Hello everyone! It's us, Dorottya Nizalowski and Fanni Nizalowski from Hungary, and we are here in Hong Kong, at the 13th World Harp Congress.
– Dear Xavier, I would like to ask, how do you manage your time as a big star? You’re having solo concerts and you are teaching. How many kilometres do you travel in a year?
– Oh, I never counted that, but I fly about 120 times in a year, and I spend 8 months a year in hotels, so of course, it’s a very special life, as a musician, but also you get so much energy from the audience, that it gives you the energy to go to move on. The problem is more to learn a new repertoire because when you are like on the road all the time, you don’t have so much time to practice anymore, and so it’s very difficult to find slots to learn new pieces.
– The composers nowadays, do they compose harp music to you or some other harpists as well?
– Yes, we have very interesting composers, who write for us, for example I just premiered Harp Concerto by Kaija Saariaho, who is a very famous Finnish composer, and I’m playing also her piece again next season quite a lot. In Stockholm, in Birmingham, and in Frankfurt for example. It’s important to motivate composers to write for our instrument, to develop the repertoire of course.
– Thank you very much!
– You’re welcome, thank you!