“I truly believe that art gives us the gift of empathy.”

Jennifer Koh made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11, and has since been heard with leading orchestras around the world. She is Musical America’s 2016 Instrumentalist of the Year, a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ms. Koh is also the Artistic Director of arco collaborative, an artist-driven nonprofit that fosters a better understanding of our world through a musical dialogue inspired by ideas and the communities around us. (Episode 44)

“I once had to stab at a bee with my bow during a performance of Prokofiev Second.”

After nearly three decades of performing, American violinist and top-selling recording artist Anne Akiko Meyers has seen it all.  In this episode, she discusses her beginnings on major stages of the world, conquering stage fright, her passion for new music, and her relationship with audiences. She also tells a moving story of early struggles and doubts that led to renewed passion for performance. (Episode 25)

“Someone was sitting in the first row holding a mobile phone up right into my face.”

Four-time Grammy® Award winner Anne-Sophie Mutter discusses a recent incident with an audience member, along with many other aspects of her fascinating life as one of the world's most talented and successful violinists. (Episode 71)

“Nervousness is a threat to the self — but if it’s not about the self, there is no threat to it.”

Award-winning violin soloist, recording artist, and born motivational speaker Rachel Barton Pine has appeared regularly with the world's major orchestra's ever since her first appearance with the Chicago Symphony at age ten. Embodying her message of hope and passionate living, her appearance on Living the Classical Life begins with a performance of J.S. Bach's D Minor Partita and continues with a discussion about the art of practicing, overcoming adversity and motivational slumps, and the pursuit of all corners of the musical life. (Episode 30)

“I feel everything in life is just an improvisation.”
Violinist Filip Pogády, one of LTCL’s very first guests (Episode 4), has become a “classical music social media influencer.“ He shares his love for music on a multitude of platforms, from subway stations to Instagram. For him, a few minutes of Bach for the accidental passenger is no less meaningful than playing a recital or posting his daily practice, be it perfecting etudes or Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in minute-by-minute increments. (Episode 72)

“We’re working constantly as artists to overcome what we feel are our limitations”

Zsolt talks to Joel Smirnoff, recipient of the Lifetime Grammy Award and former first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, about his life and work in music: composing, avoiding the straight and narrow, what makes a complete musician, and why the musical life in Cleveland is special. (Episode 5)