Facing the music: Bob Chilcott

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/02/facing-the-music-bob-chilcott

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How do you listen to music?

At home I listen on a CD player with speakers. I sometimes listen on my computer with headphones but I’ve always liked having the sound of music in our house.

What was the last piece of music you bought?

Winterreise sung by Jonas Kaufmann. I love it. I have bought a lot of German lieder CDs over the past few years, mostly sung by Christian Gerhaher and Bernarda Fink.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

I listen to all types of music and have never felt guilty about it! If you mean music that I keep going back to, it would be Mahler’s Five Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Daniel Barenboim, Stile Antico singing John Sheppard’s Media Vita and the Barbara Streisand Broadway album.

If you found yourself with six months free to learn a new instrument, what would you choose?

I would like to be able play good jazz piano. I have always been able to do it badly but if I could have six months I think I could get better.

Is applauding between movements acceptable?

It’s never bothered me.

What single thing would improve the format of the classical concert?

The key I think is to educate your audience. Everyone is capable of enjoying classical music. The single thing that would improve the format of the classical concert and concerts in general is to commit proper funding to music education in schools and make it a core subject. It would make us nicer people and maybe help good cultural values to be more widely appreciated.

What’s been your most memorable live music experience as an audience member?

On a weekend in 1983 I heard Randy Newman solo at the Dominion in London on the Saturday night and on the Sunday heard Rostropovich play unaccompanied Bach Suites at the Royal Festival Hall. Both those experiences changed my life very much for the better.

What was the first ever record you bought?

The single of Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys. The first record I ever owned was a plastic giveaway I begged for on the streets of Stuttgart when I was on choir tour with King’s College Choir, Cambridge when I was a small boy. The record was a propaganda song for the Christian Democrat party.

Do you enjoy musicals? Do you have a favourite?

I love them. My favourite is Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

How many recordings of the Goldberg Variations or the Beethoven Symphonies do you own? Do you have a favourite?

I have no recordings of either.

Which conductor of yesteryear do you most wish you could have worked with?

Gustav Mahler. I would have loved to have heard him conduct his Symphonies for the first time and to have experienced his spirit.

Which non-classical musician would you love to work with?

I would love to work with Herbie Hancock, a wonderfully creative and collaborative musician. As far as singers are concerned, it would have to be Annie Lennox. She is a marvellously expressive singer and a someone who makes me believe in everything she sings.

Imagine you’re a festival director here in London with unlimited resources. What would you programme – or commission – for your opening event?

I would open with a massed performance, perhaps with 400 singers, of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, and we would perform it in an arena like Paddington station or St Pancras station. I believe it would be arresting and even more irresistible in this context and people might hear the piece like it was written yesterday.

What do you sing in the shower?

Nothing, I’m afraid.

Bob Chilcott’s St John Passion, recorded by Wells Cathedral Choir, is released 9 March 2015 on Signum Classics, and available to pre-order on iTunes now.