"So Studio Richter Mahr is a project which really is the outcome of an idealistic vision of how creativity can coexist with the broader community, but it's something that Yulia and I passionately believe in. We believe in the possibility of creative work having an elevating effect in society more broadly. And in a way, it's a laboratory. We're excited by other minds, other people with their own ideas, their own thoughts coming in. So it's a space where we can exchange ideas.

Well, Yulia is really important in everything I do because we have collaborated explicitly on some projects, for example, on Voices, that's very much the outcome of a million conversations we had. And she's made some beautiful visual material for that project. Sleep was a great long conversation between us. You know, we've sat around over the kitchen table for 20 years having ideas and talking to one another about creative ideas and approaches to how creativity can sit in the world, and what should we do next. And how's her work going and how's my work going? I mean, this is what we do. So if we're talking about sources, then I guess that's really the primary source. And then of course we're also on our own creative journeys, exploring, researching, and thinking.

A piece like Voices, this comes out of conversations Yulia and I were having in 2017, 2018 in a sort of Trump era, I guess, where you just think, hang on, this isn't right. What's going on here? Okay, so in the way that somebody who isn't an artist, they would just say that to their friends. They would have a conversation, "I don't like what's happening here. This is all wrong." Well, as artists, we also want to have those conversations. We also want to convey our thoughts and feelings about the world we're living in. And it was very simple, in a way, an intuitive response to the things we saw happening around us in our daily lives. Artists are of course just ordinary people, too. And it so happens that instead of having a conversation or having a coffee with a friend, making a piece of music about it - it's the same impulse."

Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams.

A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation.

Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo.

He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community.

www.maxrichtermusic.com

https://studiorichtermahr.com

Photo by William Waterworth

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Max Richter’s music featured in this episode is "On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks.

Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.