Hip-hop artist and classical violinist, Miki Kekenj, joins the podcast to discuss the Concerto Köln education project, Speak!. For this project, the period-instrument orchestra, Concerto Köln combined to play the Mozart Requiem with the period-instrument youth orchestra, Jugendbarockorchester Rheinland, and the choir of the famous Cologne Cathedral, the Judgendchor am Kölner Dom. As well as playing the complete original piece, in between several movements, they also performed rap versions with classes of 8th grade students, taught and coached by Miki. He arranged the raps himself, while he taught the students to write the rap lyrics themselves. Miki taught these students about Mozart, the song-writing process, and bigger lessons of creativity and how to work together.

We also talk about Miki’s musical life, which is split between what many people would think to be two opposite types of music. Miki is the concert master of the Bergische Symphoniker and discusses how he got into hip-hop as a teen, how these two types of music have shaped him into the musician he is today, and how he can use rap to bring a new audience to classical music.

Marie speaks with her colleagues, specialists of historical performance, about their original wind instruments. They tell the stories of their favorite instruments - where and how they got them, and what they had to do to play it again today!

German oboist, Peter Wuttke, talks about the English Horn by Carl Theodor Golde that was played in the orchestra in Weimar that Liszt was conducting. He tells us about how he used this instrument for a recording of the Liszt Dante Symphony.

Italian clarinetist, Luigi Magistrelli, tells us the incredible story of his set of clarinets that he acquired from the legendary player, Dieter Klöcker, just before his death. We hear all about these instruments, their history, and Luigi's personal experience of playing them and recording his CD of Brahms chamber music with them.

Argentinian historical trumpet player, Alejandro Sandler, chats with us about his cornet by Thibouville-Lamy which was owned by a student of Jean-Baptiste Arban. He plays the Carnival of Venice on this cornet and on the modern trumpet so you can hear the difference!

In this episode, Marie and her early music colleagues from the wind section share stories about one of their original historical instruments. These stories are not only about the instruments, but about the players who have found them, restored them, and perform on them today.

In many cases, these were instruments that were covered in dust and grime and in various states of disrepair when they were found. To most musicians they would look like trash, or something to be made into a lamp - but to specailists in historical performance who know what to look for, sometimes these instruments are highly coveted. These musicians know how to clean them up and how to play these old instruments again to give them a new life.

Marie shares the story of her early 20th century Oskar Oehler clarinet played in the Bayreuth Festspielorchester.
Belgian horn player, Jeroen Billiet, talks about his 1847 Van Cauwelaert 3-valve horn with a "Belgian valve system".
Adrian Rovatkay, German bassoonist, chats about his 1760 Schlegel early classical bassoon.
And Michael Lynn, American historical flute specialist, tells us about his baroque Palanca flute!

Flute player and conductor of Les Ambassadeurs, Alexis Kossenko, demonstrates some favorite flutes from his collection. He takes us from the modern flute through the renaissance, baroque, classical and romantic periods. Some are copies of historical instruments made by modern instrument makers, and some are original instruments from the period.

He tells the stories of these very special instruments, how he found them, about each of their specific idiosyncrasies, and which period and type of music they would be played for.

Alexis has a collection of 65 flutes, representing each period of the history of the flute. Take this special opportunity to hear about some of the instruments from his collection!

This episode is about the newly released recording of Mozart's opera, Cosi fan tutte, by Russian orchestra MusicAeterna and conductor, Teodor Currentzis. This recording was made over two weeks in January in Perm, a Russian provincial city close to the Ural Mountains.

Marie talks about her experience making this recording in Perm and what it was like to play in a Russian orchestra. Playing musical clips from the recording, she recounts stories and anecdotes from the making of these CDs, and talks about the history of the orchestra, and how their philosophy is so different from other classical music ensembles today.

     To buy the new Cosi fan tutte with MusicAeterna and Teodor Currentzis, please check out these links:

CD: http://smarturl.it/tc-cosifantutte-del

iTunes: http://smarturl.it/tc-cosifantutte

Vinyl: http://smarturl.it/tc-cosifantutte-vin

Flutist and conductor, Alexis Kossenko, joins the program to discuss the melding of his two passions. He chats about his early life and how he got started on the flute at an unusually early age. Although he had an early and precocious interest in conducting, he explains how that came later after he had already established himself as a performer and soloist.

Alexis takes us behind the scenes and describes the process he had to go through to create a successful orchestra from the ground up. He talks about some of his favorite music and some upcoming projects that he is working on for the future.

During this podcast, Alexis shares with us 6 musical clips from performing the Nielsen Flute Concerto at age 19 to the latest CD that he has made with his new orchestra, Les Ambassadeurs.

Michael Willens, conductor and founder of period-instrument orchestra, Die Kölner Akademie, talks about his experiences as a musician of many different genres, and explains his reasons for performing 20th century music with historical instruments. He also shares some samples of various recordings he's made with Die Kölner Akademie.

Michael is the definition of a well-rounded musician, from an early focus on jazz and rock, to studying the classical bass at Juilliard, and eventually moving to Europe to found and conduct his own period-instrument orchestra. He discusses his past and how it has effected him as a historical musician and conductor today in the early music scene.