“Crossover”, that is, a mixture of two or more styles of music, is usually located today. So when the concert pianist Olga Scheps plays the hits of the techno musician HP Baxxter and his band Scooter as romantic miniatures, then it must be a “crossover”. Or?
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“Basically this is classical music and not a crossover,” replies the pianist. To this day she could not understand that “this album flew out of the classical music charts at the time”.
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Many composers have broken rules
She developed her own variations and arrangements for the songs by Scooter. Mozart and Tchaikovsky had already worked in a similar way, the pianist explains:
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“Many composers who represented their epoch broke a lot of rules. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart broke most of the rules that applied back then. “
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The first piano concerto by Peter Tchaikovsky also consists of many different melodies that the composer took over from folk songs and folk dances. “You could also call this music a crossover,” says Scheps.
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She has just released her new album “Family”, with pieces by Vivaldi and van Beethoven, but also by Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer and Chilly Gonzales. A musical friendship has developed between the Canadian musician Gonzales and the pianist in recent years.
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Parallels to sport
Scheps, born in Moscow in 1986, came to Germany in the early 1990s. The piano has always been present, mother and father are pianists, including the older sister.
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Olga Scheps played her first concerts at an early age and received several awards. While still at school she began studying music, one of her sponsors was Alfred Brendel.
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Playing the piano, practicing for hours every day, works primarily with motivation and has a lot to do with sport, she says: “You have to stay in shape, there are many parallels.” Above all, the shoulders, arms, stomach and back would when playing the piano.
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Much more important, however, is the love of music. “That is the basic requirement for a professional musician, I think. Yes, without love it doesn’t work at all. As probably with any other art as well.”
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Fun and enjoyment are also decisive criteria: “I keep hearing stories from people who say: ‘I used to have piano lessons, but then I didn’t have any fun anymore because my piano teacher wanted me to play pieces that I didn’t like at all .` You should only play what you really love. You can then convey that really nicely. “
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Artists don’t have to be busy all the time
Before the Corona period, the pianist played a concert almost every day with well-known orchestras all over the world. The standstill of culture is a hitherto unimaginable situation for them too.
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But: “I don’t want to romanticize that, of course this is a time that was and is very difficult for most artists. But of course a break can also be good. It can lead to new creativity. I don’t think an artist has to be constantly busy, has to give a lot of concerts every month. “
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Even before Corona, Scheps had shown himself on the live streaming video portal Twitch in the rehearsal room, sometimes for hours. Up to a thousand people watch her:
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“I think it’s beautiful. I just like to share the current events, I enjoy it. ”In addition, the public rehearsal has a great advantage:“ As soon as I play for someone, I’m in the mood for a concert. ”
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