Future Classic Women Awards – Beatrice Nicholas 221121

Hello and welcome to the 4th edition of Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station, the program where we search for the most amazing new female artists on the classical panorama. Today on Future Classic Women Awards, we will have composer and pianist Beatrice Nicolás. Good morning, Beatrice. Good morning, Stefania. Ah, so nice to meet you. We met by chance. I mean, I was finding you, you know, the wonderful achievement you're doing as a composer and as pianist. And, and then I realized that actually we were at the Royal Academy at the same time some years ago. Yeah. So how was it? Um, you know, we know— I don't think we ever met at the Royal Academy, did we? I feel we may have done briefly. Yeah, yeah, we were on different programs, of course. I think you were a postgrad when I was an undergrad, and so Maybe we weren't as connected as we could have been. Indeed. I remember when I was at the Royal Academy, at the beginning, I had just two very good friends. There was a Spanish pianist undergraduate. I don't know if you remember him as— oh gosh, all the names are gone. And well, and a French guitarist, and they all stopped me in the corridor and said, 'So you're the Italian pianist?' Because I was the only Italian at the Academy for that year. So that was quite special. Yeah. Have you ever been stopped? Uh, now we're at the radio, so you can't really see us, uh, but Beatrice is, um, one of the very few, uh, wonderful— can I say that— Black pianist and composer. Um, I mean, this is something that I never occurred to my mind, to look at the color of the skin. And we're all different in a way, you see. Everyone was stopping me saying, so you are the Italian? And I was thinking, why am I so different from anyone else? What's different about my way of dressing or whatever. Um, so, and, uh, but you had that probably because, uh, there were mainly white students, I think, at the academy at the time. And were there more? I remember there were some Black singers, fantastic tenors, a baritone, and I was good friend with them as well. And maybe we met through them. We met at one of those crazy parties with the opera singers, did we? Possibly. It's possible. It's possible. My memory fails me. Well, tell us a little bit about your career from Royal Academy onward. I mean, you have achieved so much, and I'm so glad, you know, for you and your fantastic career. So tell us, tell us about it. Oh, thank you. So after the Academy, I did my postgraduate studies in Berlin at the Hans Eisler Hochschule in Germany. Which were— I went thoroughly as a pianist to Germany. When I was in England, I studied as a first study pianist with composition as well. So I feel a lot of people talk about classical music as something that is— the audience is decreasing. And what I try to do, you know, I try and engage— now living back in London, I try and engage in the systems and the networks that already exist. But I also try and create new opportunities. I try and connect with new audiences, uh, and I try and add a slightly entrepreneurial element to what I do. And I think it's important, um, to widen the audience, and I think it's important for you as well as an artist to, um, if you're going to expand, I think you have to find and create new opportunities for new audiences to come into. So I feel like I'm a bit of a mixed bag. I have recitals that are very traditional, you know, your Bach, your Beethoven, your Liszt, and I love to do those because I am in some ways a traditional pianist. I've had a traditional training. But I also have done things that I've created anew. So one of the things I do is a family concert where I'm playing traditional piano repertoire, but everything has an outer space. Space theme. I wear an astronaut costume on stage. It's for children. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. A NASA suit. It's for children aged 4 years old to 11 with their parents. And, you know, I play things like Holster Planets, um, some Chopin waltzes that are connected to outer space. We use scientific facts as singing, as Mozart, there's movement. And that's been a really good concert that has been attracting not just young people but their parents who wouldn't normally go to classical concerts and now get pulled into the classical world. Because originally they wanted entertainment for their children, but they had to come too, and now they're in a concert that's engaging. They're listening to Chopin and Mozart and Beethoven and Holst, you know. How did you get attracted to that? Do you have children yourself? I don't have children. I do love children, but it's It's part of this idea of doing something new. Yeah. I think we live in a culture that is very open to new things and new ideas. And the music industry in Europe is a very prosperous industry if you're in pop or you're in hip-hop or garage or whatever. But the classical music industry, it needs a lot of sponsorship. You know. So my take on things is that the money is there, the investment is there, if you're able to create something new that connects with the current culture. And I think for classical musicians, we play music that is primarily composed by geniuses who died a long time ago. And I think it's still the greatest music around. But my thing is, how can I connect that to the culture of today? So it's not dying, but it's expanding. Absolutely. And that's one of my interests. That's absolutely wonderful as an idea. I love it. And I would have loved to see you dressed as an astronaut. Oh, you can. I'm doing one this weekend in Norfolk. You're very welcome. Check the website. I will indeed. Now, when you went to Berlin, were you the only English pianist there? Were you stopped in the corridor because you were English or because you were Black? I think I tried— now I have to make sure I'm getting this right because I'm on the radio. But I really, I think I was the only English pianist in that school at that time. I was there for some time, actually. I wasn't the only English person. I had a really good tenor friend who came a bit later. Yeah, he was obviously in the vocal faculty. He was English. And I had— actually, I had friends in Berlin who were pianists who were English but were not at the school. So were professional already and were just living and working in the city. And I'm trying to think who else. No, I think student-wise, I really was the only British pianist. But I love— and we have it in England too. We have a very international community in English music, you know. But I love— there was a big— Eastern European influence too. I was studying in East Berlin, and, you know, obviously the whole history of Berlin and being divided at one point between East and West. So although we're very international in England, I love the kind of internationalism that was in Berlin. I found it, you know, totally fascinating. I did a lot of— I did some study at the Academy on music of the Soviet Union. Oh really? Yeah, with Janet McBurney. And so when I was living in Berlin, so there was this close, kind of close access to that world. Um, fantastic. Also Baron Boyne, um, Baron Boyne, um, being in Staatsoper. Yeah, there are lots of Israelis studying in Berlin and, um, you know, fantastic Israeli musicians. Oh yeah, I just, you know, you're a contemporary of mine who I just learned so much from, loved hanging out with, loved playing with. And then so there were some just great musical influences there. Well, but that's the beauty of music in general, but classical music in particular. Um, you know, the, the more diverse you are, um, but coming from different culture, different schools, each country has own long tradition in learning the piano. You still learn Beethoven or, you know, Bach in Russia, in Israel, in France, in Italy, but you learn it somehow in a different way, isn't it? And it's wonderful to see it when you can combine it and get the best out of it and make your own back and your own. And that's why still you go and listen to concerts, uh, you'll— I don't know, you heard for the 10th million time Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, but it's a different pianist and it's a different way of playing it anyway. So yeah, yeah, so the, the joy of going and seeing, you know, what someone else is actually taking out of that piece. The composer like kind of gave the la, right, gave the first notes, and then everyone else is building on top of it. So as a composer, how do you feel when people play your pieces and they take their own, uh, they, they give their own interpretation to it? You know, it's really part of the creative process. I think some of my— so, you know, you write a piece, but, and then, you know, it gets performed. But I think some are— in that process, one of the best times for me is the workshop after writing the piece, before it gets its first performance. Because, and I think I'm probably quite lucky, I've had quite good instrumental players. But, you know, some of the— are so good and they bring something to you, to your music, that you hadn't thought about before. I was working on a cellist the other day and he just said— it was a piece that I'd worked on with a couple of cellists before— and he just said, "I just think this line needs to have no vibrato at all." I said, "Really?" And he did it. I just thought, wow, that's an amazing sound. That's now going to go into the score. The score was already written, but it gets to be rewritten and that line isn't there. Well, history, it's, you know, it's full of examples of Mozart writing specific arias for this soprano of the time because he had some specific abilities, or, you know, pianist and violinist as well, all instruments really. Also because in a way you can't play all of them, so it's hard to know how much you can push the instrument technically and expressively as well, not being yourself a cellist or a harpist or flutist or whatever. Yeah, that's right. And also, I think it's funny, you know, because as a pianist, and you know, you'll know this too, when you're studying, when, you know, take— if we go back to our conservatoire days, your teacher will say, be obedient to the score, everything's in the score. That's true, but also everything is not in the score as well. You have to obey the score because it's like the minimum, it's the minimum that you can, you know, you can kind of work— that minimum is very important. But also the score is limited to what it can tell you. So when you compose your piece, you write your score, and then you start taking it to instrumentalists there'll be more that gets added that you can't actually write down because it's in the way that somebody plays or feels or expresses that is limited in what you can actually notate or, you know, give direction to. And yeah, it's a bit to do with what we're talking about, about interpretation. Yeah. It gives us something additional. Well, let's listen first of all to your interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Prelude. Sure. How beautiful! This was the Prelude in G minor, Opus 23, number 5. One of my favorites. Which one is your favorite version of this, uh, Prelude, apart from yours, of course? Oh, there are many pianists who do wonderful things with the Preludes. Many, um, Lugansky. Yeah, yeah, he's wonderful. He's absolutely wonderful. Well, you know, I go with the old school with Richter, and yeah, that's one of my favorites. And I like Lugansky very much. He has this way, and actually your version as well was very, very good, um, because it's not just the virtuoso one, it's also very melodic. I love that middle part, that middle section. Rarirari rara ri so Russian! So how was it? Did you play that one when you were in Berlin? I think probably something I've grown up with these preludes. Yeah. Yeah. I just— I don't feel like— No because he said there were a lot of Soviet students at school in a way influences in the Berlin School. That's why I thought maybe you took some out of it. For Rachmaninoff in particular? Ah, yeah. Um, well, I think probably weren't something that I've studied in Berlin. I think it's probably something that's just kind of part of my rep, that's been part of my rep since I was a teenager. Wow. Yeah. So tell us now, how did you decide to become a classical musician? You know, there is so much about the fact of representation, but that's something that went with you, you know, you went on for Rachmaninoff, who was a Russian very far away. I love Rachmaninoff too, and there is so much about this, the importance of representation. But I believe when the music is absolutely gorgeous like that one, it doesn't matter. You just love, fell in love with it and want to play it. So how did you fall in love with classical music and with Rachmaninoff then? Yeah, so my parents played a lot of classical music in the home all the time. So we had a kind of classical music home, and they're not musicians, so, you know, they can find their way around the piano and play. Play— my mum can play a bit of Beethoven and Mozart, but she's not a musician. But my dad just had this big LP collection, you know, and he would just love playing Tchaikovsky B-flat Piano Concerto, Mozart Clarinet Concerto, loads of piano— loads of piano concertos he had in the house. And they'd play them, and I just— one of my earliest memories is just being 4 years old and dancing around the house to Rhapsody in Blue. Oh, um, anyway, my parents decided that it was their idea that they had 5 children, that everyone should learn music, everyone should do sport with extracurricular activities. And, um, but they were very encouraging. I'm from a— I was brought up as a Christian. I remember my dad, um, praying for me and asking God to bless me with a gift of music. Oh, lovely. Which really touched me now because I feel that God did do that. Oh yeah. And so my parents are just really encouraging. A lot of friends— it's interesting when I read the interviews similar to this or listen to interviews from friends that are musicians, when they're asked this question, a lot of them say it kind of chose me rather than I chose it. And I'd say that's similar. I kind of feel that music is kind of just— if you're a musician, it's kind of in your blood. It's hard. It doesn't really leave you. I mean, I could stop playing the piano and I could stop writing now, but it would still be in my head, in my heart. I would, you know, I would still get ideas. It wouldn't really stop flowing in me. I could just choose to stop. Yeah, producing it, you know. There is, there is though the difference between, um, if there is any difference of course, um, in choosing classical music over popular music, for example, or jazz music or any other genres. Um, and so it's, um, um, for example, my daughter, she loves watching the Bugs Bunny. Yeah, there is the cartoon with the wonderful, uh, operas, you know, where they're having their own take on Wagner, or she knows them by heart. And then we were listening to the proper Rossini opera, and she's like, I know this, this is Puccini. I was like, no, Maria, this is Rossini. And that's— that was a fantastic way, I think, to bring to the imagination to the music that you would be listening. And so for some people, there is this misconception, I think, that that classical music is only for the elite and it's only for people that are somehow, you know, uh, destined to it. Um, yes, you say you're destined, you were kind of touched by the gift of music, but the gift of classical music, it's something that becomes, uh, I don't know, how would you express that when you do the concert to the, uh, 4-year-old, uh, you know, your special concert for the children, for example? What would you say that makes classical music different from popular music, for example? Yeah, okay, this is a tough question. It's a good question. This is just my opinion. I realize someone could ring the radio station, but that's not the same for me. This is just my opinion. Absolutely. So I really enjoy loads of genres. You know, one of my ways to let down my hair at the weekend is just to listen to, you know, Radio 1 Live Lounge or whatever. I love that. But classical music is the music that makes my heart kind of stop. Not in the sense that I'm dropping dead, but it just makes me stop. It just touches me. I love the fact that there can be also the element of pathos and melancholy in classical music. You know, for example, Schubert, that kind of pathos. I just— it's kind of what makes— transports me into a different place. And although I love all kinds of music, classical music is the genre that does that for me. It takes me a little bit out of myself and it touches me, really touches me in my heart. But that might be different for someone else. Someone else might say, but you know, actually Folk music is what transports me out of myself. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, you're very right. Um, you know, I was just playing a concert, um, last week. Um, it was a last-minute concert because the pianist who was supposed to accompany the concert got an eye infection and couldn't see the music, and he was accompanying singers. It was a concert dedicated to opera. It was a gala concert, and they— yeah, and they asked me, uh, because I was gonna be there presenting anyway, um, this is— well, could you actually step in and play? And I thought, well, I'm not a piano accompanist for singers, because, you know, there is some very difficult things. Yeah, the repertoire. So it's like, I'll do what I can. We need to do— and we were playing La Forza del Destino, The Force of Destiny, by Verdi, for example, or some Puccini. And then those arias, it just got stuck on my mind. I just couldn't stop singing them. And I think that's what, or like when you were saying Tchaikovsky, the piano concerto, ta-ri-ra-ra, you can't, there is something to it. Actually, I was playing Onegin, the arias from the opera, and I've never seen the opera, but the music, oh my gosh, I love Tchaikovsky. And when I heard that, it was It's even— how, how I never went to listen. I was scared, probably because it's in Russian. Um, but it's just phenomenal. Yeah. And you're right, there is that extra thing that is just taking your soul and, and just, you know, yeah, twisting it and lifting it. And it's so powerful. Yeah, a bit like when you go, when you go to church and there is that moment when somehow you're really taken, if you're religious of course, or anything else that is something that is making your your heart beat faster and cannot stop your, your tears to come down. I'm playing, I'm teaching one of my students, he's been with me for forever and ever, and he's an adult lawyer, super, super famous and everything, but he doesn't miss one piano lesson, you know. Wow. We're friends, he came to my wedding, and so we are learning Nocturne by Chopin, and I I always discarded the nocturnes because I wanted to be a virtuoso pianist, so I was playing the 18th Trascendental by Liszt and all these big things. But that nocturne, the number 3, it's just— there is something in the middle part that is just making you cry. It's just unbelievable. And I don't know, it's something that classical music knows so well. I don't know how. So as a composer, I think, do you feel the responsibility of bringing out something that will somehow one day be regarded like, uh, Chopin or Rachmaninoff? Um, no, I think it's because I, I can't compare myself to those people. I mean, I have such— you don't know now. I have such huge respect respect for those composers like Chopin and Beethoven. In fact, it's so huge. I really like writing with strings, but it took me a long time to feel comfortable with writing for piano. I always felt like, yeah, but every morning I can play Beethoven. What more do I have to say? No, I really felt like that. And, you know, I had to kind of get past that and be like, well, you know, there are other things that people need. So I don't feel that responsibility. I feel a responsibility to connect with people through music and to touch people through music. And I feel like when I do that, or someone says that happened for them, I feel really great. I feel like if I miss that opportunity, like if it's just, you know, some good music but it's not really hitting home in anyone's emotion, I feel disappointed of myself. So that's my thing. Yeah, I don't compare myself in any way. I think I have, you know, I have a reverence for these great classical composers. That's probably what it is. Well, talking of which, then, let's listen to another fantastic composer, Mr. Claude Debussy, with the Reflet d'un Loup performed by Beatrice Nicolás. How wonderful! This was Reflet Down Low. How do you say it? Reflects in the water? Yeah, reflects in the water. Yeah, by Edith Bussi. So beautiful. You can really see the water, you know, moving and having the circles when something drops in it. I really like it. Now this is the Anti-Bullying Week um, and, um, and a women's radio station. We are really, uh, um, we really care about mental, um, health. Um, there is also the counterpart of the men's radio station. We, um, been awarded many awards for the support they've been given, uh, to men and women. Um, and this is a program of classical music, but we also talk about the pros and cons of our careers. Now, specifically, have you ever been bullied at school or within anything about this. Um, although I think in music, I don't know, um, might happen as well, but maybe less. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, there have been certain circles sometimes that I've worked in or engaged in where there has been a culture that is not healthy, you know. But I would say You know, I've got a great family and some great friends, so I know who I am, I know what it is. And when I've encountered those kind of behaviors, I've not accepted them, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm good at my job, I'm gonna focus on that. And, you know, and sometimes I've blown whistles and called it out. And to the credit of some people sometimes, they think they've been sorted out. But you know, it can happen. And I've also, you know, worked and played in some really healthy, really fun cultures. Yeah. Well, you know, I was wrong. I did say that doesn't happen in music, but I had many, many ladies I interviewed on our program talking about sexism, for example. And that's another form of bullying. You know, I experienced that myself firsthand many times from men and from women, that they would say that the career of an international concert pianist was only for men and for strong men, for example. Wow. Oh yeah, I've been told once that I would have not been helped because I was pretty enough to marry a rich husband, and so they had to, yeah, help a male pianist who one day would have had the family on his shoulder, right? Yeah, I had that. Um, so you know, you never had any, anything like this? Then I think, um, yeah, I think there have been more subtle things, like, you know, why don't you go and get the tea? Oh really? Yeah, so maybe not direct like that, but you know, kind of subtle, subtle things. Or not so subtle. But, you know, I just think, I think it's quite stupid, you know. And I just kind of, uh, get on with what I need to do. Um, yeah. And sometimes you can— sometimes people don't change, but sometimes people do. Sometimes people do, and that's cool when that happens. That's good. And sometimes people don't. You have to just disconnect. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, definitely this is something that we want to bring over to, to anyone listening, you know, uh, with the good example you lead by example, you know, by going on and succeeding in your career no matter what, uh, no matter the fact you're a woman, no matter the fact that your skin is, uh, darker than another one. I have my daughter, for example, she's playing now with Roblox and I love her, she's just changing the skin of the color of the skin, there is is so many different colors and it's just fun. So sometimes she's black, sometimes she's less black, sometimes she's white, sometimes she's less white. She's just, she just changes and, and that's beautiful. It's just like when you change the color of your hair, isn't it? Once upon a time, and oh, there is still a preconception on blonde women, for example, no? Yeah, there is this stupid saying that I'm not that blonde when you mean that you're not that, that, you know, naive. And that's absolutely— that's bad in that sense too. So, um, yeah, I think just mean people can attach themselves to whatever, uh, mean or fragile people. And they, when they see someone else that is stronger, they just go into bullying them, for example, and, um, just because they're not as strong. So definitely we are not for it, and we're very happy there is this Anti-Bullying Week and that we're talking about it. Now, I would like to talk about your most exciting moment in your career. Most exciting moment? Hmm, I think, you know, I've got to play with some great people. Last weekend I was playing with the Tineke Ensemble. Ah, fantastic! Just fabulous, absolutely fabulous. But I think what really makes me tick, um, it's kind of this musical moment where I feel like I know the piece so well that I'm playing. It doesn't matter where I'm playing it or who I'm playing to, but I know it so well, um, that I feel in that moment I am completely connected to the audience and I'm able to do anything with it. And I think for me to get to that place, it's a place where you have performed that piece so many times before that it actually is yours, you know. And there is a masterclass, a recording from footage of a masterclass many years ago that's been given by Zimmermann on YouTube, and I think he's somewhere in Scandinavia and a student playing to him and she plays really well and he says, said, "You're brilliant. This is great. What you need to do now is perform this piece in 10 concerts so that you can know yourself in the performance," you know. And he's totally right. Like, you know, you have to keep learning new repertoire and everything and changing stuff, but there also has to be an experience of having played a recital or a program to audiences so many times that it is now— it's now you, you know. It's always going to be Chopin or Beethoven, there is that, but people are coming to hear Chopin and Beethoven but also coming to see you. It has to be you as an artist as well. And I love that moment where, for me, it's kind of like breaking through a barrier. You know, in that moment where I'm so— I'm not spending my energy or my focus on the piece, or even the performance, where I'm so— I just feel so connected to the audience because this is mine and I know it so well. And that for me is like the greatest moment. Well, and now I'd like you to talk about your next track that we're gonna listen to. It's Psalms for cello and harp. Your own composition. When was that performed the first time? The first time was performed in 2020, actually. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah. So there was always lockdowns, but, you know, there were times between the lockdowns where people could go to a concert. Amazing. What was significant about this? This was commissioned by the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival, and they were being really brave because even though they were legally able to have a concert, many, many directors weren't putting them on because they didn't know if they planned something if it would go ahead. So this festival director was awesome and she just went— she commissioned and she went ahead with stuff. And I think about a couple, literally a couple of days after we had this performance, Nottingham went to lockdown and it was that time where certain cities were going into lockdown, so it felt really poignant, you know. So I think it was Nottingham, it was Liverpool. So it was, yeah, it felt like one of those things that were meant to happen. Thaumas is inspired by two things. First of all, the commission, they wanted something that was taken out of the culture of Nottingham. And so I did some research before I, you know, wrote over anything. What is it that inspires me about Nottinghamshire? I used to live in Nottinghamshire as a child for a couple of years too. Anyway, there's a book called the Wollaton Antiphonal, which is a medieval book, and it's something like, ah, 12 stone in weight. I mean, it's ridiculously heavy, it's really, really thick, and it dates back to the 13th century. And people what it is. It's a collection of psalms that would be sung back then in plainchant, and written texts from the Bible, and just things that they would— like liturgy, I guess— that they would use in their services in this one parish in Nottinghamshire. And I was leafing through the book, not in person, you know, I'm able to touch it, but they make it available to you online. And with the help of some friends, I've kind of of looking at the plainchant, which is written in neumes, and trying to decipher what the melody was. There's one melody I really liked, and it was based on Psalm 27, and I just felt like Psalm 27, the first 2 or 3 verses felt really poignant and hopeful to do with the whole lockdown situation, people not knowing what's going to happen with their lives. And it was just all about having hope in the Lord even even when your chips are down, even when you don't know what's going to happen, and trusting and waiting because he will come and he will act, that there will be this kind of act of intervention and deliverance at some point, and just having that hope. And so I decided to use the plain chant from that book, from that psalm, to create something. And so it kind of has a slightly medieval feel at the beginning, and then, you know, it kind of becomes something a little bit more current So that's what it's about. Absolutely. And we got, we managed to play it live, so that was nice. Well, let's listen. Psalms for Cello and Harp by Beatrice Nicolás. Amazing! And this was Psalms for Cello and Harp by Beatriz Nicolás. Now, very few minutes left to our interview. It's time for the odd question. So, do you have any hobby to fill your mind or relax? Hobbies! I love walking in the countryside. I love drinking red wine, spending time with close friends and family. Yeah, so spending time with people is an important thing for me, and kind of what we're doing is secondary to that, but kind of doing something that connects us all. Absolutely. And do you have any ritual or superstition before going on stage? I do pray in my green room or dressing room before I get on stage, and the rest I just practice really hard. Very good. Do you have any funny moment or embarrassing moment that you can recall going on stage? Or— yeah, yeah, you do? Well, it's probably something that's not that uncommon, that shoes— I've learned about shoes I don't wear wear high-heeled shoes anymore on stage because there have been numerous times where the first thing I do when I go on stage before I bow is I fall over, you know. And I think the worst one was, uh, like quite a well-known pianist was in the audience and saw it, and then it happened again in a different concert, the same pianist was there, and he just said, "You've got to do something about that." So now I just, you know, I may have like a kind of long evening dress, but if I can, I just kind of wear flat shoes hidden underneath Well, you know, I also— it's just a question of if you like wearing them or not. It shouldn't be any less elegant to have beautiful ballerina pumps, for example, under your dress. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. No, no, I, I discovered the ballerinas when I was pregnant with my daughter and I couldn't wear heels anymore. It was just impossible. And they are the most easy and pretty thing to wear when you want to be elegant and at the same time comfortable. So yeah, totally agree with you. All right, well, what's your next project then, or collaborations or compositions? And, um, so at the moment I am taking December to write. I'm writing piano music, I'm gonna write some chamber music. I've started sketching already. Um, yeah, so December, I'm using the month of December to write and to sort well, new rep for next year. Um, and yeah, I've got some exciting programs for next year. I feel like I probably shouldn't talk about them on the radio yet because they're kind of going through some festival boards, so they're going in conversation rather than confirmation. But it's nice if people are asking for some interesting programs, so that's nice. So we can shake things up a bit. So when you perform, do you like to perform programs that they are mixed of, you know, the classical composer and your own composition, or do you go full traditional when you just perform? I think I've done more traditional, but this year I've started doing traditional with my own stuff mixed in between, you know. I mean, if you think about the great pianists like Chopin or Debussy as well, even Clara Schumann, she was performing the operas of others and then as well her own pieces. So absolutely. Do you have a— Oh, sorry. I'm just saying, 2020— since 2020, I've been— just like you say, these composers were pianists. And what I've been doing is I've been looking at programs that have the traditional repertoire, also have transcriptions and arrangements by other composers and by myself and my own compositions. And it's nice. Yeah, it's really fun. People like it. It's also connected to a tradition where composers did that. Yeah, so that's what we're doing. There's one transcription I did of Tchaikovsky, Op. 75. So that's a lesser— it's not a lesser-known music, but it's lesser-known music. And it's written for piano and orchestra, so it's really a one-movement concerto. And yeah, it's lovely. It's not well known, but it's lovely. And I did a transcription of that for solo piano that I've been performing. Wow. Yeah, so that's nice. It's kind of— when I have a concert where it's one of my pieces and one of my transcriptions and then pieces by great composers too, it's— yeah, it's different and it's fun. Absolutely. Well, you know, talking about Tchaikovsky, I was reading an interview to him once, recently actually, and he was saying that every morning he would go at the piano and he he would meet with the three muses of the arts, and they were always there for the appointment. So every day he would have new ideas. It's amazing. Do you have that? Like, you wake up, you go to the piano, and suddenly new ideas come to you? I think a lot of the time new ideas are coming when I'm not at the piano, and then I have to make a note to write them down, or, you know, make sure that it doesn't disappear, that when I get to the piano, of it, doing something with it. Yeah. I think a lot of music kind of happens to me, say, if I'm, you know, on the train or driving the car, something just kind of pops into my head, and I have to make a note of, "Ah, okay, let's see what we can do with that." Absolutely. Well, the next piece we're going to listen, and that's the end of our program, is Geshwin, the Prelude. Um, so it's again another great pianist and composer, and he was in the middle between classical, um, and is considered as well for the jazz. So he wrote the amazing, um, American Songbook. Many of his songs are in there. Question: do you ever add other styles when you're— when you're composing for classical? Uh, it's not classical, but you know what I mean. Yeah. Like Gershwin, you know, putting in influences from the American jazz because he was living in New York. So yeah, no, sometimes, you know, I've been asked to write for other genres, so like, you know, a couple of musical theater songs. Oh wow. Yeah, or, um, just collaborate with people from, you know, pop artists or, you know, that kind of thing. And yeah, that's, that's very— that's, that's great. Absolutely fine. Well, let's listen to Gershwin Prelude performed by Beatriz Nicolas. So energetic! This was Gershwin Prelude performed by the brilliant Beatrice Nicolas. Beatrice, thank you so much for the wonderful music we played today. It's been a pleasure to chat with you today. Oh, the pleasure's been mine. I very much enjoyed it. Thank you. And we look forward, you know, to hear the news about your upcoming concerts and projects. It all sounds fantastic. So you've been listening to Future Classic Women Awards on Women's Radio Station, live every day at 10 AM and 10 PM London time. This was also a very special week dedicated to anti-bullying. So we hope, um, you were inspired by this fantastic interview and by our guest Beatrice Nicolás. And if you would like to catch up again or listen to our previous programs, you can head to my presenter's page, Stefania Passamonti/Future Classic Women Awards on womensradiostation.com. And also, if you'd like to ask questions to our guest or nomination for our Future Classic Women reports, please email presenters@womensradiostation.com or tweet us @WomensRadioSTN. Thank you for listening.