Travel Explorer Magazine (AUTUMN/WINTER 2016 EDITION)

MEET THE ARTIST
Interview: Simon Rowland-Jones
Simon Rowland-Jones is a viola player, composer, professor at the The Royal
College of Music and Editor of Joseph Haydn’s String Quartets - all sixty
eight and a half of them! He was the founder viola player in the distinguished
Chilingirian Quartet and played for them for fifteen years. Simon is also the
Kirker Holidays Director of Music and he arranges the music programme for the
series of exclusive Kirker Music Festivals each year. He lives in north Norfolk
where he is Artistic Director of the North Norfolk Music Festival.
Where is the most memorable place you have visited?
New York because the city is so culturally and musically rich with the historic
Carnegie Hall at its heart. It was at Carnegie Hall that I gave the first solo
recital of my career when I was 28, an overwhelming experience remembering
all the great musicians who played on its famous platform. Anyone going to
New York who is interested in music should visit it - they have marvellous
tours there.
How does travel integrate into your career?
I used to give over one hundred performances around the world with The
Chilingirian Quartet for many years. We gave an annual tour of the US each
summer which took us everywhere! Today my travels are connected very
much to Kirker as I usually play on each of the music festivals I organise for
them. I will be going to Mallorca where we have an annual festival dedicated
to Chopin who spent three months there. Afterwards I will be performing
for Kirker on the Island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, followed by two music
cruises on board Black Watch. I’ll end the year in the South Downs in the
village of Alfriston.
Have any destinations influenced your profession / career choices?
Eidfjord in Norway is perhaps the most beautiful place I’ve been to. I was so
impressed that I was inspired to compose a piano trio there after looking at
the fjord and feeling the mountain breeze cooling the air on a very hot day
indeed. The wide open sands of Holkham beach just five minutes from where
I live come in very handy too when I get stuck for a musical idea!
Where are you travelling to next and why?
My next trip will be to the beautiful, yet little-visited city of Turin where I
will play in a music festival called the EstWest - east and west. It was started
many years ago by a very old friend of mine, the cellist and writer, Elizabeth
Wilson, who lives there. It’s a festival where older players work alongside
young musicians at the start of their careers. I will be working with the young
and outstandingly talented Castalian String Quartet.
If there was one place you could recommend to any music lover to visit,
where would it be and why?
There are so many - it’s hard to choose a single place. The Wagner Festival
at Bayreuth, Helsinki because of Sibelius, and Aldeburgh in Suffolk with its
connections to Benjamin Britten all come to mind. However, above all it has
to be places in Austria and Hungary associated with Haydn; Eisenstadt, fifty
miles from Vienna where he was born and spent much of his working life at
the castles of the noble Esterhazy family. Not to mention Vienna where he
spent the last years of his life as the most famous and revered composer of
his day. The house where he lived is open to the public and well worth a visit.
For more details about Kirker Holidays Cultural & Music Tours contact RB
Collection on 01543 258631 or email vip@rbcollection.com.
AUTUMN / WINTER 2016 | TRAVEL EXPLORER | 35