Interview by Matteo PiniPortrait by Sequoia Ziff

MP How did you get into classical music?

DC I got into classical music without realising it was classical music. When I was seven or eight years old, I heard a voice from the kitchen. I walked towards it in a trance and then sat in the corner, just listening.  It was a beautiful voice with a lot of melancholy in it. I asked my mum who it was, and she told me it was Maria Callas, the amazing Greek-American opera singer.  It was one of the first times I felt like there was somebody in the world who I connected to, and felt understood by. I went down a rabbit hole – the glamour, the drama, the fashion and the maximalism of it all. Her story was like a tragic opera in itself. That opened up so much more music, but I didn’t realise it was classical at the time. As a genre, it’s able to hold pain, as well as hope. Many composers were speaking to, and often reacting against, society, and that melancholia and sense of resistance are reflected in the music. I found it confusing when I finally entered the industry: the energy I had associated  with classical music was so dislocated  from my emotional experience with opera.

MP Why, then, did classical music retreat to the margins?

DC We have to go back a bit. “Classical music” is a Western European form of music that technically lasted for a very short period of time, fewer than 100 years, between 1750 and 1820. The technical definition of “Classical music” is rarely upheld: the Baroque period comes before the Classical one, but is nonetheless often referred to as “classical” [in a colloquial sense],  as is the Romantic period. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, things started to really change and new forms developed: the birth of jazz; more interaction between the East and West. Debussy’s La mer (1905) is inspired by Japanese woodblock art. You’ve got someone like Satie, who pioneered a new kind of music that harkened back to earlier monastic traditions. He’s the father of minimalism, though he was never called that at the time. He was an incredibly eccentric, absurd genius: he would only eat white-coloured foods, and when he died, they found all these grand pianos stacked on top of each other, and a room full of umbrellas. It was only after his compositions were played at a concert by Debussy that he started to gain respect. Across history, people have found different languages to communicate according to their era. Perhaps instrumental music doesn’t communicate the burning feeling  of the present moment.

MP Classical compositions are often significantly longer than pop songs, and require a different form of listening. It’s important to hear things that don’t directly hit your dopamine centres. Sometimes you have to “eat your greens.”

DC It’s definitely a different kind of experience, and one that requires a different approach. You could see classical music’s contemporary function as an antidote to extreme forms of communication and visual media – overproduced, short pop songs that start with the chorus. That being said, with some composers, you do get a big hit, especially in the Romantic era. With Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, you feel it within a second. With Beethoven, you feel it within a couple of seconds. Still, classical is the type of music where I feel I’m able to ground myself because it takes patience and time to compose. If you get into the discipline of it, the benefits are massive. It’s like if you buy a really well-made pair of trousers: you’ll wear them for years, not days.

MP I’m always interested in how the expressive capacities of instruments depend on how they are constructed. A trumpet’s sound depends on the player’s embouchure and airflow. A piano can be played by anyone, yet the gulf between competence and mastery is enormous.

DC I always found the piano a difficult instrument to understand because it felt really limited due to that mechanical aspect. In the past 15 years, I’ve seen a lot  of people make different sounds by manipulating the strings or using prepared pianos [with objects placed on or between the strings to produce an unusual tonal effect]. I once watched Martha Argerich perform, and it was as though the piano itself disappeared. The greatest artists seem to rise beyond the mechanics of their instruments and reach for something akin to the human voice – unfiltered, direct expression.

MP One source of energy in contemporary classical is soundtrack work, like Mica Levi’s scores for Jonathan Glazer. Can film function as a Trojan horse?

DC Absolutely. There has always been  a relationship between moving image and music; visual experience is a big part of  the classical music tradition. Shostakovich, a celebrated classical composer, was also a film composer, and Satie created ballets with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso. When silent movies came along, pianists would be hired to write scores to accompany the films. Although many artists have tried to evolve the visual language  of classical music, the world of live performance hasn’t refigured its presentation. Seeing an orchestra perform is often not very visually exciting, unless you’re in an extraordinary location. The visual language of classical music doesn’t need to look how it has looked for the past 100 years: why not give it a visual accompaniment? I like that directors are increasingly interested in a composer’s complete artistry, rather than commissioning music to fade into the background. Jerskin Fendrix and Yorgos Lanthimos are an example of a real partnership. In Poor Things (2023), the soundtrack is a character in the film.

MP Many of the elements that sustain classical music-making are dwindling: state-funded scholarships, stipends, an enthusiastic audience.

DC I went to Finland last spring to cover the Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, a competition held every four years, named after the Finnish composer.  I visited his beautiful, idyllic house in the middle of nowhere, which they’ve perfectly preserved down to his old ashtray. The conservators told me that he received a state salary, and it blew my mind because he’s still Finland’s greatest musical export. It made me realise what will be lost if the state doesn’t fund art. Smaller institutions that are especially involved in commissioning young voices are getting hit the most. It’s the thing that makes me the angriest , the government’s blatant lack of foresight. By taking music out of schools, you’re killing aspiration,  and you’re removing a language from people’s lives. .