Australian conductor Jessica Cottis will lead the competition concerts at the Basel Composition Competition
We are looking forward to our first collaboration with Jessica Cottis at the concerts on February 9th and 12th as part of the Basel Composition Competition.
Jessica Cottis is one of Australia's most outstanding conductors of our time. The Times named her a "2019 Classical 'Face to Watch'". She is the principal conductor and artistic director of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and works with many internationally renowned orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, and the Opéra Orchestre national Montpellier, among others.
To get to know her better, we asked her a few questions.
How did you first come into contact with classical music, and why have you been so captivated by it ever since?
I'm fortunate enough to have music in my blood, for as long as I can remember. My father was always sitting and listening to classical LPs, and my mother was a good amateur pianist. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on her lap while she played Chopin's nocturnes . I was fascinated by the sound and soon began taking lessons myself. Virginia Woolf wrote in *The Waves*: "I am rooted, but I am flowing." That's often how I feel when I make music.
Are there any pieces that have particularly influenced you?
When I Turnagalila first heard Rosenkavalier at the Vienna State Opera in 2005. I was an organist at the time, and hearing that brilliant, shimmering, highly energetic orchestration was like an epiphany, or perhaps more accurately, a catalyst for my path as a conductor. Then there are the symphonies of Sibelius, especially the interpretations by Sir Colin Davis—with whom I had the privilege of studying during my time at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Honestly, though, every piece I conduct influences me. The combination of the meticulous analysis of a score and its realization with an orchestra is profoundly moving.
If you weren't a conductor today, what would you be?
A paleontologist. I'm interested in megafauna, the giant animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene, from 2.5 million to 11,700 years ago.
What does "contemporary" music mean to you? Is it something different from the works of Wagner or Sibelius?
Philosophically speaking, I approach the essence of all music in the same way, but the demands a score places on us are often very different. All music was once contemporary; we just happen to be living in it now!
How can classical music remain relevant today? How can our ears inspire wonder and reflection?
Mahler once said that "there is a trace of infinity in every work of art," and for me, one of the most beautiful aspects of an orchestra is that no single musician can exist without a deep understanding and appreciation for all the other musicians, however different they may be. There is a dialogue on equal footing. This is extraordinary and, hopefully, also relevant for our time. I believe we sense all of this intuitively when we listen. The combination of sound and humanity is incredibly uplifting.
