CAMBRIDGE SUMMER FESTIVAL DIRECTOR - FREYA GOLDMARK
Photograph Alex Class
Only twenty five years of age, Freya Goldmark has already performed in venues from Hong Kong, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, to Norway and Germany. She she made her debut aged only 13 at the Rachmaninov Institute in Russia and today plays the Albert Hall Elgar Room and the Wigmore Hall as a soloist Southbank. Freya enjoys working with a number of English orchestras regularly. Her 2021/2022 season includes performances of concertos by Beethoven, Bruch and Karl Goldmark.
All that performance pressure. Does she have nerves of steel?. “I am a driven person certainly. I work hard and go with what’s happening one day at a time’
The step -by -step determined approach has led her from Uppingham where she grew up and her father runs an art gallery, to the greatest concert halls of the world. But she enjoys performing to what she believes is ‘her’ audience.
With good reason.
“I saw my father bring art to the community and when I began to perform publicly at 13 and 14 , I wanted to do the same with my music. I put up posters myself and performed in the local church.”
Deftly, she links this early keenness to share with her new job as Festival Director
“It’s what’s so great about Festivals. You play to ‘your’ audience’ “
This Festival Director’s ambition is to make the Cambridge Summer Music goers feel the Festival to be very much their own. Yet at the same time the remarkable Freya has created a French/British programme of music - and has been to some lengths to invite international and especially European players to participate.
“There were those who told me it really was far too hard to get them over here,” she confesses, “and it has been tricky with all kinds of quarantine rules to observe. But I was determined to include them. I know the sacrifices they have made to be here will be worthwhile ”
As for the music ,
“ It is eclectic – I have enjoyed creating a programme to include Bengt Forsberg from Sweden, an expert programmer and a specialist in neglected but brilliant piano music. Gavin Byard the composer will attend in person. His compositions play world wide – currently he is in Tasmania with his work, but his works are not performed very often here “
“ I hesitate to describe any concert as ‘an experience’ but his immersive and powerful work is just that”
Freya will play two concerts herself, both on the same night.
“ As I am Festival Director in one role, I chose music I just love to perform in another and I am relying on adrenaline to get me through” she laughs, ‘Oliver
Messiaen’s poignant and powerful work will form the first – contemplative and experiential. And in the second concert I play alongside a French ensemble Quatuor Confluence(again , they were hard to get over here) in a completely different register of lusciously enjoyable work. Chausson, the composer is little known but deserves more outings. He died tragically young after a bicycle accident.”
Freya Goldmark performs on her Camilli of Mantua violin c1740.
