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I recently made a new friend at a salsa party (of all places!). Our common attraction — a lament for the marginalization of classical music. It quickly became an animated conversation, “Is it a lack of exciting performances?” Or, more likely, the music is victim to a lack of attention span. Ours is a hyperactive society that no longer cultivates the patience for the subtlety of experiencing classical music. Our vocabulary for music generally spells everything out — leaving us with no language to digest the complexity of the genre.

One thing is certain – classical music will have to evolve to captivate a contemporary audience. I catch up with violinist Arianna Warsaw Fan, an innovator in the genre to talk about this transition.

Arianna is an active soloist and chamber musician who has performed in Alice Tully Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, and Carnegie Hall. A talented leader, Arianna, served as a concertmaster of the Julliard Symphony Orchestra and the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra.

After many years of international competition, the virtuosa has gathered many accolades including prizes in the Corpus Christi International String Competition, NTDTV’s Chinese International Violin Competition, and the American Opera Society String prize.

JP: It sounds like you have an almost innate connection to classical music, which, as you share in your declaration has thrilled you since you were a toddler. What drives you back to classical music?

AWF: Classical music is infinitely complex. I could never get tired of it. And there’s a purity to it (at least to the music that’s lasted throughout the centuries) that’s very fulfilling. It’s both immediately gratifying and challenging. I guess it’s like the opposite of watching TV all day. I love watching TV, but if I spend a whole day doing it, I feel junky afterwards. And cranky. Classical music is purifying — the more time I spend with it, the better I feel. It’s nourishing somehow.

It’s also humbling. Sometimes when I look at great works of art or architecture, I get a similar feeling of humility. When you step inside the Notre Dame, you feel overwhelmed by the craftsmanship and the dedication that went into its construction. It’s the same with a Beethoven Symphony — it’s just incredibly… I guess humbling is the best word for it.

The emotions that are expressed within classical music are common to us all–but they’re expressed so eloquently and so earnestly that they transcend the strictly human experience. It’s like… elevated love, elevated longing, elevated heartbreak, elevated joy, etc.

JP: For me, it is difficult to connect to contemporary classical music, because the best composers and musicians are often looked at as “geniuses”. A label which I find puts the genre on an unobtainable pedestal. What can be done to break down the barrier between the “citizen” and the “genius”?

AWF: I have mixed feelings about the word “genius”. On the one hand, I can’t argue with the fact that Mozart and Beethoven were geniuses. Mendelssohn composed some of the greatest works of all time when he was a teenager. So, yes, I’d have to say that he’s a genius. But he was a human genius. His intelligence doesn’t detract from the emotions he expressed in his music.

I think the word genius is especially dangerous when it comes to performers. As performers, it’s our job to take the music and make it accessible and understandable to the listener. Whether or not the music itself is genius, we need to be able to communicate it on a basic human level. (But without compromising the integrity of the score.)

Also, contemporary classical music is a different game than traditional classical music. I like much of what’s being composed today in the classical music world, but it doesn’t follow the same rules as the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and the composers of the past.

JP: How does your classical music video Kickstarter project navigate those relationships? Can you describe the project more in depth?

AWF: Meta Weiss and I took a piece that is fairly simple for a classical music composition and tried to make it a bit more accessible. The Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia is basically a showpiece for violin and cello. It’s not a Beethoven Symphony, but it’s a bit more complex than the average pop song. We thought it would make a good introduction to classical music. It’s relatively short — 6-7 minutes long, and the basic harmony repeats so that the listener has a chance to really absorb the theme. When you’re not used to sitting through a 45 minute piece of music, it can be very daunting. And concert halls are a bit stuffy. So this is a way that people can listen to a relatively accessible piece in the comfort of their own home — and with a visual aspect that might help open their minds to the music. We used the music as inspiration, and the visual element is sort of a play on all of the images and feelings that come to mind while listening to the piece.

JP: In a way, this project is about packaging the gift of classical in a contemporary vessel, the Kickstarter funding is appropriate because the audience is telling you that they want it before it’s made. What motivated your venture into crowd-sourcing?

AWF: Last year, Meta and I worked with our costume designer, Caitlin Ward, for a Juilliard performance and we knew we wanted to do it again. We talked about it for about a year on and off but I didn’t really know how to take the first step. Then one day I stumbled across Kickstarter. I thought it was brilliant as a concept in and of itself, and it actually took me a while to realize that I could use it to fund our project. But it worked out really well because audience funding is so inclusive — and that’s really the direction in which classical music should be heading anyway. It should be more available, better marketed, etc.

We finished filming two weeks ago and now it’s being edited. We’re planning some kind of premiere/launch party for the beginning of September. Meta and I haven’t even seen most of the footage, but our director, Roderick Hill, sent over a few stills from the film and it looks really fantastic. We filmed in some stunning locations, and we’re really excited for the final project!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2011 at 2:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.