Future Classic Women Awards – Damian Iorio 130223

Hello and welcome to the 5th edition of Future Classic Women Awards. With me, Stefania Passamonte, Women's and Men's Radio Station, the program where we search for the most amazing new female artists on the classical panorama. Today is the day after the Grammys, and we're very pleased to announce that Mahsa Takumi won the Grammys. So we're so happy, our recent special guest. And so we decided to have another very special, special guest today, that is conductor Damian Iorio. Good morning, Damian. Good morning, Stefania. Good morning, how are you today? Yeah, yeah, very good, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and to talk to you. Fantastic. Well, there is so much that we need to talk and to listen to your incredible, you know, recordings. First of all, I think you are the second conductor that we invited on our program, so tell us a little bit, how did you decide to become a conductor? I mean, when you were a child, did you dream about being a conductor or you started in a different way? Oh no, I didn't dream of being conductor when I was a child. It was a long process. Well, I come from a musical family. My parents, my two uncles were musicians. My mother still plays and teaches at the Royal Academy and at Trinity, Trinity Laban. And my grandfather, her mother, was also a very well-known viola player. So I was born into music, into a musical family, and I played an instrument, as did my brother and sister, from a very young age. From 4 years old, I started the violin. And let's say I, in fits and starts, got through my teenage years, and at 18 I went to music college, to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, as a violinist. I'd never thought of conducting before then, but when I was in Manchester, I started getting interested in the musical canvas of the symphony orchestra. And I was very, very fortunate to be given opportunities that were extremely important to me by the teachers at the Royal Northern. There was Ed Warren and Tim Rhenish, and they were extremely kind to me. I went to them and I said, look, I'm quite interested in conducting, and I think I conducted a small cello ensemble or something like that. But I went to Ed Warren I said, well, I wouldn't mind some lessons. He said, okay, learn the first movement of Brahms' Second Symphony and go to conductor's rep orchestra next week, which was basically an hour of sight reading by students for the student conductors. So I sort of learned the first movement of Brahms II, and somehow I survived because I'm alive today, but I managed to get through it. Funny enough, that same day another conductor started as well who expressed interest, and he was called Gary Walker. Who's now music director for Pro North, and he did the last movement of Brahms too. So— Oh wow! We both started together. So anyway, that snowballed over the years, and by the end of my studies in Manchester, my undergraduate studies, I was spending a lot of my time conducting. I was not officially a conducting student, but I ended up spending a long time. After that, I spent a year in America as a violin student still, because it was my first my first career choice. And during that year I realized that actually I really did want to pursue conducting more, and that's for many reasons. I mean, I had an amazing teacher, violin teacher called Franco Gulli, an Italian violinist. Oh wow, very famous. Yeah. And so he was not just a violinist, he was an amazing musician and sort of opened my mind up musically to all sorts of interests and ideas. And that sort of helped put me on this road towards conducting. There were many, many parts to this, to this transformation, let's say, from being violinist to conductor. After that year, I realized I wanted to study conducting more, but I had to have a job. I had to earn money, and I got a job as a violinist in the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, I think it's called now. But then it was the Radio Orchestra in Copenhagen, where I was for 6 years. Did you learn Dutch? Danish. I learned Danish. Danish. Danish. Yeah. I learned Danish and I still speak Danish. And I was actually in Denmark last week and I can still— yes. As my mother said to me, of all the useless languages you had to learn, you had to learn Danish because, you know, when you learn German where more people speak it. But actually it proved to be a very useful language for me because I have a lot of Danish friends and I still go back and I work there and I work in Danish and Swedish and Norwegian sometimes. So I had this job in the radio, and at the same time I traveled to Saint Petersburg in Russia once a month when I had 3 or 4 days free. And I would travel to Saint Petersburg to study with the great teacher Ilya Musin, um, as well as another teacher there called Alexander Polyshchuk, which I did for 3 years. I would go 10 times a year to Saint Petersburg and study there, and it was the most incredible journey for me because on one side I was sitting every day in my job working with great conductors such as Kurt Sanderling, Yuri Temelkanov, Marek Janowski, and also studying in St. Petersburg and soaking in the incredible cultural world that exists in St. Petersburg. I mean, I'd had the fortune again, thanks to the teachers in Manchester, to meet Muzin because he came in the '90s. I think it was '93 and '94 he came to Manchester to give masterclasses, and I was allowed not just to observe the masterclasses but also to conduct, to muzin. And so all these opportunities I was given, of which I'm incredibly grateful for, they all added into the cocktail, as it were, that allowed me to consider conducting as a profession. Because you don't just say, right, I'm going to be a conductor you have to support yourself. I had by that time studied for a few years and I had to earn money, I had to pay my rent, I had to eat food. So I had the job in Denmark. I still practiced and I was not a bad violinist, but a few— all these things sort of allowed me to continue and pursue my studies. And then after, after a few years, I, I started doing some competitions. I did very well at the Leeds competition, um, in 1999. I got second place and Gary Walker got first place. So we— our paths crossed again after having started together. It was very funny. Uh, and so I did quite okay there, and that started some things going. I started conducting in some countries, and then I became chief conductor in Russia, uh, in the Arctic, in Murmansk. Wow. Where, where I stayed for 6 years. Now obviously I was not living there, I was commuting because I was still working for a period of time as a violinist. So I had one foot as well. You were doing both? Yes, yes. So I would start taking time off my job and doing it at times when I was able to do these things. And I worked hard. I mean, I was doing a double life and a double career. And eventually I had to quit my job, permanent, my full-time job. I stopped. I was freelanced for a, for a period as a violinist just to make a bit of money, because in Russia at that time, in the '90s, early 2000s, I mean, the money was— there was no money. It was chaotic. It was very difficult economically, but it was great for my experience. And I did some great projects. We had a lot of international cooperation projects with Finland, with Norway, with Norwegian National Opera, who would come every year there to do projects. It was exciting times, and I built the orchestra up together with my colleagues to having great success. And I started conducting elsewhere in Russia and in Italy and Scandinavia, but I quit my job. I moved countries from Denmark to Italy because I am actually half Italian and I wanted the food and the sun. I decided to move there and pursue my conducting career. So I quit the violin. I decided to throw myself into conducting, and over a few years I built up. I would say, let's say from 2006 is where I consider that my real full-time career started on the international level, because that was my debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The year after is my debut at Glyndebourne. The year after is with Paris Opera. Et cetera, et cetera. But I spent years before that building it up slowly from my studies to competitions to, you know, small concerts in Russia, in Italy with the provincial orchestras, with some orchestras in Denmark before going into the more serious levels. And one of the more serious, but the more demanding international level. And here I am. Wow. So that's a, that's a short sort of version of what was a very long journey. I think I must underline very much how, uh, grateful I am to the opportunities that were given to me when they didn't necessarily have to do these things for me. I really appreciated what they did for me, these teachers, over the years. Well, you know, and now you are here, and you are here in London for us, for the London Performing Academy of Music, where you're head of conducting. So So we decided to build up a very unique course in conducting for undergraduates, and we have two brilliant students from Ukraine, women, so that's very, very encouraging as well. So let's talk about that then. You know, from what you tell us, your career has been so long and made of so much work, if you like, before you become an internationally renowned conductor. I guess, you know, you never finish to learn as well. What can you tell the students, you know, when they're coming? It's not just having classes in conducting, it's about everything else, about having a job as a violinist, for example, until you can make enough money as a conductor, you know, before you get the experience. So how would you say— how— what would be the best advice for your students, for, or for any young musicians that would love to to become a conductor? Well, music is a tough business. Classical music is tough because it's very demanding, a lot of sacrifice. We all know you yourself also sacrificed a lot to become the musician you are. As an instrumentalist, on one hand, it is more straightforward because you play and the sound is made directly by you through the instrument. People can judge you on that. Alone. Of course, life isn't so straightforward sometimes, but that is the basic— a basic fact, let's say. As a conductor, there's much more ambiguity because we don't make a direct sound. We influence other musicians through our gestures and our expression and our energy. We influence the orchestral musicians in order to then create a sound which is then produced for the public, bearing in mind that the sound is not written— the music is not written by us, it's written by somebody else as well. So we are interpreting and recreating, I would say, rather than creating. So there is a lot more ambiguity in how you judge a conductor as well. So, and also there are of course many orchestras in the world, but there aren't that many— well, in order to become a successful and busy conductor, it takes a lot of work because it's very competitive. There are a lot of good conductors out there. So I think for young budding conductors today, it's very important to be incredibly highly educated and know your stuff, and that takes time. You have to learn so many things, from an analysis of score to history to techniques of playing and to the basic technique of your hands, which is why I went to Russia, because I felt that that was the best place to study conducting in all its aspects, most importantly technically, because Mawson had created a school of technique which for me was— it was and is still today unsurpassed. And that's what I tried to pass on to my students who are very young. And I think this is what's unique about, um, LP-MAM, the, the organization which you founded and where I'm teaching, um, that the— this— we have an undergraduate course as well as a graduate course, and they can start young. Now in Ukraine, where the two students are from, as much of the ex-Soviet Union, conductors are able to be educated from as an undergraduate, whereas it's very few opportunities for undergraduates to study conducting as a full-time course in Europe and in America. So there's different tradition which we are trying to create here in London to give this opportunity to young students. So of course it's a different way of approaching it than with an undergraduate, than you would approach with a more mature postgraduate student who's already studied another instrument up to a certain level and had certain experiences and education. But when they start at 18, you have to do everything from basics— all the school reading analysis to the basic technique— because they have to learn everything. So, well, I think that's very exciting, and it's wonderful to have that opportunity to build this with you. Absolutely. Well, I can tell you, you know, when I was studying, when I was a young student at the conservatoire in Italy, you were not allowed to do conducting until you've done 8 years of composition. Yes. And so you could only do it after having done 8 years of composition and exam at the 8th year. You would be closed in a room for 24 hours and had to compose and sleep in the same room. It was just, you know, and ring a bell to go to the bathroom or to receive some food. So like if you were in prison. Yeah, serious sacrifice. That really, absolutely, that really put me off about even trying to think about becoming a conductor because I was already devoted my life to being a pianist for 10 years and then everything else because he actually did another 5 years of concert pianism and then 2 years postgraduate Royal Academy, 1 year in Paris. So if you like, I studied for what, 15, 16, 18 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a long road to get there. Until they told me, you know, we taught you enough, we have nothing left to teach you. And okay, so now you're on your own. Did that happen to you? Did you get a teacher who told you, you know, enough, I told you everything I knew, now you have to go your own way? Well, no, not really. I sort of felt each time that I had a period— I had my 4 years in Manchester and it came to an end and it gave me exactly what I needed then. And then I went to America to Gulli. So as a violinist, I had a very clear path and that progressed very naturally and organically, whereas as a conductor, it was very much— I came to it later and I did it in my own time. So I was very dedicated because I really wanted it. I didn't have to do it. So then going to Russia with my teachers, I sort of had to stop studying at a certain time because I needed to earn money and I was getting more busy. And I would go back sometimes and continue that. And I think, as you said earlier, you continue learning. So maybe I didn't do it formally in the way that many other colleagues do because I had a foot in two worlds at the same time. So it was an odd situation. My studying as a conductor was not very, uh, traditional, let's put it that way. All right, well, let's, let's start by listening to Divertimento per Fulvia by Casella. So Divertimento, how— what do we say? An amusement for Fulvia. Fulvia was the daughter of Casella. Yeah, uh, the last movement is called Apoteosi. Um, how do you translate Apoteosi in English? Oh, Apotheosis. I don't know, I can only think of it in Italian, to be honest. Climax. Gigantic climax, if you like. Yeah, yeah. And this is a beautiful suite, a very balletic suite, which Casella wrote for his daughter Fulvia. Casella is one of a group of Italian composers, um, from the— the— well, that they were called the generation of the '80s, the 1880s, that sort of grew up together and were very well known as a group. And Casella, one of the most famous of them, who wrote this beautiful music for his daughter, which I've recorded, uh, with the Okay, chef, Switzerland, Italian, Italian, Switzerland, in Lugano, for Naxos. Yes, super. Well, let's listen to Apoteosi from Divertimento per Fulvio by Casella. Nice. This was Divertimento per Fulvia, conducted by our guest Damian Iorio with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. Um, Fulvio— sorry, Damian, I wanted to ask you You know, being a violinist, you know, for example, last night I wanted to see— I went to see Philharmonic Orchestra. We had our head of string, Fabrizio Falasca. He was assistant concertmaster, you know, and often the concertmaster of the orchestra, who is the violinist, the very first violin sitting next to the conductor, he is the one that somehow is leading all the strings and the orchestra in a way. So being a violinist, do you think that helped you understanding better the orchestra, or would you say it doesn't matter? Because we see a lot of conductors that come from piano, for example, but lately I noticed there is conductors that actually they started their career being trumpet player or being a drummer, and somehow, you know, the knowledge of the score of a trumpet player, of a percussionist, is so completely different in terms of perspective than what would be the violin, the first violin concertmaster, or the pianist, for example. Well, yes, I mean, the traditionally, historically, there were very sort of clear routes into conducting, and you had to sort of do your apprenticeship. So you would be coming from either the composition world, as you mentioned before, which you'd experienced, or the pianistic route. And so often what you would do is you'd go into an opera theater— I'm going back, you know, 100 years here, 50 years— you go into the opera theater as a répétiteur. So you'd be accompanying the singers and playing for rehearsals as a pianist and things like that. And bit by bit, you would work your way up and then start to conduct and get your opportunities. And then if you were good and you had the right opportunities, you would be given more until you developed a career and went into conducting in whatever level it was. Or there were, of course, composer— composition, and that would develop into something along similar lines. And that's because it was considered that the pianist and the composer has a broad and— how to say— an ability to read the score, to study the score by playing it, and expressing it through the piano. Now, I'm not a pianist. I spent all my life playing the violin, and I play the piano not particularly well. I would never inflict it on anybody, let's put it that way. But I was a not bad violinist, and I played in pretty good orchestras. I started by freelancing in the Hallé when I was a student in Manchester, so I played in a very high level. Danish Radio Orchestra was a very good orchestra, And so I've had the great privilege to sit inside the big organism, the animal that is the orchestra, because the orchestra is not just people playing it. So it's living, it's moving like the music is, and it is also full of musicians who are incredibly talented and who know a lot and have played certain repertoire far more than you have when you're a young conductor. So there's many sides to this. Sitting in the orchestra, you have the opportunity to follow rehearsals because you're part of the rehearsals. You have the opportunity to listen to the score from the inside and to learn it that way. So I think also very importantly, you get to understand the orchestra because I would say that conducting is 50% psychology. You're having to lead a group of musicians between 30 and 130 musicians that are great musicians and they have their own opinion. But you have to persuade them that your way is going to work and that they should go with you on a journey. Even if they disagree with you, they still have to believe in you. And sitting in an orchestra, you start to understand how an orchestra thinks, what works, what doesn't work, in what way should you say something or express it with a gesture, etc., etc. There are so many ways of doing something. And I think now conducting has developed to such an extent where people understand that it's not absolutely necessary to be able to play your score on the piano. You just have to learn your score. And it really, at the end of the day, doesn't matter how you learn your score. It matters that you know your score. So there are different ways of looking at this. At the end of the day, an orchestra and a public doesn't really care if you can play the score on a piano, doesn't care that you know the analysis of it, you know, the harmonic progression, the tonality. Whatever. They want you to be able to express, to know it, to have a deep understanding of it, whichever way you've come to that conclusion, and to be able to express it well. So conducting it— and also orchestras are far quicker than they used to be. They have a far broader repertoire. If we think 50 years ago, what was new then is now standard repertoire. I mean, it was thought that The Rite of Spring would be unplayable for an orchestra. Without lots of rehearsal and things, and now it's done very often, and some orchestras can do it, you know, very little rehearsal time because they know it so well. So as a conductor, you're not teaching them, you're guiding them, you're leading them, and you have to have a lot of skills above and beyond just musical and just, let's say, theoretical. And I think that's why we're seeing more instrumentalists becoming conductors, because they've gone through a similar journey probably to what I have, and they've realized that they would like to be more— to be able to touch the canvas of the painting more, to be more involved in it globally, which is what I felt. I enjoyed playing the violin. I still enjoy playing the violin, excuse me, but I wanted to have the opportunity to, to, to, to guide the canvas globally more. No, but you know, my question really came from a point of view of jealousness in a way, because the piano rarely— I mean, yes, there is opportunities for the piano to play inside the orchestra, not in front of the orchestra as a soloist. I always played as a soloist, but I think, you know, being at the back like the drummer, the percussionist, for example, or the trumpet player, you get the sound that is so different. So you get such a different perspective of the orchestra as it is, as it plays, as it does the violin. And, you know, so I guess the experience that you get orchestra-ly in performing is something that, you know, it's irreplaceable. So I believe that somehow maybe that's an advantage. Well, yes, because you, you feel that sound, you, and you know how the sound is produced by the instruments. You're, you're feeling it, you're breathing it together, and you're right inside that organism, that animal. So yes, I think you are, as an orchestra musician, look, at the end of the day, the orchestra, the lungs of the orchestra is this other string section. It's the biggest amount of players in any orchestra, the largest amount of players. In any orchestra, and it is really where the orchestra breathes the most because the Western symphonic repertoire from Mozart through to today, it's foundations of the string sound. So especially as a string player, if you know how to— if you know that string, if you know how to produce sound on a string instrument and you know how to do the articulations, the bowings and things, of course you are you have an advantage. Um, and, and just sitting inside an orchestra, you have an advantage because you, you understand so much. I think it's very important. I mean, I, I always sort of thought, why should it be that you just play the piano and then you can conduct? You've got to know the orchestra. Yeah, it's a living animal. Yes, absolutely. Well, let's listen to another beautiful orchestra. This is the symphonic orchestra of RAI. RAI is the equivalent BBC is the Italian national television, and we hear a recording of Pizzetti, the Sinfonia in A Major, the second movement, conducted by Damian Iorio. Okay, so this was an extract from the Symphony in A Major by Pizzetti, the Andante Tranquillo, the second movement, conducted by Damian Iorio, our guest of today on Future Classic Women Awards. Damian, let's talk about something that is very hot right now, if you don't mind. We have just finished the Grammys, and so now we enter into the week of the Oscars. Oscar-nominated movie is Tar with Cate Blanchett, about this woman conductor. It touches different themes like the Me Too, if you like, seen on a point of view of a woman conductor, and, you know, the use of her power towards the young artist in the orchestra, for example. But there is something else. There is two things I would like to talk with you. First of all, um, what do you think about movies depicting classical music? To me, the one that I've seen so far, they're always describing classical musicians like a bit crazy. I don't think we are that crazy, are we? Well, I suppose you have to have a little bit of craziness to stand on a stage and expose yourself the way that we do emotionally, because when we go on stage, we're basically naked emotionally. And that you have to have a lot of confidence and a little pinch of craziness to do that, but not quite as much as is often portrayed. I mean, a film or programs that are made about classical music, they always show classical musicians as being very, very different from normal people. And, and yeah, we are a little bit of it because we do what we do, but at the end of the day, we're actually quite normal people and We have families, we, you know, we eat and drink, you know, I go to the supermarket later and go buy food for my kids and then cook them lunch. So, you know, we do those things. But, um, I think that, uh, there are of course legends from the past of especially of conductors, uh, of dictators, uh, people like Toscanini, uh, Karajan, these great figures of, of, of conductors from the past. Who were dictators. And there are all sorts of stories that go around, and these have been magnified a little bit over, you know, especially when it's put into a fictional context of a film or something like that. But there have been, of course, cases in the past of people abusing their power, of the MeToo things, of course, all these terrible things that we have been speaking about the last few years. Of course, a lot of terrible things have happened. But it's not to say that everybody does these things, that everybody's mad like that. I mean, at the end of the day, a film is a piece of fiction that has to sell as well. Let's remember that. So it has to be good and interesting entertainment. There was maybe a little bit of truth in it, but well, I think especially today there's a level of professionalism in classical music that is incredibly high because the competition is so fierce. You can't mess around, you can't do stupid things because you just won't work? Well, I have to say, you know, I think like 90% of music, of movies on classical music, they're all about drama. Um, the only thing I really loved that I wasn't drama but was comic, um, it was, um, Mudlet in the Jungle. Have you ever watched that? No, I've not watched it, but I recently— going back to my Danish part, there was, uh, there was a, a, a series, a a sort of dark comedy series made about the— it was called The Orchestra, and it was actually sort of made about my old orchestra. I mean, it was a fictional thing. It's very funny. It is a sort of similar thing to Mozart in the Jungle, but it's very well done. And a friend of mine composed the music actually for it, Nicholas Schmidt, very good composer. But it— yeah, that was a sort of similar idea. There's a bit of Me Too in there. There was a bit of, uh, crazy conductor, a bit too powerful, uh, very egotistical, etc., etc. This sort of similar themes that are touched upon, and it was very funny, but it was in Danish. Can I ask you a very crazy question? What's your craziest thing about you that an orchestra would say when you go and conduct? I'll tell you what. Wait, I have— there is a famous Italian conductor who is very late in his career that they said he was— everyone was scared about him. Whenever he would close his jaw, they would know that someone in the orchestra would would be taken out, you know, kicked out of the orchestra after the— you know who I'm talking about. Do you have anything like that? I don't think so, because you're an amazingly nice person. Oh, I would not. I would not. I mean, having said that, you know, I have been in situations— I mean, if you want to talk about those sort of things with power, for example, sometimes you need to use your power as a, as a, as a leader, as a conductor, because you have certain standards to keep. So I have been in a situation in an opera theater, for example, where, where you've where a singer has been absolutely unprepared and unprofessional, and you've had to go to the management and say, look, you know, we've got a problem here, blah blah blah, and this we need to resolve it. And, uh, and, uh, you had to deal with those things. And when you're chief conductor of an orchestra, music director, you're involved in the hiring of people. But, um, there are also some situations that aren't particularly nice. But that's the same in any, any, um, form of work. I mean, you know, employment's there are bosses that have to make difficult decisions sometimes. As far as being very capricious or egotistical, I suppose all conductors have a little bit of ego or a lot of ego. I mean, you have to have a lot of ego to stand in front of a lot of people with a lot of ego to persuade them that you're, you know, to go with you. But as far as— no, I like to have a laugh sometimes, and I can, you know, enjoy if something goes wrong in a rehearsal, for example, and it is funny. I'm not scared to laugh. I'll laugh not at the musician, but I'll laugh with the orchestra that something funny happened, and then try to resolve it, of course, and make sure it doesn't happen again. But, uh, no, I, I can, I can do jokes and, and things like that. And I can also, I suppose, be tough when I need to be. But I'm a fairly normal person at the end of the day. At least I hope I am. I think I am. Now, you know, the, the movie TAR, it's, um, depicting a woman conductor. And recently, you know, after MeToo movement, there's been a lot of talk about equality in all jobs, but in particular in the show business, and that includes music. And so now we can see more and more women conductors conducting. What would you say to your female students, your young female students, you know, about starting this career? Should they be worried, or is now the door open to anyone, no matter where you come from? I think that now there should be no distinction. Of course, you've got to be good. I was brought up with that. Look at my mother as a violinist. She, uh, I mean, she's 81 now, my mother, and she has been concertmaster or leader of many orchestras in the UK at a time when there were very few leaders. There were very few women in the orchestras even. And my mum very much broke the glass ceiling, but she never spoke about it. She just did it. She just did things. And, and so I was brought up very much, I suppose, a little bit naively, that it was equal for everybody because my mother just made her own way and was very successful. Of course, as you develop as a person and also within the musical world, you see things that aren't always fair. I think now, though, the opportunities for female conductors are there. I would have no— I mean, you know, I say, look, I'm there to educate my students, and I educate them both technically, musically, and also a bit about life, and I prepare them for a conducting career, which is difficult for anybody. But I think, you know, there should be no issue about it being a female or a male conductor. Of course not. There has been an imbalance in the past, and that's being rectified. But I think that it shouldn't be an issue, it shouldn't be discussed anymore. I mean, I was saying we should arrive at a situation where We don't discuss whether it's a male or female conductor, it's just good conductors or bad conductors. Super! So let's just listen now to the next track of today, that is the symphony in A major by Pizzetti, the Andante Faticoso. And this was Pizzetti's Symphony No. 1 in A Major, the 4th movement, Andante faticoso e pesante. Conducted by Damian Iorio with the Orchestra della RAI, della RAI in Italia. So tell us, Damian, a little bit more about this piece, actually. Yes, I mean, I've been doing a series of recordings for Naxos of music by this generation of composers. You know, in Italy, the opera is so important. And for composers who write non-operatic music, it was very difficult to sort of have a voice, not just nationally, but especially internationally. You know, everybody knows Verdi, Puccini, all these great operas, but not so much the composers who write non-operatic music. So together with Naxos, we decided to take this very important group of composers, Pizzetti, Malipiero, Ghedini, Cassella, and to record some of their lesser-known— well, music that is not so well known, but we felt was incredibly good music and deserves a recording, a good recording, so that people can get to know this music better. So we've been listening to some of this music, and of course I'm half Italian, so it's very nice to be able to help the Italian culture in this way. Fantastic. Well, this is the last part of our interview, and normally I ask, you know, what's gonna be your next project, and you already answered that. And then also if you have any hobby that apart from music, that, you know, music is your job, so do you have any strange hobby to relax, you know? Well, I do, yes. But not maybe to relax in the same way. But I love cycling. A few years ago, my children took up cycling, and we lived in Italy at the time, and they were actually racing, and they were quite good. So they were doing training every week and cycling races on the road, you know, because it's very big in Italy. And they would do that, and I've always sort of stayed relatively fit, done various sports, but nothing particularly seriously. But I had to keep up with them, so I started cycling up to the point where they, you know, got faster than me. But I enjoy still going out on my bike and going. I'm very fortunate to live near mountains and I love to go and climb the mountains on my bike, on the road, not on a mountain bike. But wow. So 2 days ago I was up a mountain, did a 1,000-meter climb. But let's say it's not any mountain. We're talking about the Alps. So the Alps. High mountain. Exactly. Yeah. So I like doing 1,000-meter climbs, 2,000-meter climbs. I do it. Wow. That's where I get to— I get to focus on life in a different way, to, to see the nature, to think and have space. It's very important for me as a musician also to have time to collect yourself and to get clarity. Super. All right, and now the funny questions. Do you have any, um, funny episode that you can share with us about going on stage, or, you know, about going performing somewhere in particular? Yeah, I mean, there's all sorts of things that happen. You know, some of the things that happen to you are very much musicians' jokes, and probably for other— another general public wouldn't really understand why that was funny, because we have a strange sense of humor. But I think most people would know that when, when artists come on, on and off stage, for example, uh, the, the stage is closed and there's a door that opens, and I always call it the magic door, because somehow when I, I take a bow, I go to walk off stage magically the door opens and you, and you go off stage because there's always somebody behind there looking through a little window. And I was in Korea, in Seoul, with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019, and I think I'd just done the overture. I take my bow, I go to walk off stage, and I'm getting close to the door, it's not opening. I'm thinking, oh, and I can't— in some of the halls you can't tell where the door is because it's sort of like a wall with an open— you just can't see where the door is. Yeah. Yeah, I can't tell where the hell this, this door is, and it's not opening. So I get to the door, I stand there, which probably for a second or two, and it felt like an hour. Uh, and at that point, you know, you can sort of feel a little bit, um, how to say, embarrassed of that. But I just laughed. I was laughing. I turned around and I went back and took another bow, and then I turned back and the orchestra was all laughing. And of course, somebody took a video of it, put it on social media. Oh no. Even more funny was that as soon as I turned away, literally as I was turning back to walk back on stage, the door opened there. They just— somebody, something had happened backstage and they weren't looking through window. So if I'd have waited maybe a split second longer, I would have gone through. But anyway, these are sort of funny things that happen on stage. There's also in Paris Opera, I was conducting Boris Godunov, and at the beginning of one scene you have the, the, the chorus on stage, the choir on stage. And this particular scene, one half of the chorus, the chorus sings one thing and another half replies basically. But I can't— when you're in the Bastille, you can't see the whole stage, first of massive stage, and also half of the chorus was supposed to be walking upstairs that came from underneath the stage. So there's a bit of technology that the stage would go down into stairs at one point, so I couldn't see that at all. But all of a sudden I'm conducting and I give the cue for the first entrance of the chorus and some sing. I'm thinking, that's a bit weird, that's not all of them. And then there's no answer. I give the cue and I think, hang on a sec, nobody's singing. And it's panic stations because you're thinking, what's going on? Why are they not singing? And so you carry on, you've got a decision to make, you know, you're in the Bastille, you've got 100 people on stage, you've got 70 people in the pit, you've got thousands of people in the audience, you don't just stop. And so you're thinking, oh God, what's going on? And then all of a sudden I see all these chorus members running on from stage left, where they're supposed to be coming up the stairs, of course, and they start. So panic over, we get back in, we've lost a couple of lines, nobody's died, it's fine. And after they come to me and apologize and say the technology had failed, and so the stage had come down into the stairs, and they were downstairs under the stage. And the Bastille is an enormous theater. You don't just go to the side of the stage and up a set of stairs. You have to go quite far through corridors. Some have to take a lift, some have to take stairs, and they bombed it back upstairs in order to get on stage. So that was both, let's say, funny, but I must have aged at least a year during those few seconds. Absolutely. Well, people, I, um, I don't know if our audience ever had the opportunity to go backstage. Sometimes there is tour, for example, a Royal Opera House where you can actually see behind the scene. But behind is a world that is bigger, if you like, of the amphitheater where the audience is sitting. Um, so it is like a labyrinth. I've been lost so many times, also because I have a bad sense of direction. I've worked twice in, in the Bastille in, in Paris Opera, which is one of the biggest— oh my God, yes. And I think the first time I spent a month lost basically. And, uh, and it's very scary because also you come out of your conductor's room and it's not just at the side of the stage. I mean, you have to walk quite far. And the first time you go, I actually asked the stage management, I said, could somebody get me and take me? Because I'm a bit worried if I take a wrong turning, then, you know, we won't start on time. And actually, I have a colleague who told me that once in Germany he was guesting at a theater he didn't know and got lost going to the pit. Oh my gosh. And ended up finding his way back getting there, but panic moment. So I have to ask you, you know, as a musician, you get nervous when you go on stage that you think, you know, am I going to forget something? Is anything going to go wrong? You know, am I going to do wrong notes, for example? Now, running to the stage in this situation definitely takes away part of the nervousness from the performance itself because you're like, you know, you're ready. So do you get any nervous— you know, when you are conducting, to forget something? Well, I think all musicians get nervous, whether you're at the top of your— of the— of when you're the biggest names in the world, uh, or you're just starting your career as a student. We all get nervous. You just learn, uh, how to control that, that those sensations, that nerves, and you learn how to channel that energy into something productive. Now, of course, when I've had my debuts with Philharmonic Orchestra or San Francisco, uh, you know, and, and you walk on stage for the beginning of the concert, you just think, you know, I don't know anything. And this, for a split second, you have that doubt. All artists have self-doubt. That's why we're all a bit crazy. We were discussing being crazy and the power of things, but it's all based on insecurity as well, because we're all convinced that we know nothing, we're terrible. And then we realize actually that, well, we start playing, we realize that we actually can do something. And then the public tells you they enjoyed it, and you think 'Okay, I've survived that and I'll go on to the next one.' I think we all have those thoughts, it's not many people admit it. So yes, you have that, and the conductors have this nightmare. I've discussed it with many colleagues that we have a classic nightmare where you're going to a new orchestra, you're starting the first rehearsal, and it's so perfect you don't know what to say. Oh no, that's a nightmare! It's a nightmare, yeah. Of course it never happens because you've always got your idea, there's always something you can work on, but we have this sort of nightmare. But yes, We will have— now I have a very big question. So, you know, as a pianist, when I go and see another pianist performing, um, because I have such a clear view and a clear sense of the music, that is rare that I can find someone else playing the way they should be, you know, for my point of view, musically speaking. Yes. So, um, to be honest, when I go see another pianist performing, uh, Unfortunately, most of it is being, you know, thinking, oh gosh, why is he not doing this? Why is he not doing that? He should be doing this. So it's actually a pain more than enjoying a concert. So I rarely go. I have to say there are very few pianists that I enjoy listening. One of them was Matsuev, for example, and I was absolutely blown away by his sound and, you know, his musicality and altogether. And then I listen to others, particularly when it's a repertoire that I perform, and it's a pain. So do you have the same when you go and see other conductors conducting? Well, I think the point you made about having your own very clear vision of how a piece should go, which we have to have as a performing artist—you can't go on stage without having a clear vision—so then it's very hard to accept other people's visions because it's, you know, there's always something you'll disagree with. And so that's, that is very clear. There are some musicians I I like to listen to because I think they have something very interesting to say, and even if it's different from me, I can accept it. What I would say is that I think over time I may be more accepting now of other people's point of view. Maybe that's just because, you know, you get older, you mature, you're more experienced. When you're young as a musician, there's only one way to do something. It's your way, you know, and you're— but you have to be like that as well. You have to develop. You have to make decisions, uh, for the right or wrong. And of course, I look back like most musicians will look back and think, oh my God, did I— why did I do that? Especially if I hear my own recordings, I think, oh wow, why did I do it like that? I could have done it so much better or differently. But that's to do with maturity, development. And also, let's remember that in any art, as in life, perfection does not exist. So we as musicians are striving for perfection. We have to try to find technical perfection, yes, but musical perfection, we're looking for that always. And but we know it doesn't exist, so we're constantly searching, constantly developing and trying to, to improve. So I think I've become a little bit more accepting of other people's point of view as a musician, just because the more you know, the more you know you don't know. I don't know if that came out right, if that's understandable. Indeed. Well, with time you realize that need to know so much more, and so therefore I try to, to learn from other people. But having said that, I very rarely go to concerts, and I rarely listen to recordings. It depends, it goes in phases. There are times I just don't listen to music, and times I listen to a lot of things. Well, let's finish our interview with your wonderful Divertimento per Fulvia by Casella, um, with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. The first movement, Sinfonia. Wonderful! And this was the Divertimento per Fulvia by Casella, conducted by Damian Iorio. Our very special guest of Future Classic Women Awards this morning. If you have any questions that you would like to ask to our guest or nomination for Future Classic Women Awards, please email presenters@womensradiostation.com or tweet us @WomensRadioStn. Again, a very big thanks to our guest Damian Iorio for the great chat and the fantastic music played today. Thank you, Stefania, it's a pleasure. It was our pleasure and honor really to, to discuss so much about music. You've been listening to Future Classic Women Awards on Women Women's and Men's Radio Station, live every day at 10 AM and 10 PM London time. And if you would like to listen to it again or catch up on our previous programs, you can head to my presenter's page, Stefania Passamonte, Future Classic Women Awards, on womensradiostation.com. Thank you for listening.