An Interview with Laura Farre Rozada
Please tell us about your first experience with piano. How old were you when you started playing? Did you love it from the beginning or not? Any special and memorable moments from your childhood related to piano you’d like to share? Please also tell us about the role of your family in your music education.
I started playing the piano when I was 5. There are no musicians in my family, so it was a huge discovery for me. I started at the music school in my hometown, Vilanova i la Geltrú, and one day they took us to this room full of instruments. We were supposed to choose which one we wanted to start learning by trying all of them. I remember sitting on the piano, the biggest one in the room, and fell in love with it. I didn’t even move from that spot to try other instruments. I instantly knew that was the one.
Editor’s note: Be sure and watch this report and Interview with the Spanish National Television, featuring many pictures and videos of Laura as a child. In it, she also discusses her passion for mathematics, as well. English subtitles are included:
However, my childhood wasn’t solely focused on music. My parents wanted me to be multidisciplinary, and so I also took theatre lessons, gymnastics and won some literature competitions, among many other activities. I had a very rich training, which I think has had a huge impact on how I understand music and I want to develop as an artist. As a teenager, I also started learning the drums, the electric guitar and played in a female rock band, where I composed and wrote the lyrics. Later, I would also record and perform as a pianist with major Spanish pop bands and sang in classical choirs performing in France, Germany, and Russia. However, I would spend my summers attending piano masterclasses in France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Andorra, and the UK, and this eventually determined my decision to focus on classical music.
You’re a pianist and mathematician – what was your first love, piano or math? When did you decide that you’d pursue both as your career? Tell us more about the role of both disciplines in your life and about the ways they interact and help one another.
Although I started to play the piano from a very early age, it wasn’t until when I was 18 that I knew I wanted to pursue a professional career. The turning point was when I entered the BRUC Conservatoire in Barcelona. There, I was lucky to study with several professors and great musicians with a long career in education, such as Jordi Vilaprinyó, that inspired and encouraged me to audition for ESMUC, the Catalonia College of Music. In ESMUC, I studied my Bachelor’s and Master’s in Piano Performance with Jean-François Dichamp, who became one of my biggest musical influences and determined my interest in French music.
However, when I was finishing my Baccalaureate, I also discovered my passion for mathematics and decided to enroll in a Bachelor’s degree at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). These were very busy and intense years for me, and I had to be incredibly organized, efficient and determined to keep going. Both universities, ESMUC and UPC, are separated institutions with a 40-min subway journey from each other, and they weren’t very happy that I was combining two Bachelor’s degrees simultaneously. Due to the overlap of schedules and exams, I would focus on my piano practice during the week and work long weekends on studying mathematics, quite often relying on the notes of my peers.
It was during this period that I started experimenting with mathematics in music, using them to enhance my piano practice sessions. I would apply them to develop strategies and learn the works faster. Soon I realized that this approach was enhancing my memory, even for 20th century piano works usually played from the score. I would also feel more confident and empowered when performing.
Interview on the Catalan National television with subtitles where Laura explains a bit more about her relationship with mathematics and music:
Once I graduated with Distinction, I decided to specialize further with contemporary music, which led me to the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London. There, I kept experimenting with my memorization method and extended my repertoire, achieving an ‘Exceptional’ Distinction (94%) for one of my final recitals.
Philippe Manoury, ‘Toccata pour piano’:
Karlheinz Stockhausen, ‘Klavierstück n.5’:
After graduating from the RCM; I auditioned for the NEXT Scheme with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG), and after an intense year of working with composers and performing extensively presenting my debut album, The French Reverie, I decided to do a Ph.D. at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire to formally connect mathematics and music and develop a memorization method for post-tonal piano music.
Joel Järventausta, ‘the sighing of the winds is softer than ever’ Piano Concerto:
Tell us more about the math – what are your professional plans in that area now?
Right now I’m a first-year Ph.D. candidate at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the UK, where I’ve been awarded a Midlands4Cities AHRC Doctoral studentship to develop a method for memorizing post-tonal piano music. I also give regularly lecture-recitals on Music and Mathematics in Spain, and I’ve been invited as a guest lecturer on this topic at Boston University and Colorado College. I enjoy combining my career as a performer with an activity as a lecturer and mix both worlds in a single event.
Who do you consider your major inspirations and mentors as a musician?
I would say that Jordi Vilaprinyó, Stanislav Pochekin, and Jean-François Dichamp have been my main mentors as a musician and a huge influence for me. My interest in the 20th-century repertoire started growing over a course at BRUC Conservatoire on the history of contemporary music with composer Albert Sardà, and that would be decisive for me later on, as well.
Besides my professors, I’ve always admired Alicia de Larrocha, Glenn Gould, Maria Callas, Miles Davis, Matha Argerich, Daniil Trifonov, Valentina Lisitsa, and many other musicians across several styles and genres. In terms of composers, I’m very fond of Henri Dutilleux and Olivier Messiaen, along with George Crumb, Manuel de Falla and Catalan composers Robert Gerhard and Isaac Albeniz. Of course, I also love the classics, and I would say that Bach, Brahms, and Ravel are among my favorites.
Your research focuses on memory, music and mathematics, the piano repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries and entrepreneurship. What a diverse and fascinating combination! Please tell us more about it.
I’ve always thought that it is important to attract the attention of the general audience to classical music and, in particular, to the piano repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. When I used to perform with bands, I noticed the huge market that is out there, and how people tend to listen to the music that they know about and is readily available to them. I also experienced the fascination that this audience develops to piano virtuosity of classical music when this is presented to them. However, I observed that when it came to certain composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, audiences were more reluctant. One of the factors was that most performers play from the score, breaking this sort of magic on stage that you also find in theatre, where the performer becomes a new character. But, at the same time, I also understood that this was coming from a lack in music performance, education, and psychology in terms of memorization training for this repertoire. Hence, I started becoming more and more involved in researching this area connecting music and mathematics and using my performance experience.
In addition to this, classical music from the 20th and 21st centuries also face a controversial history that started immediately after the Second World War, by imposing a new vision of tabula rasa from the previous musical tradition. In my opinion, this damaged enormously the links between composers, performers and the audience, which ended up in prejudices and empty concert halls. Although I’m not fond of all the repertoire from the last century out there, there are many works and composers that deserve a better place in history and public recognition. For this reason, I truly enjoy disseminating this repertoire. Since some of the composers are not very well-known or not present enough at venues, before my recitals I always give a short spoken introduction to explain the background of the pieces and my reasons for choosing these composers. At the end of the recital, I engage in a Q&A with the audience, and it is always fascinating to observe the transformation that they experience, from a scary and skeptical attitude to discovering that there’s a huge and an exciting music world out there that they didn’t know about.
I would say that entrepreneurship is the attitude that defines me and that helps me to unfold my projects with risky artistic visions. A DIY approach of creating your own opportunities and that I also lecture on in primary schools in Spain for kids, or at College level as I did at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.
The French Reverie – how did it start, how it was developed? Do you think this defines you as an entrepreneur?
My debut album, The French Reverie (2018), was my first step to define myself as a soloist once I graduated from the RCM in London. It came out of a necessity to showcase my work and synthesize those elements that define me as a performer. Unlike similar musicians recording their first CD, I didn’t want to feature standard works that I didn’t identify with, although I’m sure this would have made my life a lot easier. Therefore, I selected those pieces that had been a milestone in my career up to that moment, and that captured my two singularities: my specialization in French music and my interest on working with living composers:
Thierry Escaich, ‘Jeux de doubles’:
Vladimir Djambazov, ’33:8′:
Vladimir Djambazov was the first composer I professionally worked with. This collaboration led to a beautiful experience in Bulgaria. First, when I started working with him on 33:8, and, second, when I officially presented the album at the Bulgaria Hall in Sofia. This incredible experience motivated me to keep working with composers such as Philippe Manoury, Ofer Ben-Amots, Thierry Escaich, George Crumb, Brian Ferneyhough, David Lang, Rebecca Saunders, Dai Fujikura, George Lewis, Tyshawn Sorey and many others. From all these collaborations, I learned the value of promoting this music and increased my vision of an entrepreneur that designs projects to promote living composers while developing new audiences.
Click to visit the Composer’s Project
This first project, The French Reverie (click here) features major solo piano works by 4 French composers (Olivier Messiaen, Henri Dutilleux, Thierry Escaich and Philippe Manoury) and 3 European composers (Bulgarian Vladimir Djambazov, Finnish Joel Järventausta and Israelian/American Ofer Ben-Amots). It is a conceptual album that works towards a cyclical dream, where the pieces merge into each other, putting forward the mutual influences across cultures in the 20th century. It is cyclical because the first piece, Jeux de doubles, and the last, 33:8, are both based on a dance: the former on a French baroque dance by Jean-Philippe Rameau and the latter on the Bulgarian, Krivo Sadovsko. Between these two dances, there’s the whole journey of the dream, so it is a progression of how two authors can use the same principle to write a piece: what are the connections and what are the contrasts? Another singularity of the album is the piece, Akëda, by Ofer Ben-Amots, written as a tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, and that again helps to contextualize Dutilleux’s Piano Sonata, composed immediately after the Second World War.
The teaser of ‘The French Reverie’:
It was quite a risky adventure to record a debut album with mostly unknown repertoire, and definitely, this didn’t help me when pitching it to labels. However, I felt that the originality behind the project would help me to stand out from the crowd while portraying exactly my singularity as an artist. For this reason, I opted for running a crowdfunding campaign that reached 208 patrons from 28 countries across the 5 continents. The second part of the project was to present it in all the countries of the composers featured, and so far I have toured with it in 5 different countries, offering more than 25 concerts.
Once it came out, Phillipe Sommerich from Classical Music Magazine described it as ‘a model for young artists making their recording debuts.’
Interview at the Barcelona TV where I explain with detail ‘The French Reverie’:
What’s coming up for this fascinating project in 2020-21?
I just came back from a 6-week tour in North America presenting it, and I can’t wait to be back there. I’m also working to take the project to France, Finland, and Israel soon. The album has had a very good response from the audience and the press, and I’m regularly being invited in the media to talk about it. Additionally, all pieces of the album have a fascinating analysis from the mathematical perspective, so I’m also developing a lecture-recital from this perspective.
Tell us more about your future collaboration with a dance company – sounds very intriguing!
This is a project with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. The British 2Faced Dance Company is celebrating its 20th anniversary and has commissioned a new arrangement of two pieces they already performed some years ago from composer Alex Baranowski. I’ve done some work with dancers before, so I’m really looking forward to keeping working on this area. We’ll have a couple of concerts in Birmingham Hippodrome and two more at The Place in London, among other venues in the UK.
What are the projects, collaborations and performances you’re most looking forward to in 2020-21? Tell us more about your dreams and future plans.
Well, I’ll start to work on a new album soon, which has been on my mind for a while now. In February I’m also starting a tour in the UK with a new show by the British 2Faced Dance company and I also have some recitals coming up in Spain. More in the long term, I have a couple of very exciting projects involving Piano Concertos. In December 2020 I will world-premiere in the UK, Angela Elizabeth Slater’s Piano Concerto, and in Spring 2021, I will world-premiere in Spain Feliu Gasull’s Piano Concerto. Both concertos are being written for me, which is very exciting. Following these, I’m also working on two solo piano works commissioned from Vladimir Djambazov and Ofer Ben-Amots, both composers featured in The French Reverie. On top of all of this, I keep touring with The French Reverie and working on my Ph.D.
