‘Julius Drake is not just a pianist. He’s a specialist pianist. His great achievement is his work with singers and as a chamber musician. Talking to him about how he ended up as a professional pianist, he makes it sound as if it was something that just happened by accident. But it’s also clear that there was nothing else he was interested in that came remotely close. So it was an inevitability even if for no other reason than “I went to music school, because my parents realised I was mad about the piano and wasn’t mad really about anything else at school.”
(Michael Dervan, Monday June 20 2022, The Irish Times)
Click on the link to access the full article: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2022/06/20/julius-drake-i-do-mind-the-word-accompanist-i-dont-think-its-fit-for-purpose/