the Extra Half

A conversation with Amarins Wierdsma, Dutch and American violinist. We talk about what it means to understand how a country works, and about how directness can be valued very differently in different contexts and cultures. We also talk about differences in musical education in the United States and in various countries in Europe, how the balance between formality and informality has shifted linguistically and culturally over time, and the aftermath of colonialism in the Netherlands and in the USA.

A conversation with Edoardo Ballerini, Italian and American narrator and actor. A two-time winner of the Audiobook Publishers Association’s Best Male Narrator Audie Award, Edoardo has recorded nearly 300 titles, from classic works by Tolstoy, Dante, Kafka, Whitman and Camus, to best-sellers by James Patterson and David Baldacci. We discuss growing up bicultural, ways in which being Italian and American is different from being Italian-American, and how his career as an actor and as a narrator were both influenced by his biculturalism, albeit in very different ways.

A conversation with Jakob Nierenz, cellist. Jakob’s parents are German and African-American, and he grew up in Lüneburg, Germany. We talk about his two years spent in the United States pursuing a Master’s degree at Rice University, his work with Ensemble Reflektor, and about the importance of meaningful programming in classical music. We also compare the ways in which the United States and Germany have traditionally looked at their own past, and the role of nationalism in both countries.

A conversation with Martina and Costanza Pereyra, Italian and Argentinian sisters who grew up in Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Martina is studying at the Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti in Milano, while Costanza studied at Warwick University and the London School of Economics, currently serving as Marketing Coordinator at NBCUniversal Media. We talk about what it means to grow up as third-culture kids and the challenges of having to start over in each new country as well as the special bonds and friendships within their international communities. We also talk about the responsibilities that come with being bicultural and about how to bring multiculturalism to the workplace and to the table as a positive force.

A conversation with Julia Hartley, who was raised in Belgium by English and Italian parents. Currently a full-time researcher at the University of Warwick, she has a PhD in modern French and medieval Italian from the University of Oxford and an MA in Iranian Studies from the SOAS university of London. Julia is currently working on her second book, which looks at the portrayal of Iran in 19th century french literature and we talk about one of the defining characteristic of her academic work: finding connection between time periods and cultures which, at first glance, seem to have very little in common. We also talk about her experience learning Persian, her work in theatre, and the screenplay for a television series that she has written in the last several months.

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A conversation with Robertas Lozinskis, pianist. Robertas' family is Russian and Jewish and he was born and raised in Kaunas, Lithuania. We reflect on the toll that fascism and communism took on his country and about his belonging to ethnic minorities that were often in tension with the local population. We talk about his love for Lithuania that stops just short of patriotism, about the importance of assimilation, and about how history bleeds into the present in ways that, while difficult to face, cannot be avoided. Robertas tells us about the festival that he co-founded, Kaunas Piano Fest, and how it changed him as a musician and artist. And we talk about his incredible passion for geography which has accompanied him for over two decades.

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A conversation with Natalia Kitamikado, designer. Natalia is Japanese-Polish and was raised in both countries. Active in product design, scenography, and costume design in opera, theater, dance and film, Natalia has worked extensively with director Krystian Lada. They, with set designer Didzis Jaunzems, have recently been selected as one of three finalist teams for the 2020 Ring Awards. At the time of our conversation she had just become a mother, as her first daughter was only eleven days old. And in this very special moment of Natalia’s life, we talk about the shifting role biculturalism can play in childhood, adolescence, professional life, and now motherhood and planning for the future.

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A conversation with Muriel Razavi, violist. Muriel is Persian-American and was born and raised in Freiburg, Germany. She obtained degrees in viola performance at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler and the Universität der Künste, Berlin, additionally studying “the History and Culture of the Middle East” and “Religion and Culture” at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Humbolt Universität. We talk about what happens when the countries we identify with are in conflict, the importance of understanding the past to understand the present, and the parallels between biculturalism and “bi-professionalism”, which are many and rarely discussed.

If you’d like to support our work, please visit https://www.patreon.com/theextrahalf