News Exercise #146

Most of the news seems to be the same recently – gun violence, terrorism, the US election and the UK Brexit… so I’ve decided to go with a trivial item this week instead:

She is English-born, and sounds like she is going to an upper-class private school, but I detect a hint of a European accent. I can’t quite place it, but somehow she doesn’t sound totally British. Perhaps she spends a lot of time in her father’s home country of Israel. She does, however, sound very intelligent, and only slightly precocious!

1. Her composition method has changed since she first started composing. How did she compose at first, and how does she do it now?
2. How did she manage to convince the professional musicians that she was technically proficient?
3.  What is the difficult part of composition for her?

Answers:
1. At 4 years old she used to just sit at the piano and play the ideas that she had in her head. Now she swings a skipping rope (US jump rope) and tells stories to herself; and melodies pop into her head.

2. When she played her cadenza, they (the orchestral players) changed their minds immediately.

3. Having to sit down and develop the melody into a proper piece, and combining it with other melodies in a coherent way, polishing it, is the really difficult bit for her.