MDW ARTIST PORTRAIT VIDEOS

I’m Martin Castro Tubio, and I come from Spain – from Rianxo in Galicia. And I play the saxophone.

My saxophone is like a companion to me; I’ve had the same saxophone ever since I was maybe 12. I studied in Majorca, and my saxophone was with me; I came here, and my saxophone came here too. I do believe that I’ve never flown anywhere without my saxophone – so whenever I travel, my saxophone is also with me. I’ve spent more time with my saxophone than I have with my family and friends.

Back when I was a kid, I did a lot of bad things with my saxophone – and by now, it does feel to me like it’s a little bit old and sick. But it works great, and we get along well together.

I decided I wanted to become a saxophonist back when I was 18. Up to then, I’d been really into all kinds of things, practicing maybe just once or twice a week so that I could have a good lesson. It was once I’d turned 18 that I decided to become a saxophonist because that’s what seemed most fun to me, and it turned out to be a good decision.

Alfred Desenclos is very special to me because he isn’t famous: he wrote several choral works and also some works for the double bass. He didn’t write all that much, but he’s very important for the saxophone.

I feel that it’s very easy to say something, to show various colours, and I’m also very fond of how it speaks with the piano.

I want to convey everything to the audience; it’s perhaps the case that I have a very specific story. But then the audience thinks something different; they take my music to be something different. What’s very important to me, at any rate, is that I say something. The listeners can understand what they want, interpret it as they will – but for me, the very important thing is that I say something with my music.

My name is Mitra Kotte, I’m a pianist, and I come from Vienna. My first name, Mitra, comes from Persian; my mother is from Iran, but I definitely do consider myself Viennese through and through. I’m very thankful, though, to have also had the experience of this second culture.

I started playing piano at age 4, which is also when I began at the mdw. The approach to things was always very playful; I always had my dolls on the piano, Barbie dolls... Music has always been part of my everyday life, and I’m incredibly grateful that there was never any pressure on me at home to choose piano playing as a profession. But I did always enjoy support and encouragement, both from my parents and from the mdw.

I’ve since spent a year in Korea, at the Korean National University of Arts. That year abroad is another thing that the mdw made possible for me, and in terms of my artistic and pianistic skills, it was incredibly important for me to spend that year there. I picked up a whole lot of new impressions and a truly different approach to things, including to music-making in general and to learning new pieces.

What I find especially exciting is to visit countries where I wouldn’t go simply as a tourist – countries like Albania, Tunisia, Lebanon. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to get to know these cultures and people that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to know otherwise.

The pieces I play in concert are always ones that are very, very close to my heart, that I’ve really learned to love, that inspire me, pieces where I can express myself best or most. It’s also true, of course, that my approach to individual works does change over the years. You set a piece aside and play it again a year later, and it’s naturally the case that in every passage, every phrase, you hit upon these new experiences you’ve recently had, experiences you can express anew in these pieces, for which reason they constantly change. The goal, in any case, is to give rise to these moments where you feel connected with the audience. That’s why people go to concerts, after all: you want to experience something, to have seen something, to have a feeling that you’d perhaps been missing on that day, and to go home with new impressions.

I’m Carlos Aguilar Vargas, I play double bass, and I come from Punta Arenas, Chile. I study at the mdw, and I’m also a member of the Orchestra Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Even as a child, I was fascinated by the sound of the double bass. And by how big it was, and how you could play lots of different styles of music on it – classical music, jazz, folk music, whatever. I started playing double bass myself when I was nine years old; that was at school when we got a new string teacher – he taught violin, viola, cello, and bass. So I gained admission to his course and started learning how to play the instrument with him.

The Orchestra Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic is a course that lasts two years; it includes instruction from the soloists, and we can also play with the Orchestra – on tours, in concerts, and in recordings. One really touching moment for me came when I played Mahler’s 9th with the Vienna Philharmonic; we were being conducted by Franz Welser-Möst at the Musikverein, and it was a really special experience for me. The thing that stood out for me most, playing this symphony, was the last movement – the Adagio. There was such a calm at the end – I can’t put it into words how beautiful it was; I really just wanted to cry. I’d always dreamt of playing with the Philharmonic, and being able to do so now is like a dream come true.

I selected this piece because the Intermezzo’s melody is one of the most beautiful ever written for the double bass. Reinhold Glière also wrote three other works for double bass, and all of them are really nice. I do think one can demonstrate a lot of things with this piece, too: lots of colours, contrasts – and it’s also one of my favourite pieces.

I’ve also had the opportunity to play in various concert halls, like the Konzerthaus and the Musikverein here in Vienna, the Berliner Philharmonie as well as the Elbphilharmonie and the Alte Oper in Germany, and Carnegie Hall in the USA – which was really special for me, and I’m very grateful for the experience.