Leila Josefowicz: The thrill of the new

London, UK

Classical Music News for 2010-07-31

This, actually, is what the Proms  are all about. Not the tradition – yes, OK, the tradition, if you must, continuity's such a favourite paunchy uncle – but the quiet way in which genuinely young people excite genuinely old people with genuinely new music. Leila Josefowicz seems to be the world's most driven pin-up and gong-banger for it all. It doesn't hurt, not looking like the back end of a six-buttocked pig. Canadian-born violinist Leila, now 32, was actually the face of Chanel's Allure perfume for a year, but dismisses that with a quick smile – "Oh, it was just a small time in my life" – before talking, urgently, about music. She is excited not just about performing a new 20-minute violin concerto by Colin Matthews, but about doing so during the Proms, to Londoners. "I love the way that people, especially here, are listening to new music, completely new stuff. Older people, younger people. There is, today, a far greater openness to new sounds: they listen, here in London, in all of Europe, really, in a very honest way, with perhaps less judgment than before. People, of all ages, are far more open than you might think to being moved in new ways." (The Guardian)

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