guess the Nocturnes sometimes put a bit of a limitation on the imagination. PK: Definitely. And this is why I split them into three groups. I was trying to find the common threads among those Nocturnes. I figured out pretty early on, when I was working on them, that not all of that is nocturnal music, in fact. There’s a lot of it that is full of light, whether it is reflected light or an internal light, or some kind of fire. That is not necessarily nocturnal. They are Nocturnes in the sense that they are happening, I think, in your imagination. They’re not literal descriptions. I started looking and playing with them, and then I decided — because I like putting things into categories for myself. I think that’s my scientific background speaking in me — that there were three interesting categories which work for them quite distinctly: dreams, memories and visions. Memories, of course, are something that is about looking back. Dream is about being in a moment, or this is how I interpret it in this context. And vision is something that is coming, is looking forward, something that hasn’t happened but might be. I found that these pieces are actually falling into those categories for me. Sometimes the same piece is both a memory and a dream, or a dream and a vision. They flow between those, but I think this is about the right area which they occupy altogether. Growing Up in Siberia’s “Town of Scientists” LC: I wanted to ask you a little bit about your upbringing, and you just mentioned your scientific background. Could you tell me a little bit about your upbringing in Siberia? PK: Well, I was born in a place called Akademgorodok, which means “the town of scientists”. It was an important research centre that was built after the Second World War in the very middle of Russia. It was, I think, a very happy, very free place in Soviet Russia, actually, and very culturally advanced. But I was born in 1989, which was a couple of years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, so I didn’t really experience the place crumbling afterwards, because there was no funding for science at all. And by now it has reinvented itself as an IT centre. But when I was growing up, the place was more of a memory, a bit of a sweet memory. But I still understand, and can still feel, how wonderful it was in its heyday. It was a very idealistic haven in Soviet Russia. My parents were scientists, and most of my grandparents were also scientists. Generally, it was a very scientific circle, and I could have become a scientist probably. It was just a little bit of luck that I... LC: What was music like in your childhood? PK: I think it was very customary for everyone to play a musical instrument in that circle. Everyone had a piano or guitar or violin or accordion. My father played piano, accordion and guitar as well. LC: Classical? PK: No, not only. He did a little bit of jazz and a little bit of, how do you call it, songs and singing with the guitar, and wrote his own music. He also played Chopin. Chopin was one of the first composers I encountered, I think. Some of those Nocturnes were some of the first pieces that I ever heard. So I grew up with that. We had an upright piano, and I started playing it a little bit. Then I had an opportunity to go to a music school because music education was free, as all education was free at the time. So I started studying and, long story short, I became quite advanced. At some point I ended up in a special music school, and then I went to the conservatory. LC: Where? PK: Moscow. From Moscow to London LC: And then you came here in 2011 to continue your studies at the Royal College of Music. I can imagine that was quite a switch of artistic identity, probably in a very different environment. PK: You mean between Russia and the UK? LC: Yeah. PK: Yes, very different. I feel very lucky that I left at that time. It was the right time for me to leave. I had some personal reasons to try to leave, but also it was very much about getting out of that musical circle, which was very rich in Moscow, but also very isolated in a way. When you study at the Moscow Conservatory, you feel you’re in the centre of the world. At that time, at least, it felt like that. It was very self-contained in a way. That meant you could learn great things there and become very accomplished, but it was still quite limited. For me, it felt very one-sided. I didn’t quite know what it was about. But instinctively I felt that it would be good for me to go somewhere else. I ended up here in the UK, and I think it was a very, very lucky decision. It is a very open scene, in the sense that it’s one of the most inspiring musical scenes, in London in particular. It’s very interesting because it’s so broad. There are so many different things happening, and it’s not so well defined as it is in other places. So you don’t feel the urge to specialise so much in one thing or another. That was absolutely suitable for me. That’s exactly the thing that I think is right for me. Pavel Kolesnikov at Snape Maltings © BPA David Hockney and the Influence of Visual Art LC: You have collaborated with visual artists and painters, like David Hockney last year. PK: Yes, and some of my big projects were for David, and it’s fascinating. In general, working with David has become a very important — life-changing, really. LC: Did he influence in any way your perception of, for example, light and colour in music after that collaboration? PK: I think obviously there is influence. Whenever you’re working with someone, there is influence. I’m very sensitive to other influences. I feed on influences. I’m very open to them. Whenever I’m working with another artist that I respect, I notice that I change, and sometimes it’s very difficult to verbalise how I change. For instance, I worked with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, a great Belgian choreographer and dancer. I worked a lot with her. I know that she is really now in my system. I’m very conscious of the fact that Anne Teresa is somewhere in my blood, and that continues. And with David, it’s the same thing. There is an influence of his colour and his way of seeing, and his curiosity. But I think mostly, for me, with David, it has been a very affirmative influence. I was so fascinated from the very first time that I saw a big retrospective of his in London in 2015, I think. I was so fascinated and encouraged by his daring curiosity, his ability to get out of his own way, and his fearless experimentation. It can be very hard for an artist. The fear of losing yourself is a very big fear. And the fear of doing something that is not as good as what you have done before is a great fear, and it’s a very difficult thing to fight. I think from a rather early age I was conscious of that counterproductive energy in an artist’s life. And with David, particularly when Samson and I met him in his last years, it was incredible to witness how there was nothing that stopped him from doing yet another different thing, just trying to see if it worked or not, and being very courageous like that. I think that, for me, is the greatest affirmative power of the last few years. It’s just so encouraging to go and try things. LC: How did you meet? PK: We met with our friend Norman Rosenthal. David wanted to hear us, but he wasn’t strong enough to go out to many concerts. So we paired up with Yamaha and decided we were going to bring our piano to David’s studio. We brought a grand piano, similar to the one that I’m using today, to his studio and played The Rite of Spring for David. He was so happy. He really loved music, understood it very deeply, and was one of the great, great music lovers. For him, it was so exciting. That was a few years ago. Ever since, we stayed in touch and worked on this retrospective. We were also working on something else for David, for his show at the Serpentine, but unfortunately he passed away and it never happened. I didn’t expect David to leave us so soon, to be honest. He was so full of energy and looking forward to the new things that he was going to do. LC: Is music visual to you? PK: No, I think that’s the wrong way to put it. I think music, for me, is incredibly interconnected with every other art form. I think, in a way, it’s easier to understand an art form by comparing it to other things, seeing what the similarities are and what the differences are. I don’t think that I visualise it. Of course, sometimes visual associations come to you. But more importantly, I can see that there are certain things in music that work in a very similar way to how painting, or any visual art form, works. Take composition, for instance. It’s easier to understand composition in music when you are thinking about it in visual terms. Because music is something that develops in time, and I think for us it’s generally a less natural thing to grasp as a whole — something that develops in time. We struggle with that. But something that we can see in a single moment, we can analyse more freely in terms of its form and structure. So that is one example. But I think in our times we tend to separate one thing from another too much, one area of life from another too much. For me, the ideal way of living and being as an artist or not an artist is a kind of giant, constant work where everything is connected. There isn’t much direct separation between different things. LC: What about between genres of music? Do you feel the same way? PK: Yeah, I feel the same way. In terms of quality, of course, classical music contains just an extraordinary amount of artworks of extraordinary quality. Other genres may not have been around for so long, or may have developed in slightly different ways. They didn’t develop that amount of material. But generally, I don’t make much distinction between good music of one or another genre. I happen to be more knowledgeable, of course, about classical music because that occupies most of my time in life and so on. But the more I live, the more I really can’t see a distinction. Richter’s Influence LC: Is that the cross-discipline, that inner connection between art forms and music genres? Was it after 2011, after you came to the UK, that you realised that, or did you already have it? PK: Well, I first got a sense of it reading about Sviatoslav Richter and reading his diaries. I think for him it was very much like that. He really just didn’t disconnect one thing from another. He happened to be a pianist, but he could have been any other artist. In fact, I think he treated the piano as his instrument rather than viewing himself primarily as a pianist. In that sense, he was a musician and not a pianist. I remember I was about 15 years old when I got my hands on those books about him, and I learned those books by heart. I read them so many times, him talking about music and then switching to art, and everything coming together so naturally and in such a fascinating way. I found it such a fascinating world, such a beautiful world where everything was vivid and connected, and one thing would activate another in such an unpredictable, beautiful way. I think that became part of my system, and I started figuring out my own way in that kind of world. “From the Very First Time I Heard Him (Samson) Play, I Was Fascinated” LC: And then you met Samson here? PK: No, we met in Moscow in 2016, and we came here together. We do a lot of work together. Ever since COVID in particular, we really formed the duo during COVID because we were locked in the same apartment. We were trying to see what we could do, and we had time to work on this. Of course, it’s a very hard form of ensemble. You need to spend a lot of time together in order to be able to play four hands on one piano or two pianos, just because I think it’s particularly difficult for both players. And ever since, it became a big part of our lives. We do, I think, about 30 per cent of our concerts together now. We’ve already done our third recording, and we’ve done a lot of other things. LC: So this close partnership, how does it influence your own artistic identity? Do you see it as a separate thing, or do they feed each other? Do you challenge each other? PK: Yes, we challenge each other. But we have a very long history with that. It all started in Moscow, when we were regularly playing to each other. We learned from each other. I always feel that I learned so much from Samson. Maybe this is why we can play together so well, because we were observing and sort of finding our way for so long before we really started working together. We had already influenced each other a lot. I was always fascinated by his playing from the very first time I heard him, and I realised that he was a very different kind of musician, that he could do things that I found very difficult to do. I didn’t know how to do that, and I was really keen to learn. It took a lot of time. For many years, we would very often play to each other and ask for feedback. And we learned how to give feedback to each other, which is very difficult, particularly when you’re so different. I think Samson would probably say the same about me. He also appreciates that I’m a completely different kind of artist, in a way the opposite of him. But somehow, because we’ve been developing side by side for so long, really tracking each other’s progress and taking part in it in a way, I think we grew close. And this is how it became possible for us to play together. We also like working on projects together. Most of those out-of-the-ordinary projects that we’ve been doing in the past six or seven years, we’ve been working on together, including the records. And it’s great because we have very different perspectives. A Festival That Happened by Chance LC: I’m quite curious about the Ragged Music Festival. Can you tell me more about it? How did you conceive the idea, and what did you want to do with it? Did you want to do something that a traditional venue or music festival couldn’t do? PK: I think the Ragged Music Festival happened by chance, really. Our dear friend Erica Davis asked Samson and me to do a concert at the Ragged School Museum in East London, which is a beautiful, wonderful place. In some way, it’s not dissimilar from the situation here. It’s not so extravagant, but the essence is very strong. When she asked us to do it, we started looking into the logistics and realised that bringing the pianos there was very difficult because they needed to be lifted through the window with a crane. The window had to be dismantled, and it was becoming a big operation. So I told her, if we’re bringing a piano, maybe we should do at least a couple of concerts. That’s what happened the first time: we did two concerts. We found it so inspiring, and the atmosphere so different and stimulating, that we wanted to do more. The beauty of that situation is that we can programme without looking at programming trends or worrying about ticket sales, because there aren’t so many tickets to sell. It always sells out quickly. We wanted to do things that were more difficult, or impossible, to do in a concert hall. It became a kind of small artist community, which I find really pure. It’s very difficult to achieve that on a larger scale. The beauty of it is that it remains small, so we can put experimental programmes together in different ways. We can also programme very late. Early programming is a little bit of an inevitable evil of our industry. We have to plan, and that planning goes very far ahead. When I started, I had some experience working with the fashion industry, for instance, and I was so envious because they were working only a little ahead. That means they can really be in the moment of creation. For us, it’s all this planning. You’re thinking, “What am I going to play in three years?” Well, I don’t really know what kind of person I’m going to be by then. So this is a unique opportunity that we’re able to explore. We were a little surprised, and very flattered and inspired, by the reaction of the audience, who really got it. We were surprised by its success. But then it became something a little bigger, because we realised that we could work in the same way in a different, interesting space, and create something specifically tailored to the energy of the place. That became a thread through all my work, more or less. I cannot get it out of my system, this way of working. Whenever there is a possibility, I consider what kind of circumstances the performance is going to be in. With the Ragged Music Festival, it particularly pointed to this idea, so we started doing these travelling editions. The festival was done at the Muziekgebouw, which is a very different setting. It’s a bigger setting. We still keep it very small in terms of the group. There are no more than eight artists in every edition, I think, and everyone takes part in every concert. Everyone is playing to get everything together. It’s mostly chamber music in different formations. The whole programme grows out of the energy of the place, how we understand it, and that particular moment. LC: So if you’re going to do something in London in winter, is it going to be something quite spontaneous as well? PK: Well, we’re only now starting to talk and think about it, and seeing which of our favourite collaborators could take part. From there, we’ll start putting together a programme that feels right for the time and the moment and the place and the light and the weather and so on. Writer Lucy Cheung

阅读中文版 “Miles Davis could easily have stopped after Kind of Blue in 1958. But he didn’t.” Last night, American jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire joined conductor Miho Hazama and the BBC Concert Orchestra as trumpet soloist for a Proms concert marking the centenary of Miles Davis. It was one of the most popular concerts of this year’s Proms, with even the standing areas completely full. Just minutes before the performance, a long queue had formed outside the Royal Albert Hall among those still hoping to get hold of returned tickets. The programme included several Gershwin classics suited to the Royal Albert Hall’s all-ages atmosphere, alongside Blue in Green, one of the defining pieces from Kind of Blue. It also brought together classical works such as Falla’s El amor brujo and Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, newly arranged for big band. Several of the arrangements drew on those by Gil Evans, one of the most influential orchestral arrangers in the history of jazz. Yet whenever the solos and improvisations emerged, their sharp, forward-looking edge seemed to pierce through the gentle, nostalgic sound of the orchestra. Ambrose Akinmusire in Royal Albert Hall Photo: Lucy Cheung Akinmusire’s own quartet also joined him on stage. Though this was, after all, a tribute to Miles, he made no attempt to imitate Miles’s trumpet playing. Instead, one could hear an improvisational language deeply rooted in spirit and inner expression, unmistakably pointing towards the present moment we are living in. I first encountered Akinmusire’s music through A Rift in Decorum: Live at the Village Vanguard, the double live album he recorded with his long-standing quartet at the legendary New York jazz club in 2017. The recording was widely regarded by jazz critics that year as one of the best live recordings of the year. The bassist on that album, Harish Raghavan, was also on stage last night. Earlier this year, Akinmusire appeared with Sullivan Fortner in a duo performance at Wigmore Hall. It was a deeply thoughtful and illuminating encounter, one that stayed with me for a long time. This November, he will return to London with his new quartet for the London Jazz Festival, performing music from an album they had just finished recording in June 2026. Ambrose Akinmusire at BBC Proms Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise In Conversation with Ambrose Akinmusire: The Tradition of Jazz Lies in Constant Evolution LC = Lucy Cheung AA = Ambrose Akinmusire LC: I wanted to start with the duo, actually—the collaboration between you and the pianist. I had never heard Sullivan Fortner live before, and what really struck me was the amount of space you leave for each other, and especially the trust you seem to place in each other. You’ve obviously collaborated with different pianists. How does each of these people bring out a different voice in you? AA: I’ve been really lucky to collaborate with a lot of great young pianists. You mentioned Gerald Clayton. There’s also Aaron Parks—we’ve played a lot of duo together. The pianist in my band, Sam Harris, is another one. I’ve even had the chance to play with Kenny Barron. But for me, the process isn’t so different from when I play with my quartet. It’s really just submitting, and hopefully collaborating with people who believe in something higher than us as humans. I’ve been really lucky to be around people like that. Sullivan is definitely one of those people, as is Gerald. LC: I suppose it’s quite difficult to put that into words, because music is already so abstract, especially jazz. But could you try to describe that process a little more? When you talk about something “higher”, what does that mean to you? And how do you inspire each other? Where does it start? AA: It starts—I would love to just say it starts in trust, but I think it starts even before that. Maybe it starts in learning each other, and creating a space where both people feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable. It’s a space where right and wrong don’t really exist. I think the act of letting go, and the act of being vulnerable, is actually the music. Once you get into that space, the notes don’t really matter. LC: I guess the obvious question here is about the jazz tradition. What does the tradition mean to you today? And how do you differentiate jazz from improvised music? AA: That’s a great question. I think when people—when most people—refer to jazz tradition, they’re speaking specifically of the bebop era. They think of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie; they don’t even think about Dixieland music or the blues, or things that came before that. But for me, jazz started in Africa, as clichéd as that is. I don’t know if the question is “What is jazz?”, but it sounds like it’s hinting towards that. For me, jazz is really music that is about community and improvisation. Let me just say the obvious: I think jazz is about expressing African American history sonically. It started off as a way of expressing African American history through sound, with the blues, and so on. Now, is there a difference between jazz and improvised music? For me, no. When I hear music from Nigeria or Mali, that could also be considered jazz to me. When I hear hip-hop and somebody is freestyling, that’s also jazz. So for me, no, there isn’t a difference. Even when I listen to Bach sometimes, it still sounds like jazz. LC: In what way? AA: Just knowing and understanding that most of it was improvised—with chord changes, figured bass, things like that. LC: What about the new generation—or perhaps not so new anymore—of European jazz musicians who are very aware of the tradition but don’t feel bound by it? How do you hear what’s happening in European jazz today? Sometimes it feels as if musicians are trying to move away from that African sound, towards something very minimal or something else. AA: I think that here, in parts of Europe—or really all over Europe—there are very valid jazz scenes now. And that’s been the case since I’ve been a part of it. You go to Spain, Italy, France, Germany, you come here, and there are great players everywhere. I think it’s very natural to evolve. This notion of moving away from tradition is also hard, because I think there’s something about Blackness that is always about evolving. I think it’s very natural to evolve. It’s the most natural thing for humans to do. So moving away from tradition just is what it is. Recreating tradition. I think when people talk about jazz, that part is forgotten. No one talks about Sonny Rollins living in the past, everything one’s been talking about Miles Davis changing every year. A lot of the masters died young, so we didn’t get to see what they would have done. Coltrane died at 40, Clifford Brown at 25, Booker Little at 23. But the ones who stayed alive, most of them continued to evolve—Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, even Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy wasn’t playing the way he was playing in the ’30s and ’40s. So I think it’s very natural to evolve. It’s just that most people don’t do it. LC: One of the people I was thinking about is Miles Davis, especially because tonight you’re leading a Proms tribute to him. You’ve already mentioned his commitment to evolution. He kept reinventing himself. Do you think that continuous reinvention is also at the core of what jazz is? AA: For sure. LC: But when you keep pushing yourself against something—a voice you’ve established before, or a sound that you admire—do you ever feel conflicted by that? Is there ever a feeling of betraying tradition?, I mean, is there ever a sentiment that you might be moving too far away from something that came before you? AA: No. The tradition is evolution. You know, a record is a snapshot. It’s just like a photograph. That’s all it is. But in real time, it’s evolving. There’s no way to capture that, right? (laugh) So, no, I don’t feel like I’m betraying it. I’m always going back and checking it out and stuff, but I’m hyper-aware that these people kept evolving. I don’t think they would sound the way they did if they weren’t reaching towards the future. Ambrose Akinmusire and Miho Hazama at BBC Proms Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise I just like things that are not about self. LC: It is intangible, but can we talk about where some of these ideas come from? Could you tell me a little about your upbringing and your influences? What was that first sound that you remember, and that you’ve carried with you all these years? AA: To be honest with you, the first thing I remember as a child was not sound. It was colour. I can remember sitting in a closet, and there was this sort of stained-glass window in the closet. I remember just looking up at it and watching all these beautiful lights come down on me. Somehow, that is my first musical memory—it’s actually a visual image. Then the next thing was going to my grandmother’s church. It was a Black Baptist church, and I remember, as a kid, seeing and experiencing the power of community sonically. I was always impressed that individually, the singers weren’t necessarily so amazing, but when they came together, even with the dissonances and the wrong notes, there was something beyond that. I learned that at a very young age, when I was four or five years old. I played gospel music, and then when I heard Art Blakey in seventh or eighth grade, it just sounded like the stuff I had been hearing in church, but played on instruments, with Lee Morgan and the others. So it was a very natural progression. Those are some of the early sounds I remember. LC: Did you start reading music at a young age? AA: Yeah. I started at a very young age—reading music when I was five years old. LC: I was wondering about your relationship with the score and improvisation. AA: The score is just for suggestions. It depends on the context, of course. At best, it gets 95 percent, for me. In the music that I play, like when I’m writing for my band, it really is just a suggestion. LC: I know you also listen to classical music. What do you like to listen to? AA: Oh, man. I go through phases. The last thing I was really into was Kurtág. LC: He’s already a hundred years old now, isn’t he? The same age as Miles Davis. AA: Yeah. I really love the stuff with his wife. (Játékok) You know, it’s so easy to call it “simple”, but it’s not. Like the Arvo Pärt stuff. There’s something about pure beauty. That’s what I’ve been into for the last six or seven years. When I released a solo record called Beauty Is Enough, I’d been trying to get inside, to centre the centre of everything. That’s what I hear when I hear Kurtág, and that’s what I feel. What else? All the normal stuff, right? Ravel, Bach, Glenn Gould playing Bach, all that stuff. But I go through phases. LC: What do you hear in classical music that you don’t hear in jazz? AA: Nothing. LC: So when you talk about Beauty Is Enough, and you listen to Kurtág a lot, is there a relationship there? AA: I was listening to other stuff too. Music from Mali, music from Iceland, jazz, a lot of blues. I don’t think it’s specific to genre. I think there are purveyors in each genre who are committing to beauty. LC: Tell me about that. AA: My favourite—there was this touring choir from Bulgaria, a very large women’s choir. When I was younger, I went to a performance in Berkeley. It was in ’93 or ’94—I was very young. And that reminded me of the gospel, the Baptist church. Then, when I learned more about it and understood that they picked women from different areas of Bulgaria who came together and rehearsed, I just thought that was really beautiful. And music from Mali—one of my favourite singers is Oumou Sangaré. I got to do a project with her two years ago. That was amazing. All for the same reason. Joni Mitchell, too. But you see, there’s a single thread there. These people are amazing technically and musically, but they’re connected to something higher. They’re making sounds, and they’re... I don’t know. It’s otherworldly, I think. LC: Is that also connected to a sense of community? You mentioned that quite a few times. Does it perhaps remind you of your roots? AA: I just like things that are not about self. When you start talking about community, you’re only as strong as the whole. I really love that. You can practise and become technically really great, but there’s something about when you join together with somebody and you point towards this thing that is really beautiful for me. I never thought I would have a career. I was interested, again, in playing whatever the source told me to play. I was interested in creative music from a very young age. I wasn’t thinking about having a career. I was just interested in the music and in committing to it. I can stay home and practise because that’s all I ever wanted to do—to commit to the music. Not become famous. So I kind of do what I want. LC: Is that one of the reasons for you to leave Blue Note Records a few years ago? It, as a label, is perhaps more associated with that kind of jazz-star identity. AA: look, Blue Note is a jazz label. No matter how you bend it, even when you see somebody who’s not from jazz on Blue Note, they become a jazz musician. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just not something I’ve ever felt completely comfortable with. Yeah. I play jazz, but I also write string quartets. I write film scores. I do hip-hop. I do so much. I’ve always done so much, and I just wanted to have room to do those things if I wanted to. LC: Is it that you don’t want to be restricted by the term “jazz”? AA: Almost. I’m not restricted by it because I don’t care about it. It’s more about how I’m seen and how that affects the opportunities that I have—the projects that I can release. Ambrose Akinmusire in Royal Albert Hall Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise On Miles: “It’s really his effect on the future.” LC: Let’s talk a little more about Miles Davis. Tonight you’re the leader and the trumpeter, so you’re taking on a role that people may naturally associate with him. What is your relationship with his music? Is there a particular period of his career that you feel closest to? AA: No. It’s him as an artist. Like we said earlier, it’s his commitment to evolution. Just even realising that Miles Davis started with Charlie Parker, and we all know those recordings, and then to think that he ended in the ’80s with Tutu and Marcus Miller, and everything in between—it’s just like, wow. This guy was totally committed to evolving, continuously. It’s the same thing I love about Joni Mitchell. There’s something about an artist who continues going forward, who continues searching when they’re successful. Miles Davis could have stopped in ’58. He could have done Kind of Blue for the rest of his career and been very, very famous—maybe even more famous. But he kept evolving and bringing young musicians into the scene. I think that’s also something I want to do. If you think about all the people who have been associated with Miles Davis—Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock—it would take forever. They’re all A-list jazz musicians. That’s also part of his legacy. Those are the things I’m really impressed by and influenced by with Miles Davis. It’s not the trumpet playing or the improvisation, which is really amazing. It’s really his effect on the future. LC: What was the first Miles Davis record you heard? AA: It was actually a compilation. I had it on vinyl, and it was all his recordings from Prestige Records. I remember listening to “If I Were a Bell”, just listening to how beautiful it was—the arrangements, the articulation. I didn’t hear Kind of Blue until later. LC: My first was Kind of Blue. AA: Yeah. That’s the first Miles Davis record for a lot of people. LC: And how are you going to approach tonight’s performance? AA: The same. My approach to improvisation doesn’t change. It’s to try to be selfless and connect to source. That’s it. I’m here to do what the music says to do in every context, and that’s that. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Proms or the Village Vanguard. It’s kind of the same for me. LC: It is a rather unique format—a tribute to a late musician at the Proms. Did you choose the programme yourself? AA: Miho and I got together a while ago and talked about what we would play. We thought about the context, and there are a lot of boxes to check, right? It’s the BBC Proms, so there’s a lot of stuff that a lot of people know, the popular songs. But I’m an improviser, so we’ll see. LC: Speaking of the Village Vanguard, I really enjoyed the live album A Rift in Decorum: Live at the Village Vanguard, and I think a lot of people do. Do you feel that period is something you’ve grown out of? AA: Great question. No. That’s just the band. We are getting older, and so we have families. Justin (Justin Brown) plays with Thundercat, Harish (Harish Raghavan) is now playing with Charles Lloyd, I’m teaching at Stanford and doing a bunch of stuff. It’s just hard to get us together. But we did record a CD in June, and we’re going to release it next year. So I’m going back to playing more quartet. I’m looking forward to that. These are my guys. We’ve been a band for—wow, I don’t even know where to start—but over 16 or 17 years. Justin and I grew up together. Justin and I have been playing together for 30 years. It’s crazy to say that. Harish and I have been playing together for over 20 years, and the same thing with Sam. So that’s what you’re hearing on those records, and it’s hard to recreate that. It’s hard to get that to come together just because of life. LC: You’re coming back to London in November. Is that going to be with the quartet? AA: Yeah, that’ll be a different one. LC: Will you be playing material from the new album? AA: It’ll be a mix. I’m thinking a lot about introducing young players into the scene, just taking that role of giving opportunities—mentorship, kind of like Miles Davis. So I think I’m going to have a younger band for that. LC: You’ve worked in many different formats—your quartet, duos, solo projects, collaborations with other musicians. Do these different forms feel fundamentally different to you when you’re making music? AA: No. For me, again, my role is the same. It’s the same. Of course, different people bring out different things sonically because the conversation changes. But my role is the same. I have to think of it like that, or else I think I would get very stressed out, because I’m doing so many different things all the time. Ambrose Akinmusire at BBC Proms Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise Academia as the New Jazz Club LC: Can we talk a little about your teaching at Stanford? AA: Yeah. I took on the position last year, and I’m starting my second year as director of jazz at Stanford University. I’m trying to build a programme there, but I’m looking more to have Stanford feel like a hub—a place where a community can grow, where discussions can happen, and where students who are interested in other things can also explore the power of connecting creativity and improvisation with whatever it is they’re interested in. It could be computer science and improvisation. I’m trying to create a place for those kinds of discussions. LC: What do you actually teach? AA: Whatever I want at the beginning of the year. I get to pick. But I’m overseeing the whole programme. Last year I taught theory and improvisation, and this year I’m teaching composition, theory and improvisation. I’m also creating a history course that covers the whole spectrum of Black music. LC: Stanford didn’t have a jazz programme for a long time, though? AA: That’s what a lot of people think, but they’ve had a jazz department since the late ’70s. LC: Really! We’ve been talking about this intangible side of jazz, and how difficult it can be to pin down or analyse what jazz actually is. In a higher-education setting, do you think that makes it particularly difficult to teach? AA: I think it’s becoming less difficult, because what you’re doing is getting players to run institutions now, and I think that’s great. As you said, it’s hard to teach that, so a lot of it you have to show. It’s just like the music was passed down—you learned back in the day by being next to somebody, through apprenticeship. I think now academia is starting to become the place where that happens. LC: Do you see yourself as part of academia? AA: Yes. Yeah. It’s funny to say, yes. LC: Jazz originally developed far away from academia, and now the two seem to stand shoulder to shoulder. AA: Well, the institution—the jazz institution, academia—has taken the place of what the clubs used to be. There are a lot of clubs that have closed down. Just as meeting places, places where young people can come and sit down next to each other. Bradley’s and all these other clubs used to be that. They don’t exist anymore. So that’s the way I look at jazz academia: it’s just a place for like-minded people to meet, young musicians. LC: So perhaps it’s not so much that jazz itself has to change, but that the university has to change its understanding of what jazz education can be. Otherwise, institutionalised jazz can sound quite intimidating. AA: I think, again, it is changing. You have Sean Jones leading at a school, Walter Smith III leading a woodwind department, Rudresh Mahanthappa at Princeton. I could go on and on—Terell Stafford, Ingrid Jensen at Manhattan School of Music. People who can actually play, people who really love this music, are now the heads of departments. It’s not just an administrative role anymore. These are actual artists heading schools. I think that’s really beautiful. Ambrose Akinmusire at BBC Proms Photo: BBC/Andy Paradise LC: Your albums often seem to have very different moods. What mood are you in at the moment when you’re creating music? Do you consciously think about it? AA: No. I don’t consciously think about it. It’s whatever life throws me in. Recently, both of my parents passed away. So now I’m in this recovery. That’s what this era of my life is about: recovery. How do I recover? How do I endure? So that’s what the music is going to sound like. It’s just what it is. I don’t know that until I’m looking back. I only look back after I’ve already recorded the music. I sit down and ask myself, What does all of this mean? What is the CD? What is the music? What was this era of my life? So I’m not really in control. I’m not forcing myself. I’m not doing it. Life does what it does. I’m just dancing with it. LC: I guess what I was asking was what's happening to you recently is already becoming part of the music. AA: Yeah. I think it’s grief. LC: I’m sorry. AA: No, it’s okay. It’s part of life. It’s part of the dance. LC: Do you go back to old places—to places from your childhood, where you grew up? AA: Yeah, a lot of the time. I live where I grew up. I moved back. I see people that I’ve known since I was a kid. LC: Is that Oakland? AA: I live in Berkeley. I moved back to Oakland, and then I moved to Berkeley when it was time for my son to go to school. So it’s just one city over. LC: Does he play music? AA: Yes, he plays piano, but it’s Suzuki method. He’s not doing jazz. LC: I also wanted to ask about Herbie Hancock. Did you work with him before? Did he influence you in any way? AA: Nice. Yeah. I met Herbie and Wayne when I was 22, 23, at the Thelonious Monk Institute. We went on a few tours with them. And then later on—I don’t know how it happened; life is crazy—but I would go to Wayne’s house and meditate. I also became close with Bennie Maupin. So I’ve known them for now 20-something years. LC: And you also taught at the Herbie Hancock Institute? AA: Yeah. I was an artistic director. I’ve done a lot of teaching there. LC: What did you teach? AA: Life. I mean, the same way that I just try to continue what Herbie and Wayne were doing. They weren’t teaching music theory. They were teaching about how to become a better human being and citizen of the world. So I try to impart those lessons to the students—not because I’m special, just because I’ve been around them, and I’m trying to continue that. Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet performs at Kings Place on Sunday 15th November 2026. For more info, please visit: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/jazz/ambrose-akinmusire-quartet/ Writer Lucy Cheung

阅读中文版 In 2020, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Quatuor Ébène had originally planned a series of performances to celebrate the milestone, but most of them were cancelled due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, they completed an ambitious project: the release of a complete recording of Beethoven’s string quartets on Erato label in 2020. The project had been years in the making, with the quartets recorded live in seven cities around the world, beginning in Vienna and continuing through Philadelphia, Tokyo, São Paulo, Melbourne, and Nairobi, before concluding in Paris. The monumental world tour also came to China, with the Quatuor Ébène appearing at the Shanghai Music in the Summer Air Festival in 2019. With another Beethoven anniversary year approaching in 2027—the 200th anniversary of his death—the Quatuor Ébène has once again embarked on a worldwide tour of the complete Beethoven string quartets, with stops in cities including New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. In August 2026, they came to the Musikfest Bremen, performing all 16 of Beethoven’s string quartets over six evenings. If I could choose only one of the six concerts, I would choose tonight’s without hesitation. Beethoven was only around 28 when he wrote the String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat major, a work suffused with lightness and wit. In the Scherzo, he displays a remarkably forward-looking approach to rhythm through syncopation, displaced accents, and cross-rhythms. In the finale, meanwhile, the abrupt shifts between melancholy and lightness in “La Malinconia” point toward the bolder musical language that would emerge in his later works. By the time of the String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, this practice of moving between radically different emotional, temporal, and musical states had been taken to an entirely different level. Most strikingly, in the famous third movement, the long, contemplative, almost religious “Molto adagio” repeatedly alternates with the life-affirming “Andante—Neue Kraft fühlend” (feeling new strength). Beethoven is no longer merely setting contrasting moods against one another; he makes the very process of moving from suffering toward renewed strength part of the musical structure. The movement’s full title—Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart (Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode)—already says it all. Quatuor Ébéne © Julien Mignot Pierre Colombet needs only to brush his bow lightly across the strings to produce a warm yet resonant sound; with just a little added pressure, a radiant tone bursts forth from the body of the violin. From time to time, I could even hear his familiar, deep breathing—the same breathing captured on their recordings. Gabriel Le Magadure’s wrist appears relaxed, forming an obtuse angle with his arm as he draws the bow upward, yet it remains ready to tense at any moment. This is the kind of rapid responsiveness chamber music demands. Quiet and unassuming, he nevertheless knows exactly when to step forward. Yuya Okamoto, seated on the right side of the stage, is the most active collaborator of the four. His eyes constantly move between the score and the other three musicians, as if continually picking up signals from his colleagues and shaping those immediate, ever-changing exchanges of sound. This was particularly evident in the Scherzo of the B-flat major quartet, where such responsiveness seemed to become part of the music itself. Marie Chilemme, smiling for much of the performance, seemed somewhat removed from it all. It was as though her spirit had stepped back from her body, watching the music unfold before her with a warm, contemplative gaze. And is that not, in some sense, the very essence of the third movement of the A minor quartet? When I interviewed Gabriel years ago, he told me that playing in a string quartet was an exercise in democracy. The number four is unlike three or five; in many cases, a democratic vote among four people cannot even produce a majority. “But if you can accept yourself, you can also accept others.” More than two years ago, Quatuor Ébène underwent a change of personnel: cellist Raphaël Merlin departed, and Yuya Okamoto joined. Tonight, in the third movement of the A minor quartet, Okamoto made me hear, perhaps for the first time, melodies—in a work I cherish so dearly—that had long remained buried beneath the singing lines of the violins and viola. They finally emerged, listening to, yielding to, and completing one another within the other voices. Perhaps this, after all, is the result of the “exercise in democracy” Gabriel spoke of. Quatuor Ébéne © Julien Mignot And it was at precisely this moment that reason and emotion began to wrestle with each other. Should I briefly detach myself from the music, pick up my pen and record what I was feeling, allowing this moment to acquire a kind of “eternity” through words? Or should I surrender to the current of emotion and let the music carry this “instant” away in time? After the second “Neue Kraft fühlend,” Pierre returned to the Molto adagio. His body no longer swayed gently with the music as it had earlier; instead, he remained almost completely still, his expression growing ever more resolute, bringing the final song to its close with an extraordinary concentration. And my emotions, too, were repeatedly drawn back to earth and then lifted toward heaven by Beethoven and the four musicians of Quatuor Ébène. When the music ended, I realized that my body had been tense throughout. Quatuor Ébène performed Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 (Op.18/6) and No. 15 (Op.132) at Die Glocke in Bremen on the evening of August 17, 2026.

When 2026年8月28日 Where 不来梅圣史蒂芬尼文化教堂（Kulturkirche St. Stephani, Bremen） Who 声乐与器乐合奏团：拉斯波泰尔乐团（Ensemble la Sportelle） 人声乐团：杰苏阿尔多六人组（The Gesualdo Six） 指挥：欧文·帕克（Owain Park） What 阿沃·帕特： 《深渊之中》（De profundis） 《我们的父》（Vater unser） 《我们的主耶稣基督依约翰所述的受难曲》（后简称“约翰受难曲”，Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem） 不来梅圣史蒂芬尼文化教堂 摄影：马光辉 记一笔 首先听见的是管风琴。帕特最具辨识度的Tintinnabuli（钟鸣）作曲法，从第一个声音便已经建立起来。帕特在经历了早期先锋派、十二音音乐以及一段漫长的创作危机之后，于20世纪70年代中期逐渐形成了钟鸣这种高度简洁的语言：以一个基本音或旋律声部，与围绕三和弦运行的Tintinnabuli声部相结合。 坐在圣史蒂芬尼文化教堂里，这种声音具有空间上的意义。前方是合唱团与乐队，身后高处则是管风琴，但它并没有显得遥远。声音从后方、前方以及教堂本身的混响中同时存在，形成一种包围感。《深渊之中》开始时，只有一个声部唱出诗篇的开头；随后逐渐增加到两个、三个声部，最后由完整的四声部男声合唱唱出最后两节。这是帕特音乐重要的力量，他习惯让极少的东西在时间中逐渐获得重量。 之后是《我们的父》，假声男高音阿拉斯代尔·奥斯汀（Alasdair Austin）声音纤细、轻柔而温暖，却并不缺乏光泽；在某些音符上，那种光泽甚至恰好与夕阳穿过教堂彩窗投下来的光线融为一体。奥斯汀演唱时眼睛睁得很大，一直望向前方，脸上有一种近乎纯真的神情。这首作品简单而抒情的旋律仿佛独立于帕特庞大的精神世界，在教堂中温暖地存在着。 然后，《约翰受难曲》开始。帕特在作品开头直接让人声唱出完整标题，从这一刻开始，管风琴与合唱将听众拉入一个只有信仰不可动摇的世界。一场接近80分钟的、冥想般的精神苦程就此开始。 不来梅圣史蒂芬尼文化教堂阿沃•帕特《约翰受难曲》现场 © Patric Leo 舞台正中央的合唱团唱出故事的背景：耶稣跨过汲沦溪，犹大带着一队兵丁和差役来到那里。随后，欧文·帕克从舞台右侧缓缓走上台，以沉着而缓慢的声音唱出：Quem quaeritis?（你们找谁？）众人回答：“拿撒勒人耶稣。”舞台的基本戏剧结构也由此建立起来。乐手们坐在舞台前方，四位独唱歌手共同承担福音书叙述者的角色；合唱团则承担群众以及彼得等次要人物。耶稣由欧文·帕克演唱，之后将从舞台左侧登场的男高音约书亚·库特（Joshua Cooter）饰演彼拉多。帕特对于人物的音乐塑造克制，但也有明确的规则。耶稣的音乐明显比其他人物缓慢。节目册中解释，慢速象征着永恒。彼拉多则在不同速度与不同声部关系之间转换，这种音乐上的摇摆，体现出他的矛盾。无论是耶稣，还是处在另一边的彼拉多，在演唱时都有管风琴陪伴。 欧文·帕克承担戏剧兼歌唱角色，在大部分时间里，他无法兼任现场指挥。因此，这是一场高度室内乐化的演出。乐手、歌手，以及位于后方高处、背对着他们的管风琴师，几乎依靠彼此之间细微的呼吸、聆听和反应，共同度量音乐的时间。帕特几乎在每个乐句结束处都留下沉默，在这些沉默里，几乎可以看到歌手们的呼吸。沉默被计算，也被当作音乐。教堂的混响留住了余韵。 《约翰受难曲》文本取自《约翰福音》第18和第19章，有叙述文字，也有直接引用。帕特将文本重新组织成四个部分，每个部分都从一个声部开始，随后其他声部逐渐加入，织体不断扩张；达到完整音响之后，又反向逐渐减少，最终重新回到单一声部。教堂的声场绝佳，在一些二重唱的段落中，身体甚至可以意识到耳膜的振动。到了群众与管风琴共同喊出：Crucifige, crucifige eum!（把他钉在十字架上！把他钉在十字架上！），能量让人感到胆寒。而此时，天色也已经完全暗了下来，彩色玻璃窗外只剩下一片深蓝。 四位福音书叙述者中，最出彩的是假声男高音盖·詹姆斯（Guy James）。他的声音清澈，带有一种近乎神性的质感。在四人合唱中，他的延长音夹在另外三位歌手之间，显得异常漂亮：气息稳定，却又有一种几乎吹弹可破的脆弱感。他很少试图让自己的声音从整体中“跳出来”，相反，他非常善于把自己的声音“淹没”在旋律的走向之中，在此起彼伏中彼此交替，又彼此让位。 欧文·帕克 © Andrew Wilkinson 近80分钟的精神苦旅，终于在耶稣说出“成了”——Consummatum est——之后接近尾声。欧文·帕克卸下耶稣的角色，走到舞台中央，开始指挥。此前一直被限制在a小调世界中的音乐，在这里突然转向D大调。乐团、合唱、独唱声部与管风琴同时涌出，声音第一次真正意义上地向外扩张。死亡被战胜。 这部作品虽然讲述的是一段极具戏剧性的故事，但帕特在音乐上几乎完全拒绝传统意义上的戏剧化。听起来，它甚至有些“轴”。音乐不断返回相似的声音材料，似乎原地打转；旋律拒绝向传统意义上的戏剧高潮快速推进。但也正是在这种近乎固执的重复中，声音开始获得一种不同于戏剧的力量。这在一个越来越把“变通”视为优点的时代里，多少显得格格不入。我不由得想起一部很喜欢的电影，《隐秘的生活》（A Hidden Life）。电影主人公弗朗茨·雅格施泰特是一名奥地利农民，在纳粹时代拒绝为纳粹德国服役，最终被处刑。影片也使用了帕特的音乐，《空白》（Tabula rasa）。 从奥地利阿尔卑斯的群山深处，到波罗的海边的苍绿森林，帕特的音乐深深扎根于宗教与信仰，但又与自然保持着某种难以言明的联系。也许是一棵树，一些云，一个有雾的清晨，露水，或者风。 Writer Ma Guanghui

Read in English 俄罗斯钢琴家帕维尔·科列斯尼科夫（Pavel Kolesnikov）与哈萨克斯坦钢琴家萨姆森·崔（Samson Tsoy）合作的双钢琴专辑《斯特拉文斯基：春之祭／拉威尔：鹅妈妈》（Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps / Ravel: Ma mère l’Oye），刚入围2026年留声机大奖钢琴类别。8月18日，我在英格兰东海岸的斯奈普麦芽厂（Snape Maltings）看过帕维尔一晚弹完肖邦全部21首《夜曲》的独奏会。在他登台前，我们在芦苇地边上聊了很长时间。 来自西伯利亚的帕维尔，曾先后师从俄罗斯钢琴教育家谢尔盖·多伦斯基（Sergei Dorensky）、英国钢琴教育家诺玛·费舍尔（Norma Fisher）以及玛丽亚·若昂·皮雷斯（Maria João Pires）。2012年，他获得加拿大Honens国际钢琴比赛首奖，此后逐渐成为国际乐坛备受关注的钢琴家；2014年至2016年入选BBC Radio 3新世代艺术家计划，2016年首次登上逍遥音乐节舞台，并在2020/21乐季担任威格莫尔音乐厅常驻艺术家。他也长期与伴侣萨姆森·崔合作，两人于2019年共同创办Ragged音乐节，探索音乐与建筑、视觉艺术以及非传统演出空间之间的关系。 9月18日，帕维尔将再次登上威格莫尔音乐厅的舞台，与萨姆森·崔、阿德里安·布伦德尔（Adrian Brendel）和男高音博格丹·沃尔科夫（Bogdan Volkov）合作，带来一场纪念俄罗斯作曲家列昂尼德·杰西亚特尼科夫（Leonid Desyatnikov）的音乐会。帕维尔刚刚录制完成的《肖邦：夜曲》（Chopin: Nocturnes）专辑也将在10月发行。 对话帕维尔·科列斯尼科夫：来自里赫特、培根、山本耀司与霍克尼的启发 LC=张璐诗 PK=Pavel Kolesnikov 两个版本的升c小调夜曲 LC：可以谈谈你即将发行的新专辑《肖邦：夜曲》吗？这也是今晚音乐会的曲目。首先，为什么《升c小调夜曲》有两个版本？ PK：其实并不完全清楚为什么会有两个版本，这方面的文献记载并不完整。总体来说，那些早期夜曲，即使在学界也存在一些争论，比如某一首到底是不是小调。其中一首其实是在很久以后、到了他生命晚期才被记录下来的，我们现存的唯一手稿也是晚年的手稿；但从风格上来说，我仍然坚信它是一首早期作品。有意思的是，他在晚期又回到了自己早期的音乐语言。时间跨度虽然没有那么长，但到了生命快结束时，他又重新回到了那些元素。这一点非常有意思，我觉得他晚年还记录下那首小调夜曲，这一点尤其值得注意。 而《升c小调夜曲》存在几个不同的手稿版本，其中一个包含非常有意思的节奏变化。整体上稍有不同，但到了中段，它有一个非常神奇而独特的节奏变化：进入了另一种拍号，却没有真正改变原来的拍子。 我是在做这张专辑的时候才发现这一点的，所以决定把这个版本也录下来。同时我也觉得它是一首很重要的作品：写于肖邦刚刚离开波兰的时候，似乎很可能是一封写给他姐姐的信。对我来说，这是一首相当私人化的作品，里面有一种非常特别的声音世界，有点尖锐，里面有很多开放的五度、四度，还有那些距离非常遥远、不断共鸣的空旷音程。它会让我想到肖邦自己的声音。我把两个版本都录了下来，然后想：真有必要都放进专辑吗？后来又想，何不把两首放在同等的位置上？于是就都放进去了。 山本耀司启发的挑战 LC：当你准备把所有这些夜曲放在一起演奏，与独立去演奏每首夜曲相比，有什么不同？ PK：非常不同。而且很难。我还在摸索它到底是什么。当然，这和录音完全不同。录音的过程更像拍电影，而不是演戏剧。现场演出则完全不同。今天我们用的就是录制这张专辑时的同一架钢琴，刚才我还在和技术人员讨论，我们必须用完全不同的方式来调音，不能按照录音时的方式调，因为这是完全不同的过程。我需要把声音投射到观众那里，而不是像录音时那样，为麦克风创造一个声音世界。 不过我跑题了。你问的是，把所有夜曲放在一起演奏会是什么感觉。这是一项很复杂的任务。这21首夜曲是在非常长的一段时间里创作出来的，从肖邦十几岁时非常早期的作品，一直到晚年非常成熟、非常重要的作品。我觉得最后三首夜曲是他创作过的最重要的作品之一，其中有些作品观众熟悉到极点，而这很成问题，因为观众会带着期待进场。要让一位听众切换到“此刻正在发生什么”，而不是去听自己脑海里那个“我知道这首曲子应该是什么样”的声音，相当困难。而这当然正是我上台演出的任务。 与此同时，也有些作品对普通观众来说是完全陌生的。我敢肯定，今晚这一整套里，每个人都会遇到至少一首自己以前不太熟悉的作品。听这些作品需要高度专注，其中很多音乐非常内省。这是一场很长的演出，大约两个小时，是强度很高的任务。 我其实非常害怕这件事。去年秋天之前，我甚至没有认真考虑过把夜曲完整地放进一场音乐会里。后来有一次我在巡演，收到邀请去巴黎看山本耀司的秀，本来不打算去，但突然意识到自己有一天空档，不知道为什么，我突然觉得自己应该去。萨姆森当时也和我一起巡演，所以我们一块儿去了。到了现场，我们在座位上发现了一张小卡片：请观众关掉手机，不要在演出期间拍照或录像，而是让自己专注此刻。我觉得这个想法特别好，而且他们用了一种很尊重观众的方式。然后演出开始了，那是我看过的最好的演出之一，而它恰恰完成了我想要实现的那种状态：服装极其丰富，每一件都有相当多的细节，而且它们都处在相似的情绪区域里。然而整个过程被安排得行云流水，每一次细微的变化，都在刚刚好的时刻出现，让你始终置身其中，节奏从未被打断。 最让我着迷的就是这整个过程有多么冒险。我坐在那儿想：只有一个一辈子都在做这种事情、而且从来不听那些“你不应该这么做”的人，才可能做到这样的事情。于是那一刻我决定：必须试试看。因为这是可能做到的，只是需要大量的经验和能量。但当它真正产生效果的时候，实在太美了。所以我把它当成了一个挑战：一个受到山本耀司启发的挑战。 帕维尔·科列斯尼科夫在斯奈普麦芽厂音乐厅 © BPA 肖邦“其实更接近20世纪的感受力” LC：你刚才说，有些作品观众非常熟悉。你是不是担心肖邦的音乐变成一种陈词滥调？演绎的时候，有时你会不会去抵抗某种习惯的演绎方式？ PK：我觉得肖邦其实是一个被严重误解的作曲家。昨天我刚好还和我的朋友格伦·布朗（Glenn Brown，英国当代艺术家）谈到这个问题。肖邦当然是一位浪漫主义作曲家，使用的语言也非常典型地属于浪漫主义，但他处理音乐、发展音乐思想的方式，都绝不是19世纪中期的典型模式，而是更接近20世纪初、甚至20世纪中期的感受力。我把这称为“美的屏障”，有时候几乎无法穿透。作为表演艺术，我觉得确实有一些技巧可以帮助听众越过这道屏障，在当下与音乐真正发生联系。其中有些东西很难用语言解释，有时只是和演奏者的个人魅力、舞台存在感有关，这种东西有就有，没有就没有。 但也有一些纯粹技术性的元素，比如非常轻微的“扰乱”，我其实是从视觉艺术里学到这个想法的。我读过一本弗朗西斯·培根的访谈集，是大卫·西尔维斯特（David Sylvester）采访他的，培根非常坦率、也非常清晰地谈到，如何在绘画里引入偶然性，如何通过某种打断来破坏画面，从而让它变得更加真实。从那以后，我就开始实验，看看这种方法可以怎么用。慢慢地，我形成了自己的一套非常小的“扰乱”方式：对旋律线条或者和声做非常细微的调整。大多数时候这是听不出来的，我曾找过一些我信任的朋友和听众做测试，他们还从没在我做这些事情的时候意识到不同。 但我觉得这么做确实有效：通过稍微改变乐句的方式，可以把听众拉进来，而他们并没有意识到，不会觉得某个地方稍微“不对”、“不自然”。对于那些大家耳熟能详的音乐，这是个大问题，有时最有效的方法甚至不是去改变音乐本身，而是做一些其他的事情，去打破或者重新定位这种惯性。 其实我在这个音乐厅（指斯奈普麦芽厂音乐厅）做过一次对我来说非常重要的实验。大概四五年前，在奥德堡音乐节（Aldeburgh Festival）开幕式上，我做过一场带有戏剧色彩的演出，灵感来自我非常喜欢的艺术家约瑟夫·康奈尔（Joseph Cornell）。那场演出有点超现实主义的意思，把音乐、灯光、影像和文字放在一起，当时我和苏菲·希克斯（Sophie Hicks）、马丁·克里姆普（Martin Crimp）合作。我没有改变音乐本身，但舞台安排和灯光处理得很微妙，在不干扰音乐的前提下，会让观众感到一点意外，稍微离开舒适区，让他们重听非常熟悉的作品时，感觉突然脱离了原本习惯的语境。我想这会带来很不一样的效果。 我的很多节目都是这样运作。另一个有效的方法是设计一些不寻常的组合，让一首作品影响你听下一首作品的方式。过去五六年，甚至七年来，我一直在做这样的节目。这次肖邦独奏会对我来说反倒是一次新尝试，因为我已经很久没有演过一晚上只弹一位作曲家的音乐会了。 LC：“夜曲”这个概念或许也会限制想象。 PK：绝对是。所以我把作品分成了三组，试图寻找这些“夜曲”之间共同的线索。我喜欢给东西分类，这可能是我的科学背景在发挥作用。很早在研究它们的时候，我就发现，并不是所有这些音乐都是“夜”的音乐。其中有大量的光——可能是反射的光，也可能是内在的光，或是某种火焰，但并不一定属于夜晚。这些作品之所以是“夜曲”，我觉得那是因为它们发生在想象之中，而不是对夜晚的字面描述。 最终我把作品分别放到了“梦”、“记忆”和“幻象”这三个类别中。记忆当然是关于回望过去；梦，在这个语境里，我把它理解为“当下”；而“幻象”则是向前看，是尚未发生、可能发生的事情。我觉得这些作品非常自然地落入这三个类别里，当然，有时候同一首作品既可以是记忆，也可以是梦；或者既是梦，也是幻象，它们会在这些状态之间流动。 成长在“理想主义”的西伯利亚“科学家城” LC：你刚才提到了自己的科学背景。可以谈谈你在西伯利亚的成长吗？ PK：我出生在新西伯利亚一个叫Akademgorodok的地方，这个名字的意思就是“科学家城”。它是二战以后在俄罗斯腹地建立起来的一个重要科学研究中心。我感觉那实际上是前苏联时期一个非常幸福、非常自由的地方，而且文化非常先进。但我出生于1989年，也就是前苏联解体前几年，因此我没有真正经历“科学家城”逐渐崩塌的过程，之后那里当然发生了很大的变化，因为科学研究几乎完全失去了资金支持，现在那里已重新发展成为一个IT中心。 我成长的时候，家乡给我带来的是一段带点甜蜜感的记忆，我仍然能感受到它在鼎盛时期的美好，那是前苏联时期一个相当理想主义的港湾。我的父母都是科学家，我的祖父母几乎也全是科学家，所以我成长在一个很科学化的家庭和社群里，本来完全有可能当上一名科学家，最后只是一点运气，让我走上了另外一条路。 LC：还记得小时候的音乐环境吗？ PK：在那个圈子里，每个人都会学一种乐器，这是非常普遍的。每家都有钢琴，或者吉他、小提琴、手风琴。我父亲会弹钢琴、手风琴和吉他。 LC：古典音乐吗？ PK：不只是。他会弹一点爵士，也会唱歌、弹吉他，还写点自己的歌。他也弹肖邦。肖邦也是我最早接触到的作曲家之一。我最早听到的一些夜曲就是父亲弹的，我就是在这样的环境里长大的。家里有一架立式钢琴，我开始稍微弹一点，后来有机会进入音乐学校学习。当时音乐教育是免费的，就像其他教育一样，都是免费的。我就开始学，慢慢地水平越来越高，后来进入了一所专门的音乐学校，再后来去了音乐学院。 LC：在哪里？ PK：莫斯科。 从莫斯科到伦敦 LC：你2011年搬到了伦敦，可以想象，那应该是艺术身份的一次大转换。 PK：你是说俄罗斯和英国之间？ LC：对。 PK：非常不同。而且我觉得自己非常幸运，在那个时候离开了。对我来说，那是一个正确的时间点。当然有一些个人原因让我想离开，但另外一个很重要的原因，是我想走出那个音乐圈。 莫斯科的音乐环境非常丰富，但某种程度上也非常封闭。当你在莫斯科最好的音乐学院学习时，你会觉得自己就在世界的中心，至少当时给我的感觉是这样。那是一个比较自我封闭的体系。在那儿你可以学到非常好的东西，也可以成为非常出色的音乐家，但那依然是有限的。对我来说，那样的环境有点单一，可我也说不清自己到底缺了点什么，就是本能地觉得，去别的地方对我会有好处。 最后我来到了英国。这里的音乐环境很开放，尤其是伦敦，这里每时每刻都有各种各样的事情在发生，而且没被定义得那么死，所以你不会觉得自己一定要专门做某一样东西。这对我来说非常合适。 帕维尔·科列斯尼科夫在斯奈普麦芽厂音乐厅 © BPA 与大卫·霍克尼合作 LC：你和很多视觉艺术家合作过，比如去年的大卫·霍克尼（David Hockney）。 PK：对，我和大卫做过一些非常重要的项目。 LC：这样的合作有没有影响你对音乐中光线、色彩之类的感知？ PK：只要你和别人一起工作，就一定会受到影响。我对其他影响非常敏感，而且很依赖于这些影响的养分。每当我和一位自己尊敬的艺术家合作，都会发现自己发生了变化，但很难用语言解释这种变化。 比如我和比利时伟大的编舞家、舞者安妮·特蕾莎·德·凯尔斯梅克（Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker）合作过多次。我很清楚，她现在已经进入了我的系统、已经存在于我的血液之中，这种影响会一直延续下去。大卫也是一样，他的色彩、观看方式、好奇心，都会留下影响。 但对我来说，大卫最重要的影响是一种非常肯定、非常鼓舞人的力量。2015年左右，我第一次在伦敦看他的大型回顾展，就被深深吸引：他那种大胆的好奇心、不断跳出自己的能力，完全不害怕实验，不断去尝试新的东西。因为对艺术家来说，有一种很强烈的恐惧，就是失去自己。你会害怕做出一个不如过去作品好的东西，这种恐惧很难克服。我很早就意识到，这种能量对艺术家的生命是有反作用的。 当萨姆森和我在大卫生命最后几年认识他的时候，我们亲眼看到，即使到了那个阶段，仍然没有任何东西能够阻止他去尝试下一个完全不同的东西。他就是想试试看行不行。这种勇气对我来说，是过去几年里最强大、也最鼓舞我的力量。它让我受到非常大的启发，也让我想继续去尝试新的东西。 LC：你们是怎么认识的？ PK：我们通过朋友诺曼·罗森塔尔（Norman Rosenthal）认识。他跟大卫说起我们，大卫说想听我们演奏，但那时他的体力已经不太够，没法出门听音乐会了。于是我们和琴行合作，决定把一架跟今天这架差不多的三角钢琴，直接送到他工作室，然后我们给大卫演奏了《春之祭》。他特别开心，他真的很热爱音乐，而且理解得非常深，他是一个了不起的音乐爱好者。 那是几年前的事情。从那以后我们一直保持联系，也一起参与了他的回顾展，我在展览上演奏。我们原本还在为他在伦敦蛇形画廊的展览准备另外一个项目，但很遗憾，他去世了，因此项目最终没有实现。说实话，我没想到大卫会这么早离开我们，他看起来还那么有活力，还在期待自己接下来要做的新事情。 LC：对你来说，音乐是视觉的吗？ PK：对我来说，音乐和其他所有艺术形式之间有着很紧密的联系，有时候通过比较两种艺术形式，既比较相似，也比较不同，会更容易去理解。 我不认为自己是在“视觉化”音乐。当然，有时候会出现一些视觉上的联想。但更重要的是，我能看到音乐里有一些东西，和绘画或者其他视觉艺术的运作方式非常相似，比如“构图”。当你从视觉的角度去思考时，会更容易理解音乐中的构图。因为音乐是在时间中发展的，而对于我们来说，要把一个在时间中展开的东西作为一个整体去理解，本来就不是那么自然。但如果一件事物是我们能在一个瞬间看到的，我们就可以更自由地分析它的形式和结构。 但我们这个时代太习惯于把一件事情和另一件事情、生活中的一个领域和另一个领域分开。对我来说，不论是不是艺术工作者，理想的生活方式应该是一种庞大的、持续不断的创作状态，一切都彼此连接，没有那么多明确的分界。 LC：不同音乐门类之间，你也这么觉得吗？ PK：是的。当然，如果谈论质量，古典音乐里确实包含了数量惊人的、质量极高的作品，其他音乐门类存在的时间还没这么长，或者发展的方式有所不同，因此积累的作品数量没那么多。但总体来说，我不会太去区分不同门类的好音乐。我对古典音乐更熟悉，因为它占据了我人生中绝大部分时间。但活得越久，我确实就越看不到这种区别。 里赫特的启示 LC：你刚才说的这种跨学科、跨门类之间的内在联系，是来到英国之后才意识到的，还是更早？ PK：更早。我第一次意识到这一点，是在读斯维亚托斯拉夫·里赫特（Sviatoslav Richter）的书和日记的时候。我觉得他就是这样的人，他碰巧是一位钢琴家，但他完全可以成为其他领域的艺术家。事实上，我觉得他把自己视为音乐家，而不是钢琴家。我记得大概15岁的时候拿到他的书，读了很多遍。看他谈音乐，然后突然转到艺术，所有东西都如此自然地连接在一起，我后来几乎能倒背如流。那是一个特别迷人的世界，所有事物都鲜活地联系在一起，一件事情能够以不可预测、却又非常美好的方式激活另一件事。后来，这也慢慢变成了我的一部分。我开始探索，自己该如何进入这样的世界。 谈萨姆森·崔：“第一次听他弹琴，我就对他着迷” LC：你是在伦敦遇到萨姆森的吗？ PK：不，我们是十年前在莫斯科认识的，后来一起到了英国。我们一直一起做很多事情，尤其是疫情之后，正式组成了双钢琴组合。因为当时被关在同一间公寓里，我们就开始想还能做点什么。双钢琴或者四手联弹是一种难度很高的合作形式，需要花很多时间待在一起，才能做到在一架钢琴或者两架钢琴上同时演奏。从那以后，这个组合就成为我们生活中很重要的一部分。现在大概有三成的音乐会是我们俩一起演的，也已经一起录了三张专辑，做了很多其他项目。 LC：这种非常紧密的合作关系，对你自己的艺术身份有什么样的影响？你们会挑战对方吗？ PK：会，我们会互相挑战。但我们之间有很长的历史，一切都始于莫斯科。那时候我们经常给彼此演奏，从很早开始就互相学习，我总觉得自己从萨姆森那里学到了很多。也许正因如此，我们现在可以合作得这么好：在真正开始一起工作之前，我们已经观察彼此、寻找彼此的方式很多年了。 从我第一次听到他的演奏开始，我就对他非常着迷。很快我就意识到，他是完全不同类型的音乐家，能做到一些我觉得非常难做到的事情，而我非常想从他那里学习。这个过程花了很长时间。很多年来，我们经常互相演奏，然后请对方给反馈，同时也慢慢学会怎样给彼此反馈。尤其是当两个人如此不同的时候，这其实很难。 我想萨姆森可能也会对我有类似的看法。他也欣赏我是一个完全不同类型的艺术家，在某种意义上甚至和他相反。但因为我们这么多年来一直并肩成长，也观察和参与了彼此的成长，所以我们越来越亲近。而且我们也很喜欢一起做项目。过去六七年里，我们做的很多“不寻常”的项目都是一起完成的，包括唱片。这很棒，因为我们拥有非常不同的视角。 LC：我一直好奇你俩合办的Ragged音乐节，当初是不是想做一些传统音乐厅或者音乐节无法做到的事情？ PK：Ragged其实是偶然发生的。我们的好朋友艾丽卡·戴维斯（Erica Davies）邀请萨姆森和我去伦敦东区的Ragged School Museum演一场音乐会。那是一个很美、很特别的地方，在某种程度上，和斯奈普麦芽厂这里有点像：并不奢华，但空间本身非常有力量。 她邀请我们之后，我们开始研究实际的操作，结果发现，把钢琴运到那里非常困难，因为钢琴需要用吊车从窗户吊进去，而窗户本身还必须拆下来。整个事情慢慢变成了一项很大的工程。于是我们跟她说，既然都要把钢琴运过去，那是不是至少应该做两场音乐会？我想第一次就是这样开始的，我们做了两场。 后来我们发现，那里的氛围实在太有启发性了，也和普通音乐厅完全不同，非常刺激我们的创作欲望，于是我们想做得更多。而那个地方最美妙的一点是，我们真的可以不去考虑演出市场的趋势，也不用太在意票房，因为那里根本没有那么多票可以卖。每次都很快售罄。所以我们可以去做一些在普通音乐厅里很难做、甚至根本不可能做的事情。它慢慢变成了一个小型的艺术家社群。 我觉得这种纯粹性非常难在更大的规模上实现，而它最美的地方恰恰是始终保持在一个很小的规模。我们可以做实验性的节目，也可以用不同的方式来组织它；甚至可以非常晚才决定节目。 “提前很久规划”可能是我们这个行业无法避免的一种弊病。因为我们必须做计划，而且往往要提前很久。我以前曾经接触过时装行业，当时我特别羡慕他们，因为他们真正需要提前确定的东西其实没有那么多。这意味着他们可以非常接近创作当下的状态。而对我们来说，却是——“三年以后我要弹什么？”可我根本不知道三年以后自己会变成什么样的人。 所以Ragged给了我们一个非常独特的机会去探索。我们其实有点意外，也非常受宠若惊。更重要的是，观众真的理解了我们在做什么。他们的反应非常鼓舞人心。我们没想到它会这么成功。 后来，它慢慢变得更大了一点。我们意识到，可以用同样的方式进入不同、有趣的空间，创造真正为那个地方量身定制的东西。这后来几乎变成了我所有工作的一个线索。我已经没办法把这种工作方式从自己的系统里清除掉了。每当有机会，我都会去想：这场演出的具体环境是什么？它发生在哪里？这个空间会怎样影响演出？Ragged音乐节后来也开始做巡回版本，在不同地方举办音乐节。空间可以完全不同，有时候甚至更大，但我们仍然把艺术家群体保持得很小。每一届大概不会超过八个人，而且每个人都会参加每一场音乐会。大家一起演奏，一起把整个东西搭起来，主要是不同编制的室内乐。整个节目都是从那个地方的能量发展出来的，至少这是我们对那个特定时刻的理解。 LC：你说明年冬天想在伦敦做这个音乐节，你说的是一年最开始的那几天？天气很冷。也会是非常即兴、自发的吗？ PK：其实那是一个非常有吸引力的时间，因为那时候几乎没人做任何事情，这反而是个优势。每年圣诞假期，如果我真的休假，总觉得应该去什么地方，可那时候又没什么事情可以做。所有人都像是在冬眠。嗯，我们现在才刚刚开始讨论和思考，也在看看我们最喜欢的一些合作伙伴中，谁有可能参加。然后从那里开始，我们再慢慢发展节目，让它适合那个时间、那个时刻、那个地点，甚至是当时的光线、天气等等。 Writer Lucy Cheung

Read in English 即将于8月30、31日在伦敦交响乐团麾下的圣路加教堂（LSO St Luke’s ）上演的《Chronicle 时•录》，是华人艺术团体七巧板（Tangram）与英国合唱团SANSARA的合作作品，并由荷兰室内合唱团（Nederlands Kamerkoor）共同委约。作品建立在王艺霖（Yilin Wang）对中国古代六位女性诗人诗作的英文翻译之上，今年6月先在奥德堡音乐节（Aldeburgh Festival）上做了首演。 Alex Ho与孙柯亭（Rockey Sun Keting）是七巧板的两位联合艺术总监，也是作曲家。Alex Ho出生于英国，2018年创立七巧板；孙柯亭在中国长大并接受音乐训练，后来移居英国。两人拥有不同的成长经历，以及对中国、中国文化和身份的不同经验，但这种差异并没有成为他们共同创作时需要被解释或调和的问题，反而逐渐成为七巧板创作方式的一部分。 在《Chronicle 时•录》中，孙柯亭和Alex Ho各自为三位诗人创作音乐，但这并不是六首作品依次排列。作品以三个部分构成一条完整的音乐与戏剧弧线，音乐、戏剧结构、舞台、道具和视觉设计从创作初期便同步发展，而不是遵循传统歌剧“先文本、再音乐、最后设计”的线性模式。全程由 SANSARA以英文演唱王艺霖的译文，古汉语原文则以字幕呈现。 孙柯亭长期为当代舞和古典芭蕾创作，对身体性和空间尤其感兴趣。七巧板最初更接近一个当代音乐团体，以中西乐器结合、音乐会演出以及中国民歌改编为主，后来逐渐发展成一个艺术家集体，创作跨越音乐、戏剧、舞蹈、视觉艺术、现场绘画、行为艺术和中国戏曲等不同领域。目前，七巧板的两位作曲家是伦敦圣路加教堂的驻场艺术家。 对话七巧板：让差异共冶一炉 WW＝王纬达 RS＝孙柯亭 AH＝Alex Ho “我们在七巧板所做的事情，有一种很美的感觉，就是让不同在同一个地方共存。我们并不是要展示彼此的身份有多么不同。” 两位作曲家，六位诗人 WW：孙柯亭，你在中国长大、接受音乐训练，后来来到英国；Alex则出生在英国。你们与中国文化以及身份的关系并不相同。当你们面对同一组素材时，这种差异会不会带来不同的创作直觉？ RS：每个人写音乐的方式都不一样，一个人的创作会受到很多因素影响，文化只是其中之一。但具体到这个项目，我们面对的是王艺霖翻译的六位中国古代女性诗人的作品，我进入这些文本的方式其实非常直接，就是从我如何阅读这些诗、如何感受它们出发。我没有传统合唱音乐的背景，所以我并不是从“这段文字应该如何放进西方合唱传统”这样的角度开始。Alex的方式和我有一些不同。 AH：某种程度上，这其实不是特别适合由我们自己来回答的问题，因为我们在创作时太专注于寻找解决方案了。也许历史学家或者音乐学者更适合回答。但七巧板之所以成为现在的七巧板，部分原因就在于孙柯亭和我对于中国以及中国文化确实有着不同的经历，而这种差异也贯穿于七巧板的所有作品——包括我们的两位设计师Peng Ke和Meng Chang。他们也有各自的经历，并用他们认为合适的方式去理解这些故事。在《Chronicle 时•录》里，我们把六位女性诗人分给彼此，各自负责三位，所以实际上形成了两条不同的创作旅程。也许最好的方式，就是分别听这两组音乐，然后再去听它们彼此如何并置。 WW：那么，这两部分最后是怎么连接起来的？彼此之间有没有共享的素材？ AH：我们共享创作的方式有很多。首先肯定存在一种潜意识层面的共享，因为到了现在，我们已经非常熟悉彼此的音乐，所以从一开始就知道什么样的融合是可能的，也彼此信任。但与此同时，设计、戏剧结构和叙事也是我们共同创造的，而且从一开始、甚至在音乐还没有写出来之前，我们就已经一起在构思这些东西。所以这种共享其实是贯穿整个创作过程的，而不是只发生在音乐层面。 WW：在开始这个项目之前，你们对这些诗人有多熟悉？ RS：我对李清照非常熟悉，其他一些人听说过，但也有几位是我以前完全没有听说过的。这让我对中国女性诗人的世界有了更大的认识，但同时也让我意识到，即使是在中国长大，我们从教科书里了解到的东西其实也非常有限。现在回头看，这真的有点不可思议。我也很好奇，你以前知道她们吗？ WW：有些名字是熟悉的，但名字背后的生命经历，我其实没有那么熟悉。而且我们现在接触这些女性，已经是经过译者的框架重新呈现之后的她们，这本身就带来了另一层视角。然后音乐又给了我们对同一个人的第三种理解。所以某种意义上，我们一直在穿过不同的层次——历史中的那个人、译者对她的诠释，再到作曲家自己的回应。我觉得这很有意思，因为最终我们所遇见的那个人，已经不可能只是所谓“原本的”那个人，而是在不同的声音、不同的媒介中不断被重新想象。 《Chronicle 时•录》在奥德堡音乐节首演现场 © BPA 不是六首歌排在一起 WW：除了提供翻译之外，王艺霖在这个项目中还承担了怎样的角色？ AH：她不是简单地把文本交给我们。她选择了这些诗人，也负责翻译，而正因为我们使用的是她的译文，它从一开始就会非常深刻地影响整部作品的结构和发展。我们和她进行了很多讨论，双方也互相学习。比如合唱戏剧、如何让一个合唱团成为舞台上的戏剧主体，这对我们所有人来说都是全新的。 WW：合唱团实际演唱的是哪种语言？ AH：英语。古汉语原文会出现在字幕里。这次创作过程真正特别的地方就在这里。它不是典型的歌剧创作模式——先拿到文本，文本完成之后写音乐，音乐完成之后再做设计。很长一段时间里，我们已经知道会使用哪些设计元素和道具，有些甚至在音乐写出来之前就已经确定，有些是在音乐创作进行到一半的时候确定的。真正的工作，是找到这些不同线索之间如何彼此连接的方式。 WW：那么，最终的作品是什么样的结构？ AH：一共三个部分。第一部分是关于战争——这些诗人如何经历战争，又如何在战争中生存下来。第二部分进入唐代，更具体地讨论这些女性为什么没有被视为与男性文学家平等。最后一部分围绕死亡与告别，以及我们如何理解死亡和告别。全作大约七十分钟，由合唱团演出。现在世界上有很多冲突，所以其中可能会自然地产生一些与当下战争和冲突之间的回声，但具体观众会怎样回应，我们还要等演出之后才知道。 从乐团到艺术家集体 WW：我们暂时离开《Chronicle 时•录》，谈谈七巧板本身。它最初更接近一个当代音乐团体——中西乐器、音乐会、中国民歌改编；而现在，你们会加入现场绘画、行为艺术、中国戏曲和舞台表演。有没有某一个项目，让你们意识到七巧板已经变成了一个不同于乐团的东西？ RS：Alex在2018年创立七巧板。那时候我们都是作曲家，在不同项目中认识彼此，而且各自已经形成了相对独立的音乐语言。我一直在为当代舞和古典芭蕾创作，也一直对身体性和空间感兴趣。当我开始和Alex共同策划七巧板的时候，我提出一个想法：七巧板所面对的离散、身份这些问题，其实可以超越纯粹的音乐视角，进入空间，也进入观众在那个时间、那个地方的实际体验。所以我们的出发点依然是音乐，但现在关注的已经远远不只是音乐了。但这并不意味着我们规定每一部作品都必须有跨学科艺术家参与。那从来都不是我们的目标。刚才你用了“演变”这个词，我其实不太确定这是不是一种演变。我更愿意说，这就是七巧板自己成长的过程。 AH：如果要用最简单、甚至有点粗糙的方式来描述这个过程，我会说：我们从一个乐团发展成了一个艺术家集体。最开始，我们很明确地以中西乐器结合为核心，在不同场地演出，也做中国民歌的改编。后来，正如孙柯亭所说，我们开始对更广义的叙事产生兴趣。等到我们真正一起做这些事情的时候，一切都变得非常自然。另外一个非常重要的因素，是伦敦圣路加教堂。我们是这里的驻场艺术家，他们是一个非常出色的团队。这个场地真正厉害的地方，不只是空间本身，也包括整个团队所拥有的技术资源和专业经验——他们能够帮助艺术家做一些不同于传统古典音乐会的事情。如果没有这层合作，我不知道我们能不能在这么短的时间里尝试这么多不同的东西：舞蹈、现场绘画、行为艺术、中国戏曲等等。光是今年，我们就从一场关于现场喜剧与东方主义的演出开始，之后做了关于《易经》哲学和LED装置的作品，现在又来到了中国诗歌。我觉得这一点非常重要。西方世界经常把中国以及中国文化呈现成一件事情——一个概念、一种文化、一种单一的表达方式。而我们做这么多完全不同的项目，其实也是在回应中国文化本身的多元性。 《Chronicle 时•录》在奥德堡音乐节首演现场 © BPA 我已经厌倦了“东西方相遇”这种叙事 WW：你们现在还觉得“东方”和“西方”这样的二元框架，对于音乐来说有意义吗？ AH：我现在最强烈的感受就是，我真的已经厌倦了“东西方相遇”这个叙事。它非常短视、非常过时，而且充满了殖民主义的话语。所以我通常会拒绝别人预设一个“东西方”的框架。因为我的很多经验都告诉我，这两件事情根本不是互相排斥的。我不可能今天是中国人，明天又变成英国人。这也适用于我们的工作。我不认为孙柯亭和我之间有过这样的对话：“好，这一部分我们要做成西方的，那一部分做成中国的。”我们从来不是这样创作的。人其实也不是这样思考的。 WW：我也有同样的感觉。但当作品被推广的时候——当一个艺术团体向观众讲述自己的故事时——人们还是会把它简化成“这是中国的，这是西方的”。它可能已经过时，甚至带有殖民主义色彩，但在整个艺术行业里，它依然存在。你们怎么面对这种不会消失的框架？ RS：其实这种二元对立本身就是一种西方的衡量方式，在中文里本来就没有完全对应的东西。我们在七巧板所做的事情，有一种很美的感觉，就是让不同在同一个地方共存。我们并不是要展示彼此的身份有多么不同。一个艺术家的身份有很多层——背景、品味、美学、哲学——所以在内部始终会存在一种很美的冲突，以及这些很美的差异。但别人如何理解我们，是另一回事。那是一个更大的社会学问题，需要从更大的层面去处理。一旦进入这个层面，你就已经离开了艺术创作、离开了音乐，也离开了我们作为艺术家真正正在做的事情。它和政治、文化都有很大关系，而音乐只是文化的一部分，又是一种非常抽象的艺术形式，它能够表达的东西其实非常有限。所以，我在乎别人怎么看我们吗？就我个人而言，其实不太在乎。如果有人把我们看成一个处于“东西方”二元框架中的中国艺术团体，那是他们的理解。我们想做的是一些对我们来说具有艺术意义、值得讨论的事情。我们并不是要给出一个正确答案，也不是要证明什么。一切都是关于发现的过程、创作的过程，以及探索我们眼前这个世界的过程。 一种可辨认的“中国性”？ WW：当你们和伦敦圣路加教堂这样的英国机构合作时，会不会感觉到一种期待——有中国背景的艺术家就应该呈现一种观众能够辨认出来的“中国性”？ AH：也许需要区分一下我们作为独立作曲家所做的作品，以及作为七巧板所做的作品。回头看我们在圣路加教堂做过的所有项目，我从来没有感受到他们要求我们必须创作一部关于中国的作品。当然，这里面显然存在一些非常复杂的潜意识因素，我不确定现在有没有必要详细展开。我更愿意把创作过程和反思过程区分开来。在创作的时候，我不认为我们会太多考虑“如何成为中国人”这件事。我们会选择当时真正感兴趣的主题，然后选择想合作的人，再直接进入创作。我不认为人们应该仅仅因为《Chronicle 时•录》讲的是中国女性就来看它。那太过于简化了。真正重要的是，当观众进入这个空间之后会发生什么——他们能不能被这些诗歌打动，能不能对这些女性生命产生同情。不是因为她们是中国人，甚至也不只是因为她们是女性，而是因为她们首先是和我们一样的人。所以我会有一点犹豫，不想一直讨论中国、中国式的创作方式以及市场的影响，因为在我看来，这些事情和我们的创作过程是相对独立的。 《Chronicle 时•录》在奥德堡音乐节首演现场 © BPA 历史的声音，但不是一堂历史课 WW：为什么这些声音在今天依然显得迫切？而从《Bound / Unbound》到《Chronicle 时•录》，历史是不是一直在七巧板的创作中反复出现？ RS：关于她为什么选择这些诗、这些诗人，真正应该回答这个问题的人其实是王艺霖。但这个项目今天依然让我们觉得很有意义，并不是因为我们以前没有讨论过这些问题，而是因为问题在于：这些声音究竟有没有被听见。如果不是由SANSARA来演唱，这些声音也许永远不会被听到、不会被真正聆听。今天依然有很多人被迫沉默，有人害怕说出自己的想法，害怕表达自己。这也是这些文本吸引我的原因之一。 AH：这些译文本身就已经说明了它们为什么和今天有关。这些女性的写作都有非常强烈的自传性色彩，你可以清楚地看到诗歌和她们亲身经历的生活，以及她们所处的处境之间的联系。 WW：如果回头看你们最近的作品，历史是不是已经有意识地成为一种重要的创作素材？ RS：你这么一说，我才发现它好像确实对我们很重要。但在创作当时，我们并不会想：“这是我们一定要做的事情。”我们并没有一种强烈的使命感，觉得必须讲述历史上的女性故事。并不是这样的。很多东西是在我们不断探索的过程中自己浮现出来的——那些有趣的、没有被说过的、没有被讲述的故事。我们是一个艺术家集体，也是讲故事的人，所以当我们讲述别人的故事时，自然会产生一种感觉：我们能从这些人身上学到什么？能从历史中学到什么？而我们又能够通过这些人的故事和这些历史的镜头，表达关于自己的什么？ AH：确实完全不是事先计划好的。是王艺霖选择了这些诗人和诗歌——我们没有给她一个任务，说一定要选择中国女性。她就是自己去做了这件事。真正有意识的，是合作本身。做《Bound / Unbound》的时候，我们有一位歌剧歌手和一位中国剑舞者，那也是孙柯亭和我第一次紧密合作，并且和同一组设计师Peng Ke、Meng Chang一起工作。这一次还是同一个团队，所以能够在之前的基础上继续发展，探索如何制作具有戏剧性的音乐作品，我觉得非常好。当然，这次的演出对象从之前的乐团、歌手和舞者变成了一个合唱团，这对我们来说也是全新的。 WW：如果观众没有足够的历史背景，会不会担心他们无法理解这个故事？这会不会构成一种文化上的障碍？ AH：那么，希望我们至少能够做出一部自己能够理解的作品吧（笑）。不过有一点很重要：我们并不是在创作这些女性的传记。我们不是要给观众上课，也不是要试图用一部七十分钟的合唱作品讲完中国历史。如果观众走出剧场的时候，并不完全了解李清照的一生，这并不意味着我们失败了。如果他们什么都没有完全理解，却被整个体验打动了——为什么这就不能是一种成功的反应？如果他们只是单纯享受了音乐，我也会很高兴。 归根结底，还是合唱团在唱歌 WW：作品里有舞台调度、道具、身体性和视觉设计。你会怎样描述它最终的形式？ RS：它就是一个合唱团。当然，我们会探索歌手的身体性，也会有戏剧化的空间、舞台调度、道具和视觉元素，会有很多不同的东西同时存在。但归根结底，它还是合唱团在演唱Alex和我的音乐。 WW：这是你们第一次和SANSARA合作。这个合唱团本身已经拥有非常鲜明的传统和身份，这有没有影响作品？还是说等他们加入时，音乐已经基本写完了？ AH：SANSARA加入得非常早。我们当时找到他们的艺术总监汤姆·赫林（Tom Herring），问他愿不愿意参与一个合唱戏剧项目——这就是当时他们得到的全部信息，因为这也是我们当时拥有的全部信息。没有主题，甚至连作家都还没有确定。能找到这样一个对非常特殊的传统——西方英国圣公会合唱传统——如此熟悉，同时又愿意参与这样的项目的合唱团，是非常难得的。这对他们来说当然也是一次冒险，因为这样的作品和英国通常看到的合唱作品非常不同。孙柯亭和我曾经在布里顿-皮尔斯艺术中心（Britten Pears Arts）做过一天的小型驻地，与其中一些歌手一起工作。我们听他们唱歌，也了解他们的工作方式和兴趣。之后，我们更多是在知道这个项目会有一个合唱团存在的前提下，去发展整个声音世界和戏剧世界，而不是一开始就非常具体地想象SANSARA会带来怎样的声音。这里一直存在一种来回：你当然是在为一个特定的合奏团写作，但在必要的时候，你也还是在为自己写作。 WW：当戏剧、文本、身体、声音和视觉元素同时存在时，你希望观众以什么方式观看这样的作品？有没有一种最好的接受方式？ RS：你会怎么回答这个问题？ WW：现在伦敦的舞台上，这似乎已经成为一种趋势——音乐不再总是单纯的音乐，它会变成声音、视觉效果、媒体艺术，以及很多其他东西。有时候我自己也不知道应该抓住哪个元素。观众又来自完全不同的背景——有人来自文学，有人来自视觉艺术，有人来自音乐——所以大家可能会因为完全不同的原因，对同一部作品感兴趣。我通常会先决定自己认为这是一种什么样的作品，然后选择一个角度去关注。但这对创作者来说，我想也是一个真正的困难。 RS：这对我来说其实很有意思。我之前真的没有从这个角度想过。我们会讨论的是，在某一个具体时刻，我们预判观众究竟会看到什么。作为创作者，我们对此非常谨慎：当一个空间里同时存在多种艺术门类时，不可能所有东西一直同时进行。你必须始终给彼此留出空间，让每一个元素都有自己的位置，这样观众才能知道此刻应该把注意力放在哪里。不同的人会带着不同的兴趣进来——有人可能更关注历史，有人关注音乐，有人关注视觉。这一部分是他们自己的选择。我们能做的，是非常仔细地设计每一个时刻，让观众清楚地感觉到：在这一刻，我们希望你关注的是什么。当我去看一部作品，如果发现自己完全不知道应该把注意力放在哪里，我会觉得创作者的意图没有被很好地传达出来，然后我会重新思考整个创作过程。所以，我没有办法告诉你应该把注意力放在哪一个点上——但我可以告诉你，我们在创作这部作品的时候，非常认真地考虑了不同元素之间应该如何彼此存在。 Writer Weida Wang

阅读中文版 Chronicle 时•录: Heroines Among the Ghosts is a collaboration between Tangram and the UK choir SANSARA, co-commissioned with the Nederlands Kamerkoor and built on Yilin Wang’s translations of six women poets from ancient China. It was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in June and comes to LSO St Luke’s at the end of August. Ho and Sun composed music for three poets each. But the work was never conceived as six settings placed in sequence: the piece runs as a single arc in three parts, and music, dramaturgy, staging, props and design developed alongside one another rather than in the order a conventional opera commission would follow. The choir sings Wang’s English throughout; the classical Chinese appears above them, in surtitle. Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting are the two co-artistic directors of Tangram, as well as composers. Born in the UK, Alex Ho founded Tangram in 2018. Rockey Sun Keting grew up and received her musical training in China before moving to the UK. The two come from different backgrounds and have had very different experiences of China, Chinese culture and identity. Yet these differences have never been something that needed to be explained or reconciled in their collaborative work. Instead, they have gradually become part of Tangram’s creative practice. Rockey Sun Keting has long composed for contemporary dance and classical ballet, with a particular interest in physicality and space. Tangram initially emerged more as a contemporary music ensemble, focusing on the combination of Chinese and Western instruments, concert performances, and arrangements of Chinese folk songs. It has since evolved into an artist collective whose work spans music, theatre, dance, visual art, live painting, performance art and Chinese opera. The two composers are currently artists-in-residence at LSO St Luke’s. In Conversation with Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting WW=Weida Wang RS=Rocky Sun Keting AH=Alex Ho “What we’re doing in Tangram has this beautiful sense of inhabiting differences in one place. It’s not that we’re trying to show how different our identities are.” Two composers, six poets, three each WW: Rockey, you grew up and trained in China before moving to the UK; Alex was born here. You have different relationships to Chinese culture and identity. When you approach the same material, does that produce different compositional instincts? RS: Everyone writes music differently, and there are so many factors that shape how a person writes, culture is only one of them. But specifically for this project: we were working with Yilin Wang’s translations of six women poets from ancient China, and my way in came quite directly from how I read those texts and how I felt them. I didn’t come from a traditional choral background, so I wasn’t starting from the question of how a text should be set within the Western choral tradition. Alex’s approach is somewhat different to mine. AH: In some ways it’s the kind of question we’re not best placed to answer, because we’re so focused on finding solutions. Historians or musicologists might be better at it. But part of what makes Tangram what it is is that Rockey and I have genuinely different experiences of what China and Chinese cultures are, and that shows up across all of Tangram’s work — including through our two designers, Ke Peng and Chang Meng, who bring their own experiences and interpret these stories in the ways that feel right to them. For Chronicle we split the six women between us, three each, so we’ve created our own distinct journeys within our own three poets. That’s probably the best way to hear the difference: listen to each arc of three, and then to how the two arcs sit against one another. WW: And how do the two halves join? Is there shared material between them? AH: Our creativity is shared in different ways. There’s definitely a level of subconscious sharing, in that we know each other’s music very well at this point, so we trust what kind of fusing is possible from the outset. But also with the design, the dramaturgy and the narrative - these are elements we’ve created together from the start, even before the music was written, so that sharing is embedded across the process holistically. Weida Wang: How well did you know these poets before you started? RS: I knew Li Qingzhao very well, and I’d heard of some of the others. Several I had never heard of at all. It opened up my horizons on Chinese women poets, but it also showed how little we get from the textbooks - even growing up in China. That’s quite crazy, actually. I’m curious, did you know them? WW: Some of the names were familiar to me, but the lives behind those names were much less familiar. And you’re already encountering these women through a translator’s framing, which inevitably brings another perspective to the material. Then the music gives you yet another reading of the same person. So in a way, you’re moving through several layers - the historical figure, the translator’s interpretation, and then the composers’ own response. I found that really interesting, because the person you encounter in the end is never simply the “original” person; she’s being continually reimagined through different voices and different forms. Not six songs in a row WW: Beyond providing the translations, what was Yilin Wang’s role? AH: She didn’t just hand over texts. She picked the poets, she translated them, and because we had those translations, that was always going to dictate and change the arc of the whole piece in a really massive way. We had a lot of conversations with her about that journey. And there were learnings in both directions - the idea of choral theatre, of staging and dramatising a choir, was very new for all of us. WW: What language does the choir actually sing in? AH The choir sings in English. The original Chinese is in the surtitles. What was unusual was the process. It wasn’t the typical opera model, where you get a text, then that’s done, then you write the music, then that’s done, then you design it. For a long time we knew which design elements and props we were going to use, maybe even before the music was written, or partway through. The real work was figuring out how those threads come together. WW: And the shape of the finished piece? AH: It’s in three parts. The first is poems about war - how these poets lived through it and survived it. The second moves to the Tang dynasty and looks more specifically at the ways these women weren’t considered equal to their male literary counterparts. The last is around death and farewell, and what that means. Seventy minutes, for choir. There’s a lot of strife in the world right now, so there are probably natural echoes with certain conflicts - but we’ll see how audiences react. Chronicle premiered at Aldeburgh Festival © BPA From ensemble to artist collective WW: Let’s step away from Chronicle for a moment and talk about Tangram itself. It started much closer to a contemporary-music ensemble — Chinese and Western instruments, concerts, folk-song arrangements. Now there’s live painting, performance art, Chinese opera, staging. Was there a particular project where you realised the group had become something other than an ensemble? RS: Alex started Tangram in 2018. He and I were both composers, meeting on different projects, and we’d developed our own distinct languages separately. I’d been writing for contemporary dance and classical ballet, and I’ve always been interested in physicality and space. When I started co-directing Tangram with Alex, I proposed that the diaspora questions in Tangram’s work could expand beyond a purely musical point of view — into the space, and into what the audience actually experiences in that time and place. The starting point is still music, but we’re looking at much more than that now. That’s not to say we’re rigid about having multidisciplinary artists in every production. That was never the set goal. You used the word “evolution” - I’m not sure it is one. I think it was just a process of Tangram’s growth. AH: The crudest way to put the journey is: we developed from an ensemble into an artist collective. At the start it was very much a Chinese-and-Western-instruments approach, concerts in different venues, arrangements of Chinese folk songs. Then, as Rockey says, we developed an interest in a wider form of storytelling. By the time we came together on it, it felt very natural. The other significant factor is LSO St Luke’s, where we’re associate artists. It’s a brilliant team, and the venue has real technical resource, not just the space format, but the expertise in the team to do something other than a typical classical concert. Without that partnership I don’t know if we’d have been able to try so many different things in a relatively short time: dance, live-action painting, performance art, Chinese opera, whatever it is. Even this year alone, we started with a show about live comedy and Orientalism, then went into the philosophy of the I Ching and LED installations, and now we’re talking about Chinese poetry. That feels important to me. So much of the way China and Chinese cultures get presented in the West is as one thing — one idea, one culture, one single presentation. Doing very different projects is a nod to how plural it actually is. I’m really tired of the narrative of East meets West WW: Do you still find the binary between “Eastern” and “Western” music useful? AH: My overriding feeling is that I’m really tired of the narrative of East meets West. It feels incredibly short-sighted and outdated and filled with colonial discourse. So I generally reject people presuming an East–West discourse, because so much of my experience is that these two things aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m not Chinese one day and British the other. And that applies to how we work. I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation, Rockey and I, where it’s like: okay, this bit is going to be Western, and this bit is going to be Chinese. That’s not how you make. It’s not really how people think. WW: I feel the same way. But when the work is promoted — when the storytelling around a collective reaches an audience — people do simplify it. “Oh, that’s Chinese, that’s Western.” It may be outdated and colonial, but it’s still there, in the industry. How do you deal with the fact that it doesn’t go away? RS: The binary is already a Western way of measuring things — it isn’t really in the Chinese language. What we’re doing in Tangram has this beautiful sense of inhabiting differences in one place. It’s not that we’re trying to show how different our identities are. There are so many layers to an artistic identity — backgrounds, tastes, aesthetics, philosophies — so internally there’s always this beautiful conflict, and those beautiful differences. But how other people perceive us is a different thing. That’s more of a sociological problem, and it needs addressing in a bigger sense. Once you’re there, you’ve stepped out of art-making, out of music, out of what we’re doing internally as artists. It has so much to do with politics and with culture, and music — as one part of culture, and a very abstract form of art — can only speak for so little. So, do I care how other people see us? Personally, I don’t really. If people see us as a Chinese collective within an East–West binary, that’s how they see it. We’re trying to do something artistically important to us, something we believe is worth talking about. We’re not trying to say a right answer, or to prove anything. It’s all about the process of discovering, the process of making, the process of exploring the world in front of us. Chronicle premiered at Aldeburgh Festival © BPA A recognisable “Chineseness”? WW: When you work with a British institution like LSO St Luke’s, do you feel an expectation that artists with Chinese heritage should deliver a recognisable form of Chineseness? AH: There’s probably a slight difference between the work Rockey and I do as solo composers and the work we do as Tangram. Looking back at all the projects we’ve done at LSO St Luke’s, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed any pressure from them to make a work about China. There are obviously subconscious factors that are really complicated, I’m not sure they’re relevant to go into in detail right now. The distinction I’d make is between the creative process and the reflective process. When we make work, I don’t think we’re thinking that much about how to be Chinese. We choose topics that interest us at the time, then we choose the collaborators we want, and then we dive in. I don’t think people should come to Chronicle just because it’s about Chinese women. That’s super reductive. It’s about what happens once people are in the room — whether they can be moved by this poetry, whether they can feel compassion for these women’s lives. Not because they’re Chinese, not even because they’re women, but because they’re people like the rest of us. So I’m slightly hesitant to keep talking about China, Chinese approaches and market influences, because I hold that very separate from our creative process. Historical voices, without the history lesson WW: Why do these voices feel urgent now? And is there a recurring pull towards history in Tangram’s work — from Bound / Unbound to Chronicle? RS: Yilin is the person who should really answer why she chose which poem and which poet. But the project still feels very relevant, and it’s not because we haven’t talked about these problems enough. It’s about how those voices get heard at all. If they’re not sung by SANSARA, these voices might never be heard, might never be listened to. There are people still being muted, still afraid of speaking their own thoughts, still afraid of expressing themselves. That’s part of what made these texts interesting to me when I read them. AH: The translations speak for themselves in terms of their relationship to today. These women all write with a sense of autobiography — you can see very clear links between the poems and their lived experiences and the situations they found themselves in. WW: And when you look back at your recent work, has history consciously become important material? RS: Now you’ve said it, it does seem to be quite important to us. But at the time we don’t think, “this is something we must do” — there’s no strong sense of purpose, of we must tell women-in-history stories. It’s not like that. Things just surface as we go and discover the interesting or unspoken or untold stories. We’re a collective and we’re storytellers, so by telling other people’s stories there’s a sense of: what can we learn from them, what can we learn from history, and what are we expressing about ourselves through those lenses? AH: Definitely not planned. Yilin chose the poets and the poems — we didn’t give her a brief saying she had to choose Chinese women, she just went and did it. What is deliberate is the collaboration. With Bound / Unbound we had an opera singer and a Chinese sword dancer, and it was the first time Rockey and I had worked that closely together, with the same designers, Ke Peng and Chang Meng. It’s the same team again this time, so it’s been really nice to build on that — on how we can make theatrical musical work. Obviously this time it’s for a choir rather than an ensemble with a singer and a dancer, which is quite new for us. WW: Do you worry that audiences without the historical background won’t get the story? Is there a cultural barrier? AH: Well, hopefully we make a work that makes sense. [laughs] But it’s worth pointing out that we’re not creating a biography of these women. We’re not trying to lecture people, and we’re not trying to show the history of China in a seventy-minute piece for choir. If audiences come out not understanding exactly Li Qingzhao’s life story, that doesn’t mean we failed. If they come out not understanding anything but having been moved by the experience — why is that not a successful reaction? I’d be happy if they simply just enjoy the music. Chronicle premiered at Aldeburgh Festival © BPA All in all, it’s the choir singing WW: There is staging, there are props, physicality, visual design. How would you describe the form? RS: It is a choir. There will be some exploration of the physicality of a singer, and we have a theatrical setting — we have our staging, we have our props, we have our visual aspects, and we have those multiple things going on. But all in all, it’s the choir singing music from me and Alex. WW: This is your first collaboration with SANSARA. Did working with a choir that already has its own identity shape the piece — or was the writing largely settled before they came in? AH: SANSARA joined really early. We approached Tom Herring, their artistic director, to ask whether they’d want to collaborate on a choral theatre project — and that was all the information they had, because that was all the information we had at that point. No subject matter. We didn’t even have our writer yet. To find a choir so well-versed in a very particular tradition — the Western Anglican choral tradition — who will do something like this is really unusual, and it’s definitely a risk they took, because it is different to the kind of choral work you generally see in this country. Rockey and I did a one-day mini-residency with some of the singers at Britten Pears Arts, where we heard them sing and learned about their process and their interests. After that it was more about fleshing out the sound world and the theatrical world for ourselves, knowing there was going to be a choir in there — rather than having a very specific sense of what SANSARA were going to bring as a sound. There’s always that give and take: you write for a specific ensemble, but you also write for yourself when necessary. WW: When theatrical, textual, physical, sonic and visual elements all coexist, how do you want people to watch a work like this? Is there a best way to take it in? RS: What would your answer to that be? WW: It’s a trend now — on London stages especially, music isn’t always music any more; it becomes sound, visual effect, media art, many things at once. Sometimes I don’t know which element to grab. And audiences arrive from completely different backgrounds — literature, visual art, music — so they can all be interested in the same work for different reasons. I suppose I decide what kind of work I think it is, and focus accordingly. Which is a real difficulty for creators. RS: That’s really interesting to me, actually. I honestly hadn’t thought about it that way. What we do talk about is predicting what the audience sees at certain moments. As creators we’re cautious about that: when you have multiple disciplines on stage in one space, you can’t have everything going at the same time. You should always be leaving space for each other, for each element, so the audience has a focus point. Different people will come with different interests — some more interested in the history, some in the music, some in the visual. That part is up to them. What we can do is carefully craft each moment so that it gives the audience a clear sense of what we want them to focus on right then. When I go to something and find myself not knowing where to focus, I don’t think the creators’ intention has been delivered right, and I’d rethink the process. So I can’t tell you which point to focus on — but I can say we were careful, making this, about the different elements. Writer Weida Wang

When 2026年8月24日 Where 不来梅圣彼得大教堂（St. Petri Dom, Bremen） Who 指挥：提奥多·库伦奇斯（Teodor Currentzis） 合唱指导：维塔利·波隆斯基（Vitaly Polonsky） 女高音：艾维塔·西蒙尼扬（Iveta Simonyan） 男中音：马提亚斯·温克勒（Matthias Winckhler） 乌托邦乐团（Utopia Orchestra） 乌托邦合唱团（Utopia Choir） What 勃拉姆斯《德意志安魂曲》 不来梅圣彼得大教堂 摄影：马光辉 记一笔 1868年4月10日，在作曲家本人指挥下，勃拉姆斯《德意志安魂曲》在不来梅圣彼得大教堂首演。当时演出的还是六乐章版本；如今完整版本中由女高音演唱的第五乐章“你们如今是忧愁”（Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit），由勃拉姆斯在当年5月补写。七乐章的完整版本最终于1869年2月18日在莱比锡首演。不来梅音乐节（Musikfest Bremen）此次演出的意义显然不止于一次普通的音乐会，这是一场发生在作品原始首演地点、158年之后的音乐事件。 一走进圣彼得大教堂，便能感受到一种不同寻常的仪式感。乐团与合唱团位于教堂中殿西侧，他们身后是高处的管风琴，再之后则是巨大的玫瑰窗。在这个阴晴不定的傍晚，窗外的自然光透过玻璃投进教堂，与人工灯光形成一种微妙的区别。 库伦齐斯指挥乌托邦乐团和合唱团在不来梅圣彼得大教堂演出勃拉姆斯《德意志安魂曲》 © Patric Leo 乐手和歌手们从教堂后方两侧缓缓走向舞台，校音结束后，库伦齐斯异常安静地走上指挥台。他的着装也比往常克制了一些：一件立领白衬衫从黑色外套中高高地耸起。整个乐队的入场花了几分钟。终于，音乐在一种极弱的震动中渐渐开始。 合唱团和乐队仿佛都被吸附在他的身体，尤其是双手的流动之中，好似被催眠一般。开场的几分钟里，整个音响牢牢掌握在库伦齐斯手中，从一种力度到另一种力度之间的过渡异常细腻。即使到了全乐团与合唱团的强奏，以及第二乐章中后段那些近乎风驰电掣的时刻，整体仍然处理得井井有条。只有定音鼓时不时显得有些“出挑”，仿佛自带混响，有时甚至有些轰鸣。这当然很可能与教堂特殊的声场有关，但也或多或少影响了整个乐团声音的清晰度。 男中音马提亚斯·温克勒（左） © Patric Leo 到了第三乐章，库伦齐斯转身向后走了几步，男中音马提亚斯·温克勒从舞台后方加入。他只需要极少的提示，指挥便可以放心地重新回到乐团面前。温克勒稳健的表演和沉着的声音令人迷醉，尤其是清晰的德语发音与自然、温暖的音色，为勃拉姆斯这部不走寻常路的《安魂曲》带来了一些鲜明的人的色彩。传统的安魂曲通常以死亡以及对死者灵魂的祈求为中心；而勃拉姆斯却有意把目光转向那些仍然活着的人。他没有选择传统拉丁安魂弥撒中“最后审判”的恐惧，而是从哀叹与悲伤出发，寻找慰藉与继续生活的力量。第三乐章“求你指教我”（Herr, lehre doch mich）所面对的，正是人的有限性。温克勒对此非常入戏。即使不演唱时，他也用一种悲悯而坚定的目光扫视整个教堂；只有左手的拇指和食指始终在轻轻摩擦，带来一点间离效果。 艾维塔·西蒙尼扬在第五乐章加入，她一开口，便吐出一种让人心碎的声音。那种脆弱恰好符合“你们如今是忧愁”的语气。然而，随着音乐进一步展开，这种脆弱却始终没有真正打开。仿佛每到第二个音，她都无法充满自信地直抒胸臆，而必须再次从一种低语中慢慢释放自己；人声本应具有的流动性，被这种谨慎不断打断。库伦齐斯显然也意识到了这一点。在这个乐章的大部分时间里，他都站在女高音面前，用手势提示她气息的流动，也提示她目光和身体动作的去向；有时甚至转身向稍远处的乐团伸出手掌，示意音量再小一些，不要盖过这脆弱的女声。但对西蒙尼扬这样有着优美音色的年轻女高音来说，来日方长。 库伦齐斯在不来梅圣彼得大教堂 © Patric Leo 库伦齐斯是一个精力充沛的指挥。整场约80分钟的演出里，他的身体始终保持着高频率的舞动。这种能量被乐手和歌手吸收，尤其是低音提琴声部。那些坚定的眼神，仿佛在反射着观众看不到的、来自库伦齐斯的目光。而合唱团绝对是当晚最大的功臣，他们的目光快速地在乐谱与库伦齐斯之间穿梭，投入换来了精准，也换来了情绪的大开大合。 库伦齐斯擅长制造对比，在《德意志安魂曲》中也是如此。勃拉姆斯的音乐并不总是在制造“惊诧”，但惊诧是库伦齐斯的方法论之一。这当然是一种诠释自由。勃拉姆斯是《德意志安魂曲》的作者，库伦齐斯是当晚勃拉姆斯《德意志安魂曲》的作者。当晚的节目册封面，库伦齐斯与勃拉姆斯“平起平坐”。 当晚演出节目册 摄影：马光辉 这是他早已昭著的野心。乌托邦乐团是他的乐团，这样一句看似简单的话，全世界能够真正说出口的指挥家并不多。尼古劳斯·哈农库特、约翰·艾略特·加德纳等人同样曾经创办自己的乐团或合唱团，但他们最终更多是与这些团体形成长期的艺术绑定。库伦齐斯则显然采用了更加当代的方式：他本人就是品牌。这个品牌最早的核心载体，是音乐永恒乐团（musicAeterna）；俄乌战争改变了欧洲音乐机构的政治与文化环境之后，他又建立了乌托邦乐团，使自己的事业能够在欧洲继续。 也正因此，这场演出才不仅是一场音乐会。不来梅音乐节艺术总监托马斯·阿尔伯特（Thomas Albert）在演出前致辞，恳请观众保持“静默”：“在寂静中开始这个夜晚，并在寂静中让它结束”，具体说来，就是：全程不要鼓掌。现场至少安排了五个机位。背着斯坦尼康的摄影师不时穿梭在独唱者与库伦齐斯之间，始终如履薄冰。库伦齐斯神情凝重地走上台，又走下台。随后乐手们也纷纷离席，面对这样一场成功的演出，有人离开时脸上已经露出憋不住的笑意，即使笑意会打破这种静默。观众却有些不知所措，只待全数乐手离席，方才起身离场。一些淅淅沥沥的掌声从人群深处传出，但立刻被热心观众报以嘘声。 Writer Ma Guanghui