YPAW 23: Emily Koh

You Play A What?

Have you ever spoken to someone for the first time thinking that you would be quite far apart in terms of the way you think about your work and life but it turns out not to be the case and you end up being pleasantly surprised? This is what I felt before my chat with Emily, although in our brief Zoom calls she was very warm and friendly in our discussion, I've learnt to never assume. Turns out we have more in common than we thought...

We spoke about Emily in Atlanta (not Paris), which was the first city I travelled to on my own. I was there for the International Euphonium Institute (now called the IET Festival) organized by Adam Frey and held at the Emory University, which is apparently not to far away from where she lives! In terms of music, it is no surprise that for a composer like Emily is, she is constantly pushing boundaries and generating new repertoire for different people/groups. I particularly like her take on staying current and relevant in the progressing art scene and perhaps romanticizing in music written 300 years ago might not be ideal, which I agree! Below is a quote from one of her recent Facebook post "We cannot just twiddle our thumbs and wait for the day we can go back to the same old ways again. This is not how an artist or creative community works. We adapt, we change, we try new things, we work and we reinvent. In doing so, we stay relevant. Sometimes we fail spectacularly, but maybe, just maybe, we will discover new paths to similar goals."

So you can imagine, the rest of the conversation was absolutely brilliant! Tune in to find out more!

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the podcast! You can get in touch with me through https://www.youplayawhat.com . Subscribe and share this podcast with your friends if you enjoyed the episode. Feel free to leave a rating and review on which ever platform you choose to listen to your podcast!