Wildcat dreaming

Martin Buzzacott in Courier Mail (Brisbane, Australia), 2.7.2007

She's burst yellow balloons during classical concerts, eaten apples on stage, and played the violin while lying on her back, but filling in for Richard Tognetti as guest director of the Australian chamber Orchestra may be violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja's greatest musical challenge to date.

The Moldovan-born 30-years old with a fascination for the avant-garde is regarded as one of the most sontaneous performers in classical music.

But how does her notorious "gypsy spirit" and mercurial stage presence adapt when she's entrusted with the responsibility of being the leader of an orchestra?

"With any other orchestra I would have to restrict spontaneity in order to hold 20 musicians together" she says after her first rehearsal with the ACO. "But as I was already told in Europe, the Australian Chamber Orchestra is a big exception. These musicians are quite amazing, listening and reacting quickly, so there is a lot of give-and-take just as there is in chamber music".

Having grown up in a musical household steeped in Eastern European folklore, the multi-competition winner assimilated not just gypsy music but also the music of the dervishes and even some flamenco along with that of her classical and contemporary music idols.

The result is a singular musical personality - she is happy to agree with one critic's description of her as a "wildcat" - that's as comfortable performing the above antics demanded by a John Cage piece as she is in the music of Vivaldi and Rossini that she'll  perform with the ACO at QPAC tonight.

And like pianist Glenn Gould before her, Kopatchinskaja believes that the truest musical experience is always the live one, so until recently she has avoided the recording studio.

"Recordings can be a powerful mechanical motor for a cereer" she says, "but until now I have ridden an un-motorised bicycle. Recently though, I decided to put the recording motor to work and this northern autumn there will be sessions with the amazing Turkish pianist Fazil Say. I hope that we can capture some of the live experience in the studio".

The most eagerly anticipated work on the program tonight will be a composition of her own, Per Australia, written specially for the tour.

"I only go into composing mode for musician friends whom I really love and appreciate. I think so highly of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and I was so impressed by their rcordings and videos that I felt a desire to write something for us to play together" she says.

The problem was that Kopatchinskaja herself had never been to Australia. She instead, she created an imaginary musical journey. "I had in mind the image of travelling the ocean through wind and waves, then hearing the first birds, and seeing new landscapes and strange creatures and plants. It is of course only an Australia of my dreams. But it does include a musical description of bunyips, who are characterised in a passage for the double-bass and cello."  

So will tonight's Brisbane audience be treated to any of Kopatchisnkaja's onstage performance-art antics? "I'm afraid not. this time we will enjoy serious music making".