In a recent interview with LONDNR Magazine, Julius Drake discusses the increasingly varied collaborations in the classical music world, the publicity of musicians and music as “a great leveller”.
Pianist Julius Drake is the perfect person to talk to on the subject of partnerships in classical music: one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, he has collaborated with many of the world’s leading artists and performed in all the major international music venues, such as La Scala in Milan, Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Berliner Philharmonie and the Carnegie Hall, New York. “What I love most is chamber music,” Drake says, “which effectively means I love being on stage and sharing the music with someone else, or a group of people. I don’t like being out there on my own very much.”
While it is often the soloists who get the most media attention, the imbalance in publicity does not bother Drake; in music, there is an equal partnership: “[Playing a duet] is very much a two-way conversation, not one person dictating how it should go. The people I like working with best are listening to me just as much as I am listening to them.”
Read the full interview here.