Articles/interviews

Interview for Classical Guitar magazine, 2007

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Interview for KYTARA (september 2004)

- Paris and the influence of a real master of music.

I believe it is crucial, for a young musician's future development, to meet a knowledgeable and dedicated teacher who will guide and fully explore the potential aspirations of the gifted pupil. I'm sure that meeting Guy Dangain was a key moment in my education. Every lesson with him was an event and he quickly became a "musical father" figure to me. He has enormous joie de vivre, was incredibly passionate not only about music, but also about art, literature, food, wine, life in general. All this is reflected in his incredible teaching and playing. I wish to every young player to be blessed with such a truly amazing mentor. He was also the proof that a well-rounded education serves the music best.

- on learning and teaching.

Both audio and video recordings have today a wonderful teaching potential. I discovered a tremendous amount of repertoire thanks to CDs. I must say I also learnt a lot musically from listening to the recordings, so I always suggest to my students that they not limit themselves to the clarinet, but listen to great violinists, pianists, vocalists, orchestras, chamber ensembles etc. Listening to other musical genres besides classical music can be also a very enriching experience. I could not imagine playing Piazzolla's music without being familiar with his own recordings. The same with jazz influenced works and some aspects of modern music. Messiaen is very difficult to play unless you know his poetics and musical language- birdsongs and non-retrogradable rhythms occur in most of his works.

- about the role of the instrument and set-up in music making.

The choice of the instrument and accessories are questions that other musicians ask me very very often.. Unfortunately "the greatest clarinet" simply does not exist. Today we have a choice of very good instruments, but even the best of them contain some small problems for which musicians have to compensate. There are some players who change clarinets and mouthpieces twice a year looking for something "perfect", but I am not one of them. I have the impression some instrumentalists are much more interested in reeds, mouthpieces and clarinets than in music making. That is sad. The instrument can only help to convey what is inside us - the music (content, style nuances, character, fidelity to the text) should always be the priority.

- on repertoire for clarinet and guitar.

The repertoire for clarinet and guitar is so modest that at the beginning of our collaboration we played only our own transcriptions. Now we also ask composers for new pieces and some of them - like Marek Pasieczny, Piotr Lachert, Denis Gaquere, Mario Broeders and Steven Lacoste - have come up with some original and imaginative music for us. In Brno, during the guitar festival I was very happy to discover a beautiful work originally written for Petra and Milan Arner by Pavel Smutny entitled Dolor Amoris.

In 2005 we will premiere a Double Concerto for clarinet, guitar and string orchestra written for us by a young and talented Polish composer/guitarist Marek Pasieczny. We are both waiting impatiently for this piece. Expectations run high!