BBC Music Magazine

François-Xavier Roth

‘After the crisis,’ says François-Xavier Roth, ‘maybe we will play more for the communities. More for the people who live close to us.’

He’s talking on the phone from his southern French home in Nîmes in the Occitanie because his latest rendezvous with the LSO at the Barbican, where he’s principal guest conductor, has been an early casualty of the virus. He’s anxious to talk about what happens next.

Like all musicians, he’s concerned about the damage to orchestras, choirs and all kinds of ensembles – the less well-heeled, especially – who may find it hard to bounce back quickly, or at all. But reflecting the determined optimism of so many of them (what else is there?), he’s also searching for glimpses of light.

‘‘to Every rehearse time a piece we start , it is as if we are playing as an orchestra for the first time ’’

Roth is currently involved in Paris with an organisation

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