The Violin Channel recently sat down with American-Canadian violinist and new music specialist, Leila Josefowicz, to discuss her latest Pentatone album featuring Thomas Adès' violin concerto.

 

Tell us about Adès’ violin concerto. What do you like about his music in general?

Adès is certainly one of the great living composers of today. I was aware of him for many years, and I actually got the handwritten score of this violin concerto before the printed version was made, so I got to see his handwriting in the manuscript. It was a gift because I feel like I understand the composer's personality so much better when I can see their actual writing.

But the piece was not written for me. Many people think it was because I've been playing it from the very start, but it was written for Anthony Marwood. I passionately fell in love with it and became obsessed. This is usually a sign that I have to pursue a piece.

It is not so different than a romantic relationship in a way. You really want to understand it and get to the bottom of it. You want to understand the sounds and the motivations behind what the composer wrote.

I’m privileged and happy to say that it’s been a piece that I've played with different orchestras and conductors around the world, including a few times with Thomas Adès conducting. It was fascinating to hear all the little comments that he had to say, and then, of course, I brought those comments along with me in future performances.

 

We heard you performed the concerto around 60 times before recording it. How does it feel to evolve with such a piece?

It's wonderful to finally, after so much experience, get to record this in a live performance.

Along with certain works by John Adams or  Esa-Pekka Salonen, the piece has been with me in the last several years. Since age 20, I've been dedicated to new music, and now I'm two years away from being 50, and that dedication has not wavered.

 

Do you have a favorite performance of the work?

Well, the conductor is a key player in this piece because the violin writing has lots of flexibility in it. In some ways, the conductor is the anchor. The conductor has to remain very steady and unmoved by all the different things I'm doing. You need to have someone holding the beat steady so that it gives others more freedom.

Every time I work with a new conductor, I always have a phone meeting with them to discuss what is needed in this piece. That kind of meeting actually takes pressure off the rehearsals because we're already somewhat understanding what we need to do before we even start.

The conductor's role is sometimes counterintuitive because you hear flexible music and you want to respond flexibly, but actually, the opposite is necessary. Freedom comes from a certain amount of restriction.

In general, that's the case with the discipline of playing the violin as well. You can't be expressive if you're not comfortable enough with the instrument. So we go back to that beautiful word, practice, which is the key to everything.

 

What is your favorite aspect of working with living composers?

I love being part of the creative process. When I was in school, I played all the standard repertoire before I began diving into new music. I think this is extremely necessary because it's important to understand the history of these works.

I had a very intense start to my whole violin upbringing. Everything was on a fast track from when I was very young, and I ended up really doing just about every standard work before I was 20, let's say. (Standard meaning that ones that everyone loves and knows)

In a way, I was kind of known in the music world before I started changing my path. That also helped people learn to trust this new path that I was taking, to trust a career that is based more on the music of today.

What I hope people say is, "Oh, she always does something interesting." Gidon Kremer was always a mentor for me because I had that exact feeling whenever I went to hear him. It always challenged me in some way and made me think about different ways to do things. That's one of the reasons why I started doing what I'm doing.

I feel like plenty of people stick with the standard and have a different mentality around what it is to play music. That's totally fine, but I wanted to offer something different, a bit more adventurous. That's one answer to your question.

However, the other answer really is that it was just thrilling for me to get to know the minds of living composers. To me, learning what's behind the music is just fascinating, and it brings a whole level of enjoyment to the process. It's so exciting to discuss a piece with the person who created it.

John Adams was the first collaborator with whom I really spent many months. It was so inspiring to me, and I thought, "I want to do this with as many people as possible."

It's really important to think about our art form as a creative process. It's great that we play older music and we need to — it's part of our history and backbone — but what's also part of our backbone is exploration, experimentation, and adventure.

 

How do you approach learning a new piece that has never been recorded before?

It's convenient to be able to listen to recordings, but what's most important is the source. I don't really like listening to too many recordings of a new piece because I don't want the seeds of my creative mind to be steered in certain ways. If I listen to one recording more than another, I have sort of preconceived ideas of what something should be like before I start to really look and question what's there.

Recordings can be interesting, of course, but they certainly don't replace the importance of the instructions, the map, AKA the score. Everything you need to know, nothing more or less, everything that the composer wanted is spelled out in his/her manuscript, and everything else is extraneous.

I rarely really learn a score from the violin part. You always have to look at the full score because it gives you the context for the solo part. If you don't know what's happening around you, then you don't know what's happening at all.

The map is the manuscript and the full score.

 

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received about recording?

You have to figure out this process for yourself, since it's a very personal one. Recording is all about your character, really, as well as the producer’s.

I started recording in my teens, and it was very interesting to meet all of the different producers that I've worked with over the years.

I feel like things have become just crazy with trying to make every note perfect. If you want to create something that will last for longevity in music, you should choose a player who wants to be seen and heard as a musician. In my opinion, there are a million perfect players out there. We all strive to be as perfect as possible. But to me, it is all about the message of the music, with as few technical things in the way as possible, no matter what the piece is.

My favorite recordings that I've made over the years are actually live recordings, and that's become super important to me. When I listen to some other artists, almost every note has been edited in one way or another. It saddens me that we feel like it has to reach that level to be acceptable somehow. If it's not possible to record something well in a live setting, should it be getting recorded right then and there? I don't think so. It's all about deciding how you want to portray yourself as an artist.

It's a living, breathing, imperfect art form that we have. It's human. I mean, it's about being real and reaching these kinds of places where we're elevated by the very aspect of being human. So why are we splicing and dicing and splicing and dicing, you know?

I love doing live recordings and forgetting that I'm being recorded. It's just a different way of approaching the recording process.