Sunday Baroque Conversations

Frederic Chiu's intriguing piano-playing and teaching springs from a diverse set of experiences and interests - his Asian/American/European background, his musical training, and an early and ongoing exploration of artificial intelligence and human psychology, especially the body-mind-heart connection. He spoke with Suzanne about his career and his non-traditional techniques.

John Holloway plays "baroque violin" with gut strings and a special bow. He also prefers to use autograph manuscripts of the music he plays so he can learn from the composer's notations and handwriting, and he researches the historic context so they will inform and influence his playing. He's a fan and champion of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Heinrich Biber, and other 17th and 18th century composers, and has made recordings of their music that are both enjoyable and illuminating. John Holloway chatted with Suzanne about his meticulous and scholarly approach.

Rock musician Sting has a fervent love and curiosity for a wide variety of musical genres. He practices his craft playing Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites and he learned to play the lute when a friend gave him one as a gift. Sting was so haunted by the life and music of 16th century "alienated singer-songwriter" John Dowland that he finally heeded his friends' urging and recorded some of Dowland's lute songs. Suzanne spoke with Sting and lutenist Edin Karamazov about their collaboration on SONGS FROM THE LABYRINTH, which features Dowland's lute solos, songs, and readings from one of the composer's letters.

Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, and Eleanor Hughes, a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Yale Center for British Art, collaborated on a comprehensive interdisciplinary project called ART & MUSIC IN BRITAIN: FOUR ENCOUNTERS 1730 TO 1900. The exhibition combines music, scores, instruments and paintings from various Yale collections, and is on view until December 31, 2006 at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT. They talked with Suzanne about this unique project, and especially about the first of the four "encounters," which deals with George Frideric Handel's London from the 1730s to the 1750s.

Robert Wiemken is co-director of Piffaro Renaissance Band in Philadelphia. He sat down with Suzanne to talk about his group, including explaining where the name "Piffaro" comes from. He also talked about the people and instruments in the ensemble, what it takes to find 500-year-old music to play, and gave a surprising revelation that he's not strictly a "renaissance man" in his personal musical tastes.

Recorder virtuoso Matthias Maute -- who is featured prominently on many recordings you hear regularly on Sunday Baroque -- is also a composer, arranger, conductor and music professor. He spoke with host Suzanne Bona about having to carry around a few dozen different types of recorders for every performance, how he tried (unsuccessfully) to quit playing recorder as a boy, and why being married to a fellow musician is just like running any other family business.

After decades of dealing with a condition that impaired his ability to play piano with his right hand, pianist Leon Fleisher resumed his two-hand performing with a recording called TWO HANDS. Mr. Fleisher spoke with Suzanne about his life in music, his medical condition (dystonia), and why suffering from it may have actually been a blessing in disguise.

Lutenist and music professor Rolf Lislevand talks with Suzanne about how he first became interested in music (including his early days playing electric guitar!) and his brilliant 2006 recording NUOVE MUSICHE, a Baroque music CD with thrilling improvisations that suggest jazz, Celtic and Latin music.