BRAVO! Interview

Audio Recording of Linda's Bravo Interview
- Right Click and Save As

Linda Shumas is a Canadian composer and pianist.

The classical trained pianist also draws upon Middle Eastern and other cultural influences.

Her third Cd, Voices From The Cloisters, comprises 17 original compositions.

Linda:
Well it all began at I guess eight years old, I wrote a piece called "Little Christmas Tree", and this started because of my first piano teacher, have to credit her for this, even though at the time she instilled fear in me because she used to have a steel pointer and every time I hit a wrong note, she hit, you know the hands with the steel pointer. So I thought well if I created my own music, she can't judge me.

Linda:
Well I don't write the piano music because I'm going to be performing it, and as soon as I write it down I start to see it as notes, and I like to create the music from sound and emotions. The pieces are like "structured improvisations" so they always appear the same, but they can have different embellishments, depending on my mood and I've, you know, it prevents boredom as well, for me, and the listener, and I didn't think that notes should be as important as the sound and the emotion coming from them.

Linda:
I look at the notes as a map, even if I'm playing Beethoven or Bach. I don't feel they wrote out their pieces for competitions or you know, they were artists.

Linda:
My music is very visual and its like a landscape, so I found different film makers, who approach me to use the music without me scoring the film, because they'll be inspired you know, get a lot of different idea's from the piece. I just did some for a film recently, well it's going to be on the internet called "Inferno", by Csaba Tomasi from Vancouver and its like 3D, graphic, images, and computer animaton, it's very beautiful and does my music justice just as well.

Linda:
My Music is about textures and colours, so I feel that's just an added dimension to it once there's a painting, or a dance, you know, its like an extension of the music, cause people like to to see things as well as hear them.

Linda:
I've been listening to a lot of different music, alternative music, but where the computer is used or, you know, electronic synthesizers, but I still get something out of playing the piano, so I've used those sounds and emulated them with my own techniques on the piano. And that's where I feel music is going into the 21st century.

Woods Music and Voices From The Cloisters were performed live at the interview.