Ani Aznavoorian began playing the cello at age 3 with one of America’s most beloved teachers in the Suzuki Method of musical instruction. In part 2 of our conversation with her, Ani talks about how Gilda Barston created an atmosphere of joyful engagement and community among her young students in Chicago. Ani learned through her own experience as a professor of cello that skilled early childhood teachers are the unsung heroes of music education.

In part 3 of our conversation, cellist Ani Aznavoorian talks about the despair she felt when the pandemic forced cancellation of so many performances, and how playing solo Bach on the patio of her Santa Barbara, California apartment was a profoundly healing experience. Ani shares how her embrace of new technologies is part of her new resolve to make music despite difficult circumstances.

Part 1 of our conversation with pianist Orion Weiss was recorded at the new SCMS Center for Chamber Music in downtown Seattle. Orion talks about how an international concert artist like himself adjusts to life during a global pandemic and how he has used the time away from the concert circuit to learn new works including Bach's “Goldberg Variations” and the hyper-virtuosic “Islamey” by Mily Balakirev.

During the regular concert season pianist Orion Weiss plays concertos with major orchestras. In part 2 of our conversation, he talks about the different “colors of adrenaline” he experienced early in his career when he was called on short notice to perform in place of prominent orchestral soloists who had taken ill. Orion also discusses how working with a therapist helped him learn to fall back in love with the Edvard Grieg Piano Concerto.

In the final part of our conversation with pianist Orion Weiss, he discusses an upcoming album featuring pieces dealing with grief and loss. Ravel honored friends lost in World War I in “Le Tombeau De Couperin.” Shostakovich reflects on a teacher lost in the wake of the Siege of Leningrad” and Brahms captures his mentor Robert Schumann’s fragile psyche in Brahms’ set of “Variations on a Theme of Schumann.”

In the final part of our conversation with cellist Ronald Thomas, he talks about his “quarantine project” in the months since COVID 19 interrupted concert life around the world. Ron has recently composed his own second cello part to accompany the six solo cello suites of JS Bach. He explains how this second voice provides a powerful teaching tool for the beloved suites.

In Part 2 of our conversation with cellist Ronald Thomas, we speak about the 4 decades that he has performed at SCMS, and how he has touched audiences with his beautifully refined sound on the cello. He speaks about a lifelong fascination with sound production, stemming from his close listening and analysis of symphonic recordings.

In our first ever podcast from the new SCMS Center for Chamber Music in downtown Seattle, Ronald Thomas remembers his friend Toby Saks, fellow cellist and founder of the SCMS festival in the early 1980s. Her legacy is felt strongly throughout the new facility.

Violinist Andrew Wan plays concertmaster in one of North America’s most admired ensembles, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. In Part 3 of our latest Classical

Conversation Podcast from the SCMS Winter Festival 2020, Andrew talks about how learning to follow the beat pattern of the orchestra’s conductor was a humbling experience.

In Part 2 of our discussion with violinist Andrew Wan, he talks about mastering the delicate art of “pushing back.” Andrew performs

with the renowned New Orford String Quartet. The members of the Canadian quartet are like family, but they are also first chair players of great

orchestras, each accustomed to getting his own way.