Photo by Ryo Mitamura
You’re a good example attesting to the fact that the combination of electronic and classical music can work well. Your worldwide fan base proves that. How important is it for you to get feedback from your fans?
It is always good to be in contact with the fans. They enable me to live the life I have and play my concerts and I appreciate that. Of course there is a limit, when I need some rest. But when I play concerts I always enjoy getting to know the people and most of them are really charming people. The encounters are very kind and loving and that motivates me to carry on.
And you are giving a lot back to your fans. When you turned 30 years old, you gave them the possibility to download your LP Screws for free and 2013 you recorded the live album Spaces which contains pieces you created by improvising in front of an audience.
Yes. They are on the record, to show that I would be nothing without them. Without the ears of the others my music wouldn’t exist. Acknowledging that fact you should always try to develop something in consonance with them and never act arrogantly. That doesn’t mean that you always have to conform to the wishes of the fans but it is worth it to listen to them and to find out what they think and what they like.
Speaking of wishes, are there any musicians, performing at stargaze presents, you would like to collaborate with?
I really like THE BELL LABORATORY and PANTHA DU PRINCE – I have seen them live several times. The line-up that is presented here is definitely top-flight. There is no musician or band whose music I don’t like. Collaborations are great, but at the moment I rather work on my own. In the past I worked a lot with and for others and now I have reached a point, where I am comfortable with some things I try on my own.
At the event you will interpret In C by Terry Riley. What significance do Terry Riley and the composition In C have for the world of music?
Terry Riley was a part of 1964. Musically, the mid-sixties was the most important time of the last century with so many radical things happening. In C was performed before the masterpieces of Steve Reich and Philip Glass and I think Riley’s principle of playing patterns with real musicians inspired both of them. At the same time there was the trend, to do tape loops and such things with a computer.
In C is a festival classic and the musicians really enjoy it. There are notes but they are very reduced so the artists have to create most of the things on their own while they are performing. For classical musicians this is very unusual and that’s what I admire. This idea to give those classical instrumentalists, who are often ‘slaves’ of the composers and conductors, a voice and the possibility to play what their hearts tell them. There should be more of that because that’s where it comes to life and where it becomes magical because the people start to approach and to improvise together. And when musicians improvise together, there is always something happening, which really touches me. That’s what I love about people.