First of all, thank you for dedicating you time for this interview, how are you doing?
I am very well, thank you. Just recently I had a concert with Sava in Munich where I performed “El rey de Francia”, a piece of my new album, and some other Sephardic pieces together with the musicians of Sava. Now I am enjoying my Christmas holidays in Germany with my friends and family which is really nice.
You use to be a part of the band Faun, which you left to follow your own path. How do you look back at the time with Faun and was it hard to say goodbye?
Surely it was a decision that took me a long time, but it was not anymore possible to combine giving a lot of energy to Faun and at the same time to my studies in Switzerland. But we had a very good time together, made so many positive experiences during all the years and I am glad I went a part of my way together with them.
When you left Faun, did you already in mind what would be next or did you take time to think about it? What were the first things you did on music after leaving Faun?
After that I was playing a lot with Emanuele Forni and Dominika Bonk, who were in the same ensemble at my school as I was and we also enjoyed to play together besides school. Now you can hear both on the Almara- CD. I also liked to record and work on pieces together with Michael Ableitner, the producer of the CD but in the beginning it was all just for fun and for the pleasure to make music. Time after time I was able to put these things together and finally the project Almara and its CD came to life.
What fascinates you in medieval music? What is the challenging for you in bringing it instead of writing new songs?
I think both ways have its own challenges but what fascinates me in medieval music is the subtlety in the music, the text and its combination, the complexity with which it is conceived. There is a lot of knowledge that you need for reanimating this kind of music but in the end you also have to trust your intuition and to bring in your emotions for creating your own interpretation. Of course it fascinates me that there is such a big temporal distance, it’s really a bit like seeking treasures from a forgotten time and through getting into communication with the music and the notation you can truly bring it alive and get a result. There are so many layers in the process of reproducing this music and of course, you could also just site-read it from an edition, but I think by doing just this, one loses the chance of getting deeply into it and giving it a real meaning.
How do you find the songs you want to perform, is it something exciting, like a treasurehunt or basically reading a lot in libraries?
Yes, it is really something exciting for me. There are different ways to find a piece. Sometimes you get to know it by hearing it, like in a concert or on a CD, by playing and singing it in a lesson, by looking through facsimiles or editions or by reading an article where it is mentioned and makes you curious.
You have studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis so you are really educated, what was the hardest part at the university for you and what is the most important thing that you have learned?
The hardest part for me is maybe that there is really very little free time besides my studies and that it is so far away from my friends and family. But of course I have learned a lot of things, on the practical as well on the theoretical side. The most important for me surely was to work with so many great teachers and musicians, to improve my skills in singing and playing and to get much deeper into the world of the performance practice of Early Music. It is great to have the possibility to play with different people and instruments and I guess there is no other place where you can get someone so easily who plays exactly this or that medieval- and also generally early- instrument that you need.
Your new project is called Almara? What does the name stand for and also what does it mean for you personally?
The name Almara includes the Spanish word for soul, “alma”. To me this stands for my wish to reach the listeners soul with the music and that this is and was such a very important function of music in general, which you can read already in the writings of the ancient Greeks.
Was it hard to pick the right songs for the album, how did you select them?
The criteria for choosing the songs were firstly that they are able to touch something inside of myself what I would like to share and what should not be forgotten because of its beauty. It was great when I saw that most of the songs are dealing with the theme of love and adoration and so I continued to select more pieces of that topic.
You just released the album “Outros Amores” what can you tell about it, how did you realize this album?
This CD features songs from 13th to 16th century Spain, France and also Germany. It includes different kinds of styles of medieval and Renaissance music which texts all deal with emotions and stages concerning the topic of love.
As mentioned before, I started to work on some songs with Michi, the producer, but soon I realized that it would enrich the pieces a lot to invite some guest musicians and also to record songs that I have already worked on with Emanuele and Dominika. So I am very grateful about the time and work everybody, especially Michi, put into it.
What was the hardest in the recording process?
It was hard that I could not continuously work on it and always had to interrupt that process cause I had to go back to Switzerland. But that also gave me a lot of time to listen through the pieces and to reflect it again.
The album is a homogene album, not just a collection of songs, was this your goal when you started? How did you prevent the album turning out to be just a collection of songs?
It is always my goal to create something which is homogeneous and I really did not want the album to turn out as a random collection of songs. A lot of the experiences and topics I am dealing with in my own life have influenced the album. So under the surface it is very personal and maybe that is also a reason why it follows a certain red line and became a whole in the end.
You work with several guest musicians on the album, was it hard to convince all of them to help you out, how did you get them to work with you on the album?
No, I am very glad it was not hard to convince them. I knew Michael and Sascha from my time in Munich and also from working with Estampie, Emanuele and Dominika from my school and Birgit as a dear friend from the early times with Faun. They were all very helpful and supportive. Without them the album certainly would not sound like it does now, they all did a great job.
Next step will be performing the things live? Have you thought about live shows already, how will the look like?
I am thinking about performing it live, but I have a lot of exams and concerts in my school coming up in the next half year, so at the moment I have to focus on that first and will hardly give concerts during that time besides the ones at my school. But it would still be a wish of mine to perform it and when there will be confirmed dates I will surely let you know.
Many bands have to make small changes to their songs in order to play them live, would you have to do the same or can you perform them live the way they are on the album or do you like to improvise?
This would depend a bit on the musicians who are available to perform the songs but I am also open to develop the pieces in a different way for a live show. I think it also depends on the specific song of the album as the instrumentation varies a lot from piece to piece.
What would be the ultimate location for you to play live?
I guess it would be an ancient building. It was great to see Loreena McKennitt performing life in the Alhambra or Sarband in the Jupiter temple of Baalbek and if it could be everything I wish I might also choose an old temple and create a program that matches it.
I guess a question that is asked you many times before, would you rather live in medieval times or any other time or are the current times the best for you?
I am very glad I can life today as I think women never had as much freedom and self- determination as they are having nowadays, at least in Western countries. Surely I would be interested to see how people in the medieval times really lived, how the instruments and voices sounded like and I also would have loved to see the real live e.g. in ancient Rome and Greece.
Who is your favorite historic person and why?
I don’t have only one favourite historic person, there are many people I would love to meet and talk to, like Francesco d’ Assisi, Hildegard von Bingen, Guido d’ Arezzo, Galileo Galilei, Albert Einstein, Aristoteles, Machaut, Farinelli, Bach and many more. Maybe also Jesus, it would be great to meet the man who influenced a big part of the world so strongly and to see who he really was.
You are also part of Vocame, a project with renowned singers, what can you tell us about this project?
VocaMe is a project that Michael Popp brought to live by asking six singers to interpret the music of Kassia, a poet and nun of 9th century Byzantine empire. We know only of very few female composers of that time, so she is really something special. Legends tell that she was very clever and pretty and nearly conquered the heart of the emperor. But her tongue was too loose and her mind too rebellious, so the emperor took another woman as his wife. Also the texts of her songs tell of her intelligence and her incredible passion in her faith which we tried to capture in interpreting the music concerning the text.
How is the atmosphere? Of course you respect each other very well but is there also some rivalry in the positive meaning, trying to push the best out of each other?
Everybody wanted this CD to be really good and gave the best to create something unique and precious which has not existed in this way before. It has took a lot of time and work to make this repertoire come alive as there was originally only one voice in all of the songs. But everyone could bring in its own qualities and experiences from which the result finally profited.
Being a member or the main person behind an act can be different, is it for you? Do you feel more responsibility for Almara?
The difference is of course that I have to make all of the organization and decisions concerning Almara while in VocaMe Michael Popp makes them. Both sides really have their advantages cause there is always a lot of organization besides making music which can really be a job itself and I also enjoy just to sing or to play in an ensemble. On the other hand I also like that I can realize my ideas and creativity in Almara.
Any last words for the readers?
First I want to thank everybody who dedicated his time to read this interview and who listens to my music. If only one is touched by it, I feel very honored and happy that I could pass on something that means a lot to me and for what I am spending my energy and work. I also want to wish you all a wonderful start into the New Year, full of joy, love, health and luck and that your dreams may all be fulfilled.
http://www.myspace.com/almaramusic