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15 Questions to Floraleda Sacchi

  Tobias

Hi! How are you? Where are you?
I am happy in Milan.

What’s on your schedule right now?
I am leaving for a recital this week-end and in May I have sheduled 2 concerts at Havelland Festival near Berlin and one near Foggia in South Italy with Amadeus Duo (me and my friend Claudio Ferrarini). On May 20, I am appearing again as solist with some Italian pop stars in a benefit concert. June is dedicated again to solos and flute and harp programs and to a recording for Aulia label. I am quite a lot on travel and also taking care of 2 recording projects I taped already, which I am really proud of.

If you hadn’t chosen for music, what do you think you would do right now?
Write.

What or who was your biggest influence as an artist?
My parents are related to visual arts. When I was not yet able to read I was already looking through books of art. My parents bought me also a lot of tapes: Ravel, Mozart, Beethoven, the Beatles, and more pop... I do not remember the performers, up when I was 5 and I fall in love with Annie Challan’s harp playing.

What’s the hardest part about being a musician and what’s the best?
The hardest part is the secretary/promotion work: I have not enough patience. The best part is art: meeting and giving emotions to people, trying always to get better, traveling, having the opportunity to live and see so many different things.

What’s your view on the classical music scene at present? Is there a crisis?
If there is no variety people get bored (I am a musician and get bored too). Anyway, I do not think music is in crisis. The market does not work for economic reasons and there is a cultural problem too. People forgets that there can be so many varieties of interests (and medias are not helping in this direction) and such a wide variety in every single interest too. There should be more curiosity. A change in culture is a matter for politicians not for musicians. I can just play at my best and try to make music loved by audience.

Some feel there is no need to record classical music any more, that it’s all been done before. What do you tell them?
First: as people are not the same, recordings cannot be the same. Second: It is important to record all pieces which have not been recorded yet. There are thousands of  “Moonlight Sonatas”, but what about a different repertoire? Everybody wants to perform only the most famous pieces of chosen instrument’s repertoire and so many good compositions are forgotten. Success does not always mean quality and one can find good music under unknown names. Could be it is also here a matter of curiosity?...

What constitutes a good live performance in your opinion? What’s your approach to performing on stage?
The ability to create an atmosphere and an empathy between artist and audience. Technique has just to be forgotten as the show of “I play more notes and faster”. I try to perform so that my public goes out with serene soul, mind full of thoughts and a general sense of pleasure. I try to remain a good memory for them. The pleasure one has  tasting artworks is a fundamental consciousness for culture and progress.

What does the word “interpretation” mean to you?
Dedicate myself with mind, hands (feet) and soul to a piece. In my opinion a mistake can happen by chance, not interpretation.

True or false: It is the duty of an artist to put his personal emotions into the music he plays.
One should be able to be the music played. Understanding and believing in the music performed always create an intensity.

True or false: “Music is my first love”
Dancing was my first love, I do not know if it was because I could not stand quiet or stop dreaming when listening to music.

True or false: People need to be educated about classical music, before they can really appreciate it.
I was not educated to music and nobody plays in my family. I got some music to listen and enjoyed it by instinct. What I studied later has determinated nor a cancellation or a growth in my attraction to music. I think for many other people can be the same too.

You are given the position of artistic director of a concert hall. What would be on your program for this season?
I wish a concert for each instrument not just not only piano, violin and piano, cello and piano, piano and piano and all with the same program!!!!

What’s your favourite classical CD at the moment?
Around The World In 77 Minutes by Triology... not really classic, but I like it.

Have you ever tried playing a different instrument? If yes, how good were you at it?
I played guitar: I hated it.
I played piano: I was not bad, but it does not fit to me.
I studied singing: I have not enough talent.
I have still to try with cello, that I really love, but at the moment in free time I write fiction, publish music, take photos, make arrangements and small compositions: a series of activities I am much more talented for. I think one instrument is already a lot...


Discography:
Krumpholtz: Complete Sonatas for Flute and Harp (Aulia) 2005
Little: The Riddle of the Rough (Adnarim) 2002
Floraleda Sacchi 2001
In a Landscape 2000
Una storia scritta in cielo 1999

Homepage:
Floraleda Sacchi