You never know what you're going to learn from which pieces and which composers and colleagues are going to influence that thing you think you know.
Of course everyone has those moments of frustration now and then, when you say, 'I wish I could play well already - or just stop.' But it's too much trouble to stop just for a moment of frustration. It is when you keep going that you make the most progress.
I wound up sticking with violin because it was the strongest current in my life.
I like to take walks and getting out and seeing things. These experiences are so irreplaceable and give you a whole different perspective on the greater context that you're in. If I didn't try to take advantage of that, I'd be missing out on a lot of really interesting things.
I love performing. The sounds coming at me are dynamic, colorful and multi-layered. The energy from the musicians around me and from the audience is a swirl of excitement. Sometimes, I can feel the stage vibrating under my feet.
Bach in general was so good with the violin. He just finds the genius way around his music on the instrument.
If you think about it - if you watch a gymnast compete, you don't see their training behind the scenes. You just see the competition. You see the final result when it's polished. And that is very much what people experience with concerts. They go to the concert. And they see the final version.
I never felt like a prodigy. For one thing, the root of the word is rather monstrous, literally. I never really felt like a monster or anything abnormal, because I always had a lot of different interests. But kids tend to focus on one thing, and for me it was violin.
Kids would come up to me after concerts and give me drawings they've made of violins or, you know, landscapes with a violin floating in it or some sketch of a concert or a portrait of me.
It struck me that it would be fun to just play stuff with Hauschka. Not even have a project in mind, but just get together and make up some music and see what came out.
It's no good to do a piece once and then move on because it doesn't have time to develop. I try to play seven or eight concerti in a season, and generally one or two of those are new for me.
As a young performer, what you need to be doing is building your technique and musicality, not promoting your abilities - unless you're ready to take on all that will result from such an approach.
There's so many different ways to play Mozart.
You don't have any days to spare if you want to improve!
Edgar Meyer's violin concerto was the first piece of contemporary music I worked on in any depth. I was 18 or 19.
There's this feeling of creativity in Iceland.
As more people get into indie bands and alternative music, they're also getting more into other genres that fit those categories, like jazz and classical. It's becoming more rebellious to go to a classical concert. You're getting the younger art house crowd and regular students as well as those who are just curious.
I've always heard the same doomsday concerns and yet, every day, there are people going to a classical concert for the first time - whether it's on a date or being dragged there by their grandmother.
You don't need to be a performer in order to dive into the sensory experience of music. Simply get as close as you can to the source of the music.
I don't really compare myself to anybody. That would be very unhealthy.
