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(and live streamed) by several orchestras and ensembles around the world. It has even been turned into a full ballet. Who is your all-time favourite artist and why?
Dr Michelle Castelletti Director of Festivals, Curator, Conductor, Composer (Main employment at the moment: Director of Oxford Festival of the Arts)
This is the hardest question to answer! Harder still if one considers all art forms… I cannot say I have one. (Although when I was young, Pavarotti tugged at my heartstrings …)
Tell us a little about yourself I identify as an interdisciplinarian. I always feel I need to define who or what I am, as I see connections everywhere. Following my studies in music (including my Doctorate), I started different studies in Liberal Arts (visual arts, philosophy, literature, architecture …) as well as history, particularly through material culture. I want to, or rather, have to, contextualise everything. I am forever curious and I crave learning and understanding – and discovery. I am a bibliophile, am totally enamoured with illuminated manuscripts, love all art forms … I wish I could dance! I am transformed when on the podium and I feel nothing beats making music together, or the mixture of being the most powerful when you are at your most vulnerable and exposed – in your naked state on stage. I love the fact that I am Mediterranean. I have lived in the UK for about 15 years. I feel very lucky to have had a most beautiful upbringing – not materialistic in any way, but one surrounded by love. Character? My mum calls me her ‘mysterious daughter’. Even I do not understand how I can be so bubbly and so introvert at the same time. I would not change it for the world. Who (or what) has most influenced you and your career? My 97-year-old grandfather was an artist (one of my ancestors, Giuseppe Calí,
nicknamed The Devil with the Brush, was one of the most prominent painters in Malta and Sicily in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, painting many of the frescoes in churches in Malta). I also remember my other grandfather walking down the stairs singing in a very operatic voice! I have always been surrounded by books; and have sung in choirs all my life. I was always made aware of nature – from the tiniest ladybird on a leaf, to the twinkling stars at night, the lapping ripples of waves and picking shells on a rocky beach five minutes away from home (Ta’ Xbiex, Malta), the faintest of breezes, the wafting smells of Spring and the changes of colour in Autumn. I guess what I am trying to say is that being highly sensitive to everything around us, the opening up of the eyes and ears of our minds, our imagination, and all the senses is what has influenced me most … and still does. I am in awe of our surroundings, and of creation.
What was the last CD or music download that you purchased? My latest acquisition was Oscar Peterson Trio: Live from Chicago and a compilation of Jacques Brel! I have also just received Seiji Ozawa/Boston Symphony’s Mahler cycle as a gift – I think it is superb! What are your plans for the future? The truth? So, so much! But I have always tried to live like there is no tomorrow (although to do all the things I concoct in my head, I’d need a hundred lifetimes). I think that we should all embrace today; and do what we cannot do in real life in the time available, in our minds. Finally, what is your ISM membership to you?
I cannot stress the importance of ISM membership enough. Not only has it been there for me when I needed it but it has made me feel part of something that keeps What would you say is your greatest on making a difference to people’s lives. achievement to date? The ISM speaks out on behalf of many who sometimes cannot, or feel they do not know I always say I am proudest of what I am how. I am always hugely proud of being part doing at that particular moment. If I had of the ISM. At the moment, perhaps more to choose one thing in terms of music, I so, because of everything the ISM has been would have to say my completion/ doing with regard to the current situation re-working and arrangement of Mahler’s (both as a result of the pandemic, and of tenth symphony. Published by Universal Brexit), and, importantly, its unfaltering Edition Vienna, recorded by BIS Records and ARS Produktion, it has been performed commitment to music education.
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