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Kosmos Interview
Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008. © Copyright 2004-2008 David Bruce
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CT talks to string trio Kosmos, who explore the boundaries of Western Classical music with Eastern European, Gypsy, Balkan, Klezmer and Tango with contemporary influences.
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Kosmos
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Tell us something about your background.
We are all Classically trained. Laura and I studied together at the Royal academy of Music and Meg studied at Edinburgh university and Trinity College of Music
Tell us about the group, how it was formed, it's raison d'etre.
We are all really good friends with a love of diverse music traditions. We thought it would be fun to start playing together and to come up with original material inspired by these rich traditions.
Do you focus on playing specific types of music?
Meg - I studied Klezmer music ( the music of the Askenazy Jews, played traditionally, as it would have been around 100 years ago), Harriet learnt Gypsy music and the style from Roma friends of hers and has a lot of expereince playing contemporary music. As well as classical 'cello, Laura plays Afro-Peruvian percussion and also the ancient Cretan Lyra.
Harriet - All these sounds colour and influence Kosmos's sound. What we try to do is draw from a vast palette of traditions to produce pieces with their own twist and character.
How do you go about programming your concerts?
Harriet - We play whatever we are working on and are currently inspired by! We generally have a few really contemporary works in our programmes. We are lucky that Robert Fokkens, Ben Oliver, Nadja Gabriela Plien, Owen Bourne have all written and dedicated pieces to us. We try to have a good balance - a few Gyspy inspired pieces, a few Klezmer inspired pieces, some improvising, some metitative, some frantic, some Kosmos craziness and some fresh contemporary works.
Interview by David Bruce © Copyright 2004-2008
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