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<p><strong><a name="Topofpage"></a><font size="+1">A SELECTION OF INTERVIEWS-
REVIEWS and other Press/media material<br>
will appear on this page.</font></strong></p>
<p><em><strong><font color="#9933CC">At the foot of this page links to other sites
will appear until a dedicated 'Links' page is in operation.<br>
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<p><strong>1) PIANIST MAGAZINE ISSUE 13 August/September 2003 - Interview <br>
to go straight to this item click <a href="#one">HERE</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>2) INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY - Review of Jill's recording of the Bach Goldberg
Variations <br>
to go straight to this item click <a href="#two">HERE</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>3) WHAT'S ON IN LONDON 30 April 2003 - Interview </strong><br>
<strong>to go straight to this item click <a href="#three">HERE</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>4) BBC RADIO 4 WOMAN'S HOUR- Interview and audio excerpt with Jill
and her brother <br>
to go straight to this item click <a href="#four">HERE</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>***************</strong></p>
<p><strong>1) <a name="one"></a>'NEW ON THE SCENE' - Jill Crossland </strong></p>
<p> <em><strong>'<font size="+1">ONE STEP AT A TIME'</font></strong></em></p>
<p><em>Jill Crossland’s career has progressed at a slow and steady pace,</em><em>but
with a new Bach CD she’s moved to the front of the pack, </em><em>as she
tells <a href="http://www.ninalarge.com" target="_blank">Nina Large</a> </em></p>
<p>Making a name as a pianist on the international concert circuit requires a
feisty blend of determination and tunnel vision ambition. Or so we are led to
believe. But one pianist is fast proving that there is another way: Jill Crossland
has been carving her own path through the competition for several years now
and the release of her first CD with Warner Classics is testament to her success.<br>
Crossland’s journey to the musical heights can hardly be described as
meteoric. Having received a piano for her fifth birthday, she quickly showed
a flair for the instrument, winning talent competitions and performing in festivals,
which led to several interviews in UK press. In those days she had no idea she
was going to be a professional pianist – she was far more interested in
animals, like many little girls. ‘My dad said I always had to tell the
interviewers that I wanted to be a concert pianist. It felt very strange saying
that. It wasn’t until I was about 12 that I realised it actually was what
I wanted to do,’ she remembers. By then, Crossland was studying at Chetham’s
School of Music from where she went to the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM),
taught at both by Ryszard Bakst. <br>
Unlike others, Crossland has never really had a career game plan: <strong>‘I
go with the flow, I think, I’m not as single-minded as some people can
be</strong>. It is a competitive profession but I couldn’t be a pushy
person – it would just never work,’ she says openly. But don’t
read this as laid back or unfocused – she obviously couldn’t be
that, to have achieved what she has. It is refreshing to meet someone who has
bags of passion, talent and drive without it all turning into a frantic scramble
to reach the top of the ladder as quickly as possible. ‘I’m consistent,’
she says. ‘I love music and I devote my life to it – there is nothing
else I could do. But you still take it all as it comes, one step at a time.’</p>
<p><em><strong>Vienna inspiration</strong></em><br>
After leaving the RNCM, Crossland’s Edward Boyle Memorial Scholarship
funded her study in Vienna with renowned Mozartian Paul Badura-Skoda. ‘I
really wanted to have some new experiences, I wanted a whole different approach
to my music. I felt that I wasn’t ready to go out there, I needed to develop
more.’ After her time with Badura-Skoda, she worked with the American
teacher Sally Sargent (a pupil of Nadia Boulanger), who gave Crossland the one-to-one
attention she wanted to fine-tune her technique, even making her forgo repertoire
to play a series of specially created exercises to train different muscles and
encourage new skills. <br>
The culture of Vienna is renowned for attracting artistic souls and it was this
rich heritage that encouraged Crossland to remain there for six years instead
of the original 12 months she had planned, working as a répétiteur
for the Vienna State Opera, and later for the Theater an der Wien, as well as
giving solo and chamber music concerts. ‘I often used to visit the houses
of the Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn for inspiration,’ she recalls.
‘It’s very moving going to Schubert’s house because it’s
where he died and where he wrote his last piano sonatas and you can listen to
the music that he composed in the house. I don’t necessarily go around
looking for historical facts when I approach music but you can’t help
but be moved by how much someone like Schubert must have suffered in the last
few months of his life, and you can feel it in the music. It gives it all an
extra dimension.’<br>
Crossland embraced the space and the opportunities offered up by these years
abroad, something that defines her whole approach to her career. She balances
her life and work naturally, practising no more than a couple of hours each
day, unless she has a concert. ‘I don’t get consumed. And I teach
as well so that keeps my feet firmly on the ground,’ she says. A few years
back her younger brother Neil, also a pianist, asked Crossland if she wanted
to join him to play a programme of duets at a lunchtime concert in St James’s
Piccadilly. It was to start another chapter. The duo had great success; a talented
and dynamic pair of siblings who performed on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and in
many concerts which put their names right across the UK. But after two years
of doing the duo full time they decided to concentrate on their solo careers
again. ‘I really enjoyed the two years we played together, I think of
it as a sort of lighter time. But I had a real urge to continue doing my solo
things – I felt that I still had a lot more to say,’ says Crossland.
</p>
<p><em><strong>Refreshing Bach</strong></em><br>
The decision to go back to being solo has certainly paid off. In the 2001-02
season she made her Wigmore Hall debut, and gave a particularly well-received
performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in the ‘Fresh’ series
of the Royal Festival Hall – the first of three concerts at the Purcell
Room. She performed in Amsterdam and Den Haag as part of the Anglo-Dutch Piano
Platform and in June she had a solo concert, also at the Purcell Room. Around
this time Warner Classics released her first album, featuring the Goldberg Variations.
<br>
<strong>Bach</strong> has long since been important to her – she was a
semi-finalist at the VII International Bach Competition in Leipzig as a teenager,
and won the RNCM’s Pinsen Book Prize for performing all the Preludes and
Fugues from memory. <strong>‘I feel a real affinity to his music. It satisfies
me in every way, spiritually, mentally and romantically actually – I think
it is very romantic</strong>. A lot of people tend to view it as being really
academic, but I don’t. It encompasses so much about life. It’s very
free; you can do what you like with it. Glenn Gould certainly did.’ So
was she inspired or intimidated by Gould’s celebrated Goldberg recording
[1955]? ‘I love his originality, he is just so daring. He is a role model
but I never try and play exactly like him. I have to do it my way – no
one can really get close to Gould’s version.’<br>
The Goldberg disc itself was self-made, recorded in 1997 at the Vestry Hall
Studios in Ealing. It wasn’t until recently that Crossland showed it to
Matthew Cosgrove, Director of Warner Classics, and even then she certainly never
expected him to want to use the original recording. <br>
Unusually, Cosgrove did just that. ‘It really made me sit up and listen,’
says Cosgrove. ‘It was just such a different interpretation, the first
aria in particularly being very slow. I’m really pleased that we have
been able to release it.’ This is seriously good news for Crossland since
the support of one of the major record companies has already started to provide
wider marketing and promotion opportunities such as with a recent trip to Ireland
where Crossland performed with violinist Chloë Hanslip on the hugely popular
Irish TV programme, The Late, Late Show. </p>
<p><em><strong>Lyrical spirit</strong></em><br>
Ideas for future recordings have been discussed but nothing is yet confirmed.
Crossland specialises in the Austro-German classics and the Romantic repertoire
of the late 19th century, and is frank about the fact that she has no interest
in contemporary music. ‘It doesn’t appeal to me really – I
like the lyrical things,’ she says. She actually has another two self-made
recordings, on her Calico Classics label: one of Mozart and Beethoven and the
other of Bach. It’s further proof of her can-do attitude – ‘I
wanted to have something ready for my Purcell Room concert,’ she says
practically, ‘So I decided to make them myself.’ We’ll have
to wait and see if Warner is interested, though Crossland already has one dream
project in her mind: to record the complete Bach repertoire on disc. ‘I
want to explore him in every possible way – the repertoire is so rich
and so fascinating and there is so much of it,’ she trills. ‘Including
the chamber music – I love doing that – listening to other people
always helps your musicianship.’</p>
<p>Crossland’s approach has encouraged varied aspects of her musicianship
– teaching, duo ensemble, chamber music and répétiteur work
– to blend together, making her a thoroughly sensitive soloist. As to
a future, she says, ‘I don’t think there is a clear path in this
career. It’s a very difficult profession and it’s hard for all artists.’
But, she insists you have to keep going: ‘You have to be strong and take
it day by day. I can’t think beyond that really. With some people the
ambition is everything, but it’s the music for me. In the end you’ve
got to be true to yourself.’</p>
<p> <em><font size="-1">On disc</font></em><font size="-1"><br>
<em>J S Bach<br>
Goldberg Variations<br>
Warner Classics Apex 0927-49979-2</em></font></p>
<p><font size="-1"><em>J S Bach <br>
Partita No 1 in B flat BWV825; English Suite No 2 in A min BWV807; Toccata in
D BWV912, Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D min BWV 903<br>
Calico Classics CCCR102</em></font></p>
<p><font size="-1"><em>Mozart & Beethoven<br>
Mozart: Sonata K533/494; Beethoven: Sonata op 31 no 2; Sonata op 110<br>
Calico Classics CCCR101</em></font></p>
<h3>Back to <a href="#Topofpage">top of page</a></h3>
<p><strong><font size="+1">2) <a name="two"></a>'NEW GEM'</font></strong></p>
<p>On Jill’s recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations.</p>
<p><font size="+1">Warner’s affordable Apex series has thus far focused
on back catalogue re-releases from the great and good. But peer through the
lists and a few new gems are appearing; among them Jill Crossland’s interpretation
of the Goldberg Variations. In a market already glutted with plucked and hammered
Goldbergs, a new recording of such an iconic work seems an unlikely disc to
launch but Warners should be commended for spotting this iconoclastic account.
Crossland’s range of effects and rich, deliberate tempi will not be to
everyone’s tastes. Indeed, on first listening I found myself shaking my
head in exasperation at her dynamic range and extrinsic colourations. Yet successive
listenings reveal much character in this quasi-Romantic reading. If the Aria
baffles, the Canons are as divine as they are weird. Crossland’s Goldberg
is ‘a grower’. What Bach would have made of it is anyone’s
guess but Chopin would have loved it.</font></p>
<p><em>Anna Picard The Independent On Sunday 18 May 2003 </em></p>
<p><font size="+1"><strong>Back to <a href="#Topofpage">top of page</a> </strong></font></p>
<p><strong><font size="+1">3)</font> <em><font size="+1"><a name="three"></a>'ONE
FROM THE HEART' </font>- by <a href="mailto:colin.anderson@gateway.net">Colin
Anderson</a></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Jill’s blend of commitment and musical identification returns
to the Purcell Room... Once again Jill has taken the initiative and recorded
two recital-encompassing CDs that will be on sale at her concert. </em></strong></p>
<p> Word-of-mouth endorsements carry more weight than hype. When an informed friend
gave positive feedback of Jill Crossland’s live Goldberg Variations, I
took notice. Fortunately, Jill had made a private recording of Bach’s
diverse work, which I found impressive and interesting. So too Warner Classics:
that domestic CD is now on Apex 0927-49979-2. </p>
<p>Jill’s from Yorkshire, from Castleford. “It’s got a good
rugby team,” she reminds me. Why the piano? “My mum used to play
the piano and my dad bought one for my fifth birthday. My mum taught me. I picked
it up straightaway, could read immediately, so they decided that’s what
I would do. Dad made me do talent competitions – tell them when you grow
up that you want to be a concert pianist. I didn’t know any better –
but I used to get nervous about performing; I didn’t really want to be
a concert pianist! They wanted me to go to Chetham’s when I was seven;
I begged my parents not to send me. Eventually I did go, but I was eleven.”
</p>
<p>An Edward Boyle scholarship took Jill to Vienna to study with Paul Badura-Skoda,
a musician of similar classical tastes to Jill. His book, Interpreting Bach
at the Keyboard, squares with Bach being Jill’s signature composer; she
had the 48 Preludes and Fugues learnt as a teenager! “That was my father
again. He loves Bach and made me play a lot of it. It gives me so much satisfaction
in every way.” Jill’s anticipated one-year stay in Vienna became
six. “I worked at the State Opera as a répétiteur. I just
loved the city.” She also studied there with Sally Sargent – “Sally
helped me with my technique, which is what I needed.” </p>
<p>Jill’s admired pianists include Gilels, “he really does have the
golden sound,” and Richter, “he’s one of the few pianists
that could do everything. I like Argerich’s passion and her self-criticism;
and Radu Lupu, his musicianship is so natural.” Jill is busy teaching
and expanding her repertoire, yet I suggest she is a reluctant performer. “If
you give fewer performances you’ve got more chance of giving more. I find
it difficult to sell myself; I’m not the pushy type. I like to do my music,
and that’s it.” </p>
<p>Jill’s blend of commitment and musical identification returns to the
Purcell Room on 6 May – Bach (of course!), Mozart and Beethoven. “It’s
very bold isn’t it! I love Bach’s First Partita, such a beautiful
way to start. The Mozart [K533/494] is not played all that often. It’s
underrated and fantastic. I love it because it’s really contrapuntal.
I think Beethoven’s Tempest is elusive; it never seems resolved. It was
such a terrible time for him – his deafness, he was considering suicide;
his spirit really comes through. Op.110 is my favourite Beethoven sonata. It’s
triumphant at the end, after you’ve gone through this profound aria –
it’s in touch with another world.” To my mind Jill loves playing
music for itself – for structure and articulacy, not using the piano for
display. “Music should speak and transport people.” With Jill you’re
not pinned to the wall by an ego; she’s not a note-machine. “It’s
improvisatory, I feed off the occasion and I like to feel that it’s not
going to be another performance.” </p>
<p>Once again Jill has taken the initiative and recorded two recital-encompassing
CDs that will be on sale at her concert. Sample copies confirm the good vibrations
that one has felt about Jill’s abilities. Should you purchase these CDs,
don’t anticipate an exact replication of the recital in terms of rendition.
While eminently studied and prepared, Jill can generate impromptu sparks –
“I want it to be fresh.” Jill also wants the piano to sing. “Back
to my dad; he always said that, he’s a very good critic. Don’t use
too much pedal. It has to be lyrical, even in Bach. I think Bach would have
enjoyed the piano.” Indeed. While Bach can be re-created a dry formalist,
Jill makes him glow – “it’s from the heart.” </p>
<p>This interview is also available at the Internet Music magazine <a href="http://www.classicalsource.com" target="_blank">Classical
Source</a></p>
<p>Classical Source contains a selection of reviews of Jill's concerts and recordings
on its searchable archive.</p>
<p><strong><font size="+1">Back to <a href="#Topofpage">top of page</a></font></strong></p>
<p><strong>4) <a name="four"></a>BBC RADIO 4 WOMAN'S HOUR - interview with Jill
and her brother Neil (who is both a composer and a concert pianist).</strong></p>
<p>This interview took place in February 2002 and refers to their activities as
a duo (one piano, four hands). Neil has composed and arranged many of the pieces
that they have played together. To access this item please click on the link
below.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04_02_02/tuesday/info1.shtml" target="_blank"><font size="+1">Woman's
Hour interview</font></a></strong></p>
<p><font size="+1"><strong>Back to <a href="#Topofpage">top of page</a></strong></font></p>
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<h3><font color="#9900FF" size="-1"><em>Photo credit for index page- Suzie Maeder</em></font></h3>
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