Cédric Pescia in an interview

"Trust in what you are accused of, for it is your true self."

Cédric Pescia, born in Lausanne to Swiss and French parents, won one of the world's most prestigious piano competitions, the Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, USA, in 2002. He performs extensively in Europe, South America, North Africa, China, and the USA. Alongside his solo career, his passion for chamber music leads him to regularly collaborate with renowned partners. He has enjoyed a long-standing artistic partnership with violinist Nurit Stark. He is a founding member and artistic director of the Lausanne chamber music series Ensemble enScène. He also served on the jury of the Clara Haskil Competition in 2005 and 2007. He gives masterclasses in the USA and Europe. In 2012, he was appointed Professor of Piano at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève.

Classicpoint.net: Three years after winning one of the world's most prestigious piano competitions, the Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition, you were already a jury member at the Clara Haskil Competition. How did this change of scene feel?
In both cases, I felt like an outsider. The Gina Bachauer Competition was the first international competition I ever participated in. It also remains the only one. There were many pianists there who had already won major competitions. I wasn't so young anymore (26) and lacked self-confidence. All the other candidates played the great Russian virtuoso pieces; I played, among other things, the Goldberg Variations and a Mozart concerto, and I didn't believe I had any chance. The very idea of ​​participating in a competition was foreign to me. I'm not a competitive person by nature, wasn't then, and haven't become one. But I have to say that winning that competition did me a lot of good. Without it, I don't think I would have the same career today.
When I was a jury member at the Haskil Competition, most of my colleagues and fellow contestants didn't take me seriously, and rightly so: too young, too inexperienced. I also didn't quite know how to handle the whole situation, nor the playing of most of the young pianists, which seemed smooth and impersonal to me.
Above all, I hadn't yet grasped that the sole purpose of sitting on a jury (and the reason I do it occasionally) is to help talented musicians, to open doors for them, just as the jury members at the Bachau Competition had done for me.

What do you look for most when judging as a jury member?
I'm interested in pianists who have the ability to communicate with the audience, who can tell a story. It's a subtle blend of fidelity to the work and style, honesty, intelligence, spontaneity, and generosity. This naturally requires refined, solid, and versatile dexterity, which shouldn't be seen as an end in itself, but rather as a means of expression.

You are a founding member and artistic director of the Lausanne chamber music series Ensemble enScène. What makes this series special?
It has been taking place in Lausanne for 13 years, in a spoken-word theater run by a brilliant Colombian director named Omar Porras.
I have several goals there:

• I work closely with Omar Porras. We've already performed many projects that combine music, spoken word, and stagecraft (including a piece about Satie, one about Schumann and Novalis, and one about Chopin and Musset). Over time, my original role as a pianist has expanded somewhat. I now recite texts and move around on stage. I won't become an actor, but I enjoy experimenting in the theater.
• Organizing concerts where I have complete freedom in choosing the works and performers. I myself play a lot and enjoy performing in the concerts, but I also gladly invite other pianists and musicians. Since the beginning, there has always been a lot of new music included, and occasionally music from other traditions (North Indian classical music, African music).
• to bring people who normally go to the theatre to the classical concerts.
• to create a long-term relationship with an audience; there are people who have attended almost all of my concerts for the past 13 years, who have followed me as a pianist and programmer; I appreciate that very much.

You are a professor at the Geneva University of Music. What criteria do you use to select your students?
The most important thing is that the student has a good ear. Of course, this can (and must) be trained, but you also need a natural aptitude.
I primarily train future teachers. Very few will find a place on stage. I try to select students in whom I see the ability to convey their knowledge and passion for music. It's not always easy to recognize. Many are still shy at 17 or 18. Over the years, however, I try to develop a feel for it.
The prospective student must also be willing to discover and develop their own personality, must be open to experimentation, diligent... and pleasant to be around.

What do successful pianists need to learn during their studies?
There are so many important points, but I'd like to mention three here:

• To be able to practice well. Many young musicians practice poorly, pointlessly and cluelessly repeating the same passages countless times, practicing under pressure and without enjoyment. We pianists spend a large part of our lives practicing. It should always be a creative, non-automatic, positive, and physically relaxed experience. I show my students how they can achieve this.
• to release all unnecessary physical tension. Piano technique is complex and individual. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. It is also important for the student to explore where the center of their emotions lies, how to access it, and how to translate it into their piano playing.
• Being able to read texts well. First, what's written on the score (this requires a good knowledge of the style and language of the respective composers), and then what's hidden, what lies behind the notes, what the composer didn't want to write (or didn't consider necessary because he was writing for his contemporaries, who often adhered to only one style). Reading the text well also means imagining the path that led the composer from the blank page to the written word.

What were the three most important things you personally learned during your studies?

• To train the ear ever more finely, especially through transposition. I've spent thousands of hours transposing most of the pieces in my repertoire into all keys, using only my ear. Then the way of making music becomes less dependent on fingers and eyes; you hear and feel the harmonic tensions and the power of the intervals much better.
• to get to know my body better, to explore it and to use it more consciously with regard to making music and playing the piano.
• One sentence (among hundreds!) from a teacher that has stayed in my memory: what you are accused of, cultivate it, for it is your true "self" ("ce que l'on te reproche, cultive-le, car c'est toi", freely adapted from Jean Cocteau)

You recorded Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" at the end of September. Can you describe the process of engaging with this work leading up to the recording?
I learned the work as a teenager. At 18, I performed both volumes publicly for the first time, and later I played excerpts from them regularly. Then I didn't play it again for about 10 years. I started playing it again when I began teaching (2012). It's the work I teach most often. I learn a great deal from it. I performed both volumes several times in concert last season. At 41, it felt like the right time for me to record it.

What are your next projects?

• I am currently performing Bach's complete works in public. A long (comprising 12 concerts) and fascinating journey.
• I have been playing with the violinist Nurit Stark for 17 years. Now we would like to perform the complete works of Mozart.
• There are two composers from the second half of the 20th century who currently interest me greatly and whose works I would like to study: Gérard Grisey and Luigi Nono.

You are still young. What are your long-term goals?

• To continue immersing myself in the music I love and to share it with the most interested and receptive audience possible.
• To pass on to younger musicians what I have learned from other wonderful artists and through life experiences.
• I would also like to deepen my knowledge of jazz and improvisation.
• And I've recently started learning tabla. This instrument has always fascinated me. I find it interesting to learn a different musical tradition (from North India).

What interests and hobbies do you have besides music?
I read a lot; constant travel makes it possible.
I'm very interested in Central European literature, especially Hungarian literature. Otherwise, my great literary discovery of the year is the brilliant Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño.
I also really enjoy watching films (I particularly like Bergman, Antonioni, Godard, and David Lynch).

Interview by Florian Schär | Classicpoint.net | December 3, 2018
© Image: William Beaucardet