World-Famous Virtuosos Magic Brought to Everyday Family Life

Transcription

1 ORIGO World-Famous Virtuosos Magic Brought to Everyday Family Life Virtuosos is a unique programme worldwide. Other countries should also follow this example, this is how Plácido Domingo described the programme titled Virtuosos. He also stressed: it is a huge opportunity for young musicians to become widely known even before giving a concert as a soloist. The programme was invented by Mariann Peller in Back then, many people told her that it was going to be a special interest programme, reaching five percent admission at best. Conversely, Virtuosos outperformed major commercial TV channels in several evening broadcasts of as early as the first series in What s more, one of the broadcasts had almost the same number of viewers as the prime time programme of RTL Klub. Interview with Mariann Peller. You were conferred the Hungarian Golden Cross of Merit two days ago what did you think when you got to know that you were nominated for this award? Mariann Peller receiving the award Source: Mariann Peller It was unbelievable. My team and I work day and night, and we tend to forget what we have created, what a magnificent programme and movement Virtuosos is. And then, when we are granted recognition or we get an invitation to a major concert venue such as the New York Carnegie Hall, or perform at a concert with Plácido Domingo, that s when we stop for a moment and reflect on what we have achieved.

2 It was unbelievable. My team and I work day and night, and we tend to forget what we have created, what a magnificent programme and movement Virtuosos is. And then, when we are granted recognition or we get an invitation to a major concert venue such as the New York Carnegie Hall, or perform at a concert with Plácido Domingo, that s when we stop for a moment and reflect on what we have achieved. Mariann Peller, the founder of Virtuosos Source: Mariann Peller I contrived the idea of the programme in 2013, but this rate of success also required the involvement of excellent music teachers and expert audiences. I don t think this acknowledgement is meant only for me, but for the people I work with, music education in Hungary, and for the audience as well.

3 Where did the idea of Virtuosos come from? I studied marketing and I worked in the area of advertising and marketing for many years. The agency was successful, because that was the time when large international corporations entered the Hungarian market, but there were only few advertising agencies in the country as yet. After some years I wanted to try something new, so I started to organize classical music concerts. I saw that it was very difficult to fill theatre halls and concert halls by advertising classical music concerts. I also realized that there were less young people both among audiences and musicians. Obviously, this is not the case everywhere, it was just my own experience and observation. Mariann Peller founded the Virtuosos Source: Eszter Gordon Later on, during a tour in France I noticed the same: there were few youngsters attending concerts, and auditoriums were only half booked. Now, that s when the idea came up. I invented it there in France. One evening I was thinking about how good it would be to combine modern and trendy talent scouting programmes and eternal classical music.

4 These programmes were extremely successful and drew very large audiences, each commercial channel produced something similar. I knew the Hungarian programmes, but the foreign ones I didn t. I started to study similar programmes in other countries. I could not find a talent scouting programme format for classical music. Then, after lots of analysis, the current format of the Virtuosos talent scouting programme evolved. The working title was Classic Talents. I did know for sure, even back then, that we must go on supporting the children even after the programme series, possibly through a foundation. I also considered it important at the very beginning that these small talents should not be created or made, but should just be discovered by the programme. This is quite enough. And the third important component was that we shouldn t show failed productions fortunately, there weren t any, as all the children came prepared, even for the pre-selection sessions. What feedback did you get when you first proposed the idea? Most people said that it would be a special interest programme, with few people interested, and we should be happy to reach five percent admission. Everybody was a bit sceptic. Then I talked to all three major TV channels in Hungary MTVA, TV2 and RTL Klub each of the three channels showed interest. We were about to conclude a contract with one of the production companies of TV2, but then we listened to our professional advisors and decided rather to show this classical music talent scouting programme on public service television. Virtuosos was launched with the first series on M1 in 2014, and we realized that it had enormous success. Virtuosos is a combination of trendy talent scouting programmes and classical music Source: Ágnes Horacsek

5 You said it was predicted that you should be happy to reach five percent admission for the programme. In fact, how many people viewed Virtuosos? There was a vast number of viewers even as early as the first season in The admission of our second programme on October 24 was higher than that of TV2 in the same time slot on the same day, and almost reached the number of viewers of RTL Klub. That evening, RTL Klub had 920 thousand viewers, and Virtuosos had 890 thousand. This was a great result, particularly because Virtuosos is a classical music programme. I think the programme has become so successful because we have tremendous talents in Hungary; in addition, classical music education in Hungary is done at a very high level, and as I ve already mentioned, we are infinitely grateful to musical audiences as well. Almost a hundred thousand people follow us on the community site to this date, with regular comments by fans; we have posts receiving thousands of likes, and nobody has ever written anything bad or any negative opinions. And we are really happy that there are no spelling errors in comments, there is no hatred, just love and praise. I feel that we re heading in the right direction and we re going on with our work to discover even more young talents. You know, the fantastic thing about this programme is that we find talented children at an early age, who may be studying let s say somewhere in the country where few people know them. I m absolutely certain that many extremely talented youngsters would have been discovered later on anyway, but the programme has accelerated this process by 3 to 4 years; and there are also some children involved in the programme who can only pursue a musical career if assisted by the Small Virtuosos Foundation. Besides, talents are supported through our foundation after the programme as I mentioned before, this is a fundamental rule that we go on holding the hands of children and youngsters. Twenty children get monthly stipends, an average of HUF 80 thousand, depending on how much they are in need. A violinist little girl discovered in one of the programmes, Vanessza Kormányos, receives extra support as her disease requires special care. We organized a charity auction to sponsor her, which was also a huge success. A great many valuable objects were sent to be auctioned by the audience, including a Zsolnay vase and a painting about the little girl.

6 It was fascinating and very touching to see that people join to help the afflicted little girl. The money collected was spent on medication, vitamins, and special equipment. Members of the foundation include Erika Miklósa, András Batta, Radovan Jelasity, the Batthyany family, and even Plácido Domingo s manager, Nicolas Marko helps us make Virtuosos talents even more popular throughout the world; and the honorary president of our foundation is Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog. How did you devise the programme format? We compiled it with a creative team, let me express my thanks, among others, to Dániel Vadász, György Koós, Szilvia Szarvas and Gabi Illés we ended up with a format description of 600 pages. Then we shot the first series by having one person standing beside each of the director, the lighting engineer, and the cameraman, taking notes all throughout. This was very important and the work in fact went on much more easily and seamlessly when the second programme set was produced. Now we are in a so-called executive supervisor" position, meaning that if the production is taken over in any foreign country, we are the ones to determine what the main title should be, what the creatives should be like; we can stipulate the fundamental rules of the programme, for instance that only the jury can make a decision and the audience is involved only in the end, when the winner should be selected from among the three youngsters qualified for the finale. Virtuosos will go abroad Source: Csaba Talán

7 Does this mean that Virtuosos will go abroad? Yes, classical music TV shows of the same kind are produced in a number of countries in the world based on Virtuosos. At the Cannes meeting of TV professionals we concluded an agreement with Dick Clark Productions, one of the world s largest distribution companies. We did not sell the format: they may sell the programme throughout the world, but we can also contract with anyone. Actually, several parties applied, including Rocket Pictures Elton John s company, but they expressly wanted to buy the entire format. Their offer was very promising, but in the end we decided not to sell it. Indeed, we would have been deprived of our role to guarantee long-term operation. We could not have regulated the proportions of classical music and crossover, that the jury should actually make a decision, and that the future of the children should be assisted even after the programme. By the way, does the proportion of classical music and crossover music change through countries? Of course, it needs to be agreed on. In the US, for instance, it will be fifty-fifty. China, however, wants to have a hundred per cent classical music. We conducted negotiations in Thailand as well, where popular music would be deemed as important in the first round using their own folk instruments. Talents from Virtuosos perform at the largest classical music concert halls in the world Source: Csaba Talán

8 Going back to Virtuosos in Hungary: children and youngsters were invited to a great many concerts abroad after the programme. Could you list the grandest performances? Well sure we are very proud of them, and we ve had unbelievable concert experiences. Performances included New York Carnegie Hall, Berliner Philharmonie, as well as Toronto, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo... Do you accompany the children and youngsters everywhere? I escort them to most places and help them. It is an amazing feeling that people wait for us at the airports as Hungarians abroad also follow the programme through the Médiaklikk application. The children can feel as if they were little stars. This has not really been a characteristic feature of classical music. And the Hungarian Television comes with us, recording the concerts in Berlin, New York or Paris, wherever the youngsters perform, and we are really grateful for this. For example, Misi Boros gave a concert at the Paris climate change conference, and he was the one to play the national anthem at the 2016 Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, where he was congratulated by Hamilton, his great favourite, who asked him to be his piano teacher. It was a tremendous experience. We always say that there can be no more than this, but then the children get still more invitations to new and special venues. We were on a tour in Pakistan with Misi Boros and his parents, giving three concerts on invitation by the embassy. It was incredible that cameras were awaiting us at concert locations, because there it is not typical for children to learn music at such an early age, let alone to perform at such high standards. Indeed, this is also a challenge for us, to show these talents, or even the programme, in countries where it is not a general phenomenon to learn music. Perhaps the programme will induce more children to start taking music classes.

9 Performers from Virtuosos may set an example to the next generation Source: Csaba Talán By the way, can this be demonstrated in Hungary? Yes, after the first season, there were 14% more applications for music school studies. And not only children started to learn music, but adults as well. We did some magic to re-introduce classical music to people s homes and everyday life, and many people took a liking to classical music and musical instruments. This was a bit conscious on our part. In fact, the programme was built up to delay the performance of heavy classical music pieces difficult to understand for viewers. At the beginnings, we only fed teaspoonfuls of classical music, and in between, the children were introduced in short films. Then, as the programme went on, and less and less children featured in the contest, music obviously gained more and more ground.

10 But even at this stage, the youngsters not only played classical music, but lighter styles as well. We also took care that guest performers should play in a little bit lighter style in the programme. In the first season, one of the greatest crossover orchestras in the world, The Piano Guys came to Hungary and gave a concert with the children. And our guests also included 2cellos, performing a Michael Jackson adaptation Smooth Criminal with the children. 2cellos were extremely nice to deal with the children, playing with them and laughing together, spinning their cellos which the small ones really liked, so we loved to work with them. How can the children digest this sudden immense success? We talk to them a lot, together with their teachers and parents, of course. In addition, winners are delivered a presentation by the CEO of one of the banks on how to invest their winnings. Because it is also important for them to learn to make savings. Success is sometimes only temporary. What can children do make success sustainable? They must practise this is the most important thing. They don t need to accept all requests, it s enough to perform at the most important concerts. Besides, they must practise, improve themselves, and learn new programmes. They should listen to their teachers, attend high-standard master classes, and practise, practise, and practise these are very important things I think. Talent is indispensable, of course, but perhaps even more importantly it should be accompanied by diligence.

11 Is there any information on what the next season of Virtuosos will be like? This year will involve solo Virtuosos featuring Hungarian youngsters; we are very proud to have now on the jury of Virtuosos István Várdai, the best cellist in the world, and pianist János Balázs, also a world-famous performer. And the year after in 2018 we are going to produce Visegrád Virtuosos, looking for talents in the countries of the Visegrád Group. Eligible applicants include Hungarian talents who have featured in earlier broadcasts or even qualified for the finale, but we also expect new talents to apply. This will be followed by my favourite, chamber music Virtuosos. I m really looking forward to this season because it s a very exciting journey for an orchestra to get to the point of going out to the stage in formal wear, properly prepared, and to play their piece. This will also be shown I mean the process of preparation in that season, in the form of reality shots. And afterwards, composer virtuosos will be competing according to our plans. Here we may not be looking for small Mozarts. Obviously, it s not a problem at all if we find some. But we will rather be looking for youngsters who compose excellent music for advertisements, feature films, chamber pieces, or even operas. As early as last year s season, we were fortunate to reveal the talents of Apor Szüts, who is not only an excellent pianist and conductor, but a fantastic composer as well: we work a lot with him, and are now going to publish his composition titled Grotesque tango. At the filming of Virtuosos Source: Judit Marjai

12 Then you will bring magic to homes and living rooms through classical music for years, with even more people taking a liking to classical pieces. After some years, it might not be so difficult to have concert halls fully booked... I hope it will be like that. In order to achieve this, we make efforts to make the programme even more interesting. We will show the children in close-up as well: how they live, what they do in their free time, and how much they practise. Besides, we ll go on with our not showing failed productions. But believe me, not only because this is a concept, but also because the children do not fail indeed. What they know sets an example, even for us. I m confident that the talents of Virtuosos can also serve as role models for the next generation. They are incredibly strong-willed and diligent. You know, when we arrived in Paris for a performance, it was around 2 o clock p.m. After packing their things out, the children started to practise at once. I had to call them to stop practising and set off for Disneyland straight away. I wanted them to relax a bit, to have some fun and play in the theme park. But still, they were very reluctant to stop practising. They know so clearly and precisely what they would like to achieve that they only deserve compliments. I think we are the ones to look up to them many times.