Postcard from Daniel Hope
In SFGC’s Postcard series, our guest artists, collaborators, and faculty take us behind the scenes and share an intimate look into their thoughts about music, life, and art-making.
Daniel Hope, Violinist
This postcard features violinist and Music Director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra Daniel Hope. SFGC's Premier Ensemble will be singing with Hope and NCCO at our concert Sparkling Connections this week!
Violinist Daniel Hope is valued and celebrated worldwide for his musical creativity and his commitment to humanitarian causes. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, Hope travels the globe as both chamber musician and soloist, collaborating with leading orchestras and conductors. Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra since 2016, in 2018 he took up the same position with San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra. In 2019, he also became Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche Dresden, and he has been President of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn since 2020.
Hope works regularly with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Iván Fischer and Christian Thielemann, as well as with renowned symphony orchestras around the world and composers such as Alfred Schnittke, György Kurtág, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Tōru Takemitsu and Tan Dun. His discography includes more than 30 albums, which have received awards including the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason d'Or of the Year, the Edison Classical Award and the Prix Caecilia.
He discusses his musical history, present, and future below.
You have commissioned over 30 new works and consistently advocate for contemporary music. What is it about new music that compels you?
Most of all it is the contact with composers who are creating in the moment. I find it such an intense and rewarding experience to be able to ask them directly about their thoughts and their vision. Just last week NCCO was at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall with Jake Heggie, who has written a new work for us. He sat in on the recording session and was able to guide us through his unique sound world.
What has been the happiest accident of your career so far?
That probably dates back to my earliest years. My first appearance on stage was at age 5 at the Southbank Centre in London. I was with my violin teacher Sheila Nelson and we were a group of young fiddle-playing kids. The hall was full and I was nervous. Sheila had us stand in a circle and I was at the back.
The entrance to the stage was through a swing door, and yes, you guessed it: I was leaning against that door a little too much and fell backwards through it, disappearing from the stage. My debut was over before it had even begun. The audience roared with laughter and my teacher had to come and get me. But then comes the interesting part: as she led me back on stage, I felt the atmosphere in the hall was totally different. People were smiling, everyone, including me, was relaxed. Even though I was so young, it resonated with me immediately. Literally anything can happen on stage: but it’s not about what goes wrong, it’s how you continue from there on. I still think about it today.
In addition to your musical work, you also work as a writer. How do these two art forms cross-germinate and influence each other in your life?
I started writing for the school magazine when I was about 15. It opened up a whole world to me, which has, over the years, become more and more important. The emotions in the music we play are extremely charged, sometimes I find it really beneficial to channel some of them into words. I soon started presenting my own concerts and writing the liner notes for my albums; the next step was interviewing composers about their work. Nowadays I write scripts for music projects or my weekly radio show. I write almost exclusively about music and its history and I have learned so much over the years, much of which eventually finds itself in one way or another into my interpretations on stage.
What advice can you give to our singers that you wish you had received when you were their age?
In fact it is much of the same advice I was actually given! Always give 100% to your art, never compromise. Never take any performance for granted: however small or out-of-the-way the venue may seem, you simply never know who could be out there in the hall.
Nowadays we live in a very different world and technology plays a far greater role than when I was growing up. It's a lot easier to get your music out there. Put it on the net and make it as widely available as possible. You can find a dozen apps that connect a mike to your iPhone to give you studio quality sound. And you can edit it on your laptop. Or just record it on your smartphone and upload it. You can’t afford it? Get on to a crowdfunding platform – they have hundreds of projects, from recordings to debuts. I do think adaptability is crucial in today's world.
What inspires you about working with SFGC?
I simply love working with choirs. Recently I recorded a new version of the Misa Criolla, a piece I have adored since my youth. I sang in my school choir, Highgate School Boys, which had quite a tradition in English choral circles. It was life changing for me. I am absolutely thrilled to be working now with SFGC, to be reuniting the choir with our NCCO musicians and to do so in glorious repertoire, some of which has been specially arranged for this occasion.
What are some of your favorite albums? Why do they speak to you?
Handel’s Messiah with John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists is one of my favourites. Also Vaughan-Williams “Serenade to Music” is a work I love, not least for the way in which he uses the choir. And I made an album called “Spheres” with Simon Halsey and the RIAS Berlin Radio Choir, featuring a number of pieces for violin and choir.
What are you excited to work on in the future? Give us a sneak peek!
I just completed my latest documentary film for the ARTE TV network. It is about the search for the Hollywood Sound, featuring some of the extraordinary emigré composers who, in the 1930s, helped to create and shape that sound.