Interview in the park


Alexander Medem, a freelance musician and Assistant Director in Opera, accompanied me to the Stadtpark where I interviewed him about the culture of classical and opera music in Vienna. The weather was lovely, the scenery beautiful and the conversation insightful. I learned a lot, but I'll be able to elaborate on the specifics once my journey brings me back to the states.
Location: Stadtpark, Parkring 1, 1010 Wien, Austria

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Here we go!

Image
And so the journey begins. Off to a great start with an overnight flight taking me to LHR. Now to find the Harry Potter store and watch the Royal Wedding!
Read more

Musicians in prague

For my second interview in Prague, I met with  Zdeňka Pelikánová (Thanks for the connection professor Simpson) at the cutest bakery a few neighborhoods away from the city center. The tables were the size of TV trays with half of them occupied by jugs of water with lemon circles and basil sprigs that the waitress would occasionally refill. You could watch the baker make his beautiful creations in a side window next to the display of already baked goods.  Zdeňka is a professional musician and has recorded sound tracks for West World and Game of Thrones and is a producer at a studio that records sound tracks for popular shows. She also teaches private music lessons at the local music school, so I picked her brain about life as a professional musician and about music education in Prague. She thinks that musicians have an easier life in Prague because of the many different ensembles one could preform with, usually the four seasons concerts people sell on the streets downtown. She...
Read more

Prague

Image
I had a wonderful time in Vienna and learned so much, but it was time to move on to my next city: Prague. I took the train and had a meeting scheduled with Ales Brezina as soon as I arrived. Ales is a director of the Martinu institue, an organization dedicated to preserving the Czech composer's legacy by offering archives of everything and anything related to Martinu and spreading the world about this composer. Our conversation, although, centered more on the classical music culture and music education in Prague. Similarly to Viennese music education, Prague children can take music lessons and learn and instrument outside of school, if they choose to. This is usually in the form of private lessons with less opportunity to play in an ensemble compared to American music education. 
Read more