Virtual Sheet Music Video Interview to cellist Richard Markson 0
Virtual Sheet Music: Interview with cellist and conductor Richard Markson
September 11, 2010
Regarded as a world-class cellist and conductor, Richard Markson has performed 26 world tours, recorded numerous CDs and served as a senior fellow at the Trinity College of Music in London. We are delighted he has taken time out from his busy schedule to sit down and talk with Fabrizio Ferrari, CEO of Virtual Sheet Music, for the website’s debut interview. Markson talks about how he became a cellist and conductor, and answers questions from our Virtual Sheet Music members.
Fabrizio Ferrari: Hello and welcome to this first Virtual Sheet Music interview. My name is Fabrizio Ferrari and today our guest is Richard Markson. Hello Richard, and thank you for joining us.
Richard Markson: Hello, Fabrizio.
FF: And it’s a great pleasure to introduce you to our audience today. Richard has just arrived here in Los Angeles from Mexico for a concert he’s going to have in a few days at the USC.
Markson is one of the finest cellists of our time. He had his debut in Orlando in 1970, at which The Times proclaimed him a quite outstanding cellist. But how did his career start? Richard Markson began to study the cello at the age of 12, with Paul Tortelier who actually invited him to become one of his pupils. And that’s really amazing to me, Richard. How actually that did happen?
RM: Well, I started the cello actually before that. I mean, I started when I was eight. My mother was a musician. She was a pianist and she was determined that I should choose a more sensible profession than music. But my then cello teacher was very insistent that since this was my wish, and I really wanted to be a cellist, I was quite sure about this from a very early age that I should pursue it. And Tortellier happened to be coming to Glasgow, which is my hometown, to perform, and so she arranged for me to play to him. And I went there with my mother, and he