SFist Interviews Leila Josefowicz

Why is Ades's piece named Concentric Paths?

Leila: It's a fantastic piece. It has to do with the way that he composes, and the way that he uses the melodies or the motifs. They are sort of overlapping and interwoven, using sometimes the same note to begin and as well as to end a phrase. It gives a feeling things sort of being joined and intersecting and overlapping.

Thomas Ades is an amazing, brilliant composer, he is 36yo....

He was here performing recently.

He is a fantastic pianist. His pieces are often very complex and complicated, but the music, the outcome, itself feels very organic and at times very visceral, very exciting. But the music itself, when you are not analyzing the technique, the music itself is really incredible music.

This is why I was drawn to it. I always like a challenge and figuring out a puzzle in music. I have to be sure that the outcome is what I want it to be. This was something I was very sure about. The content is really fantastic.

This piece was not written for you, was it?

No. But I don't judge a work you know, like that. All new music should be played; for me, I love having the new work written for me, but one of the other things I love to do is to shop around for the great, new works that have just been written, or by a composer that I really admire, and to bring that to people's ears.

Next week, you'll premiere a violin concerto written for you by Esa-Pekka Salonen...

I'm going to be very busy over the next two weeks...

We were thinking, preparing for the premiere of a new piece, and working the week before, that's pretty ambitious.

Yeah, it is, but I have been studying for the last half year like never before. Hopefully it will pay off.

Esa-Pekka is the composer, and he will be conducting in LA, is he still changing the score?

No, not so much. We worked very hard together over the last six months, and I told him I'll have your score memorized if you give it to me with enough time. Usually, when I tell a composer that, they like that, they try very hard to give it to me earlier than normal. And it's better for everybody, it's better for the piece. The piece has more preparation time this way, and I play the piece better because I had some time to study and to digest the piece. It's better for everything.

All my new scores I've been successful with thus far, I can play from memory. It really helps with the presentation of the piece, of a new work to an audiecnce, it's much more convincing if someone is not looking like they are reading every note.

You're going to do an Off-The-Podium Q&A [with James Gaffigan, who always make the exercise, well, entertaining]

I am, it's only for the first concert, yeah?

Indeed. What kind of immediate feedback do you expect from the audience for a piece unknown to them?

I feel people will ask me about how I prepare for a piece; which I can tell you now. Basically, I start with the concept of the piece of course; in my own opinion: what does it mean, what is the message of this piece, what are the ideas, you have to be able to answer these questions. And once you've answered those questions, then it comes down to details and shape. How does it come across in the most clear way. It does not help anybody if the ideas, and then they are not put forth clearly. One has to be understanding, but make something clear, what to do, physically, technically, so that the ideas are clear.

Switching topics, you are a MacArthur Genius, right?

Apparently so.

It's not something you apply for, is it?

There is an anonymous committee who decides. I don't know how they decide, I don't know how big the committee is, and it's a very mysterious thing. I was very happy, of course, to be acknowledged with the work that I'm doing. However, my work would remain the same, nothing would change, if I wasn't acknowledged this way, just because that's what I love to do. But it was very nice to receive that, I never would have expected.

Are you able to fund projects with the grant?

It's basically up to you, the receiver to decide what you can do, what you want to do. If you want to do nothing, it's also possible, that's completely up to the person. My main path is to pick and choose the pieces that speak to me. Whether that means commissioning a new composer or playing some of the ones that are just being written now, to keep on doing that.

You've been working with John Adams, who is the pride of the SF Bay Area as far as live composers go.

He's coming to one of the concerts, he's a really good friend of mine, and we perform so much together, he's kind like family. His whole family is absolutely wonderful.

It's a normal process when you're working with a composer: you have to talk about what you are doing with the piece. With Esa-Pekka, we had to work really hard together. It's a fun way to know somebody to work on something so hard with somebody and to have the same goal.

Is the personal relationship with the composer making a difference for the performer?

It makes a huge difference. In school, I felt I studied very hard all the standard main repertoire, and I still play around each season. There is a sense of removal, because you don't ever know more than just the piece.

Of course, you don't have to know the composer, it just makes it more interesting to know and understand the creator even more. It's like Joseph Joachim and Brahms. So that's been something that I really enjoy.

We recently had the first composer-in-residence with Sofia Gubaidulina at the SF Symphony, it seems it made a difference for the audience as well to hear her input.

This is one of the ways people can get very excited about a new piece. Because if you have the composer, or someone, explain what it's about, then you have a dedicated performer. All of sudden, there is an energy, an excitement about creativity, that's very important.