Vladimir Ashkenazy, the world-renowned pianist and conductor, has played with some of the world’s greatest classical musicians and held the baton before some of the world’s most respected orchestras. But he has a particular affection for the London-based Philharmonia Orchestra.
‘They were my first really great symphony orchestra I conducted,’ he enthuses, recalling his first conducting experience in London in the mid-1970s. ‘I had only [just] begun to conduct, and I was very underdeveloped…so they [the orchestra’s musicians] had a problem following me…but they were terribly kind to me, unbelievably kind,’ Ashkenazy recalls. ‘They said to me, “Look, we know you are just beginning, but we like what you want to do, your ideas…so please come back and conduct us again, because you will learn what to do and what not to do. But we like what you do, musically.” So they were very encouraging. I will always remember that.’
