Interview

50 questions to Paavo Järvi – Part 1

With 50 answers the new Chief Conductor and Music Director Paavo Järvi will take you through his first year in Zurich. 

Melanie Kollbrunner

1. Mr. Järvi, do you already know one word in Swiss German?
Pröschtli!

2. The life of a conductor in three words?
Love, preparation, jetlag.

3. The ultimate insider tip against jet lag?
It does not exist. Drink water, suffer.

4. Home?
Music.

5. The Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich in three words?
Talented, flexible, disciplined.

6. Where is it in ten years?
At the top. It will be one of the five best orchestras in the world.

7. Your musical first love?
Mozart. That was when I was very, very young, we listened again and again to the symphonies at home, conducted by Karl Böhm.

8. What comes to mind when you think of your father?
The love for laughing and music. I owe the music to my father.

9. What if you think about your mother?
A person who holds everything together. The rock of the family. Everyone made music, she did everything else. Everything.

10. What are you looking forward to when you leave the stage?
A nice, ice-cold beer.

11. How do you start your day?
With an espresso macchiato. I can not start a day without coffee. If I'm on vacation and on top of that lucky, then one of my daughters prepares it for me.

12. What's your favorite food?
The mushrooms we always brought my mother out of the woods as children. She served them to a sauce. Nothing has ever tasted better to me.

13. Your favorite restaurant?
Hard to say, there are so many. Generally it has to be big, we are usually a large group of people at the end. Food is best in society.

14. Do you cook?
Eggs, sunny side up.

15. What do you think about when you think of Zurich?
I think about banking.

16. About banking? We will ask you again in a year. Switzerland in three words?
Scenic, organized, private. Everyone around the world thinks they know Switzerland, and yet I believe that it is a pearl which needs to be discovered. The lakes and forests, the cities, the people.

published: 29.09.2019