A Bit of OptimismBreaking Tradition with cellist Anastasia Kobekina
Classical music could use a little disruption. For Anastasia Kobekina, that means playing outside of its rigid forms.
An accomplished soloist, Anastasia has played with prestigious orchestras all over the world. She also bangs on her cello, improvises with Vivaldi, and sings.
I was thrilled to sit down with Anastasia to discuss her musical experimentations and to hear her play some pieces from her remarkable new album Venice.
This...is A Bit of Optimism.
To learn more about Anastasia and her music, check out:
I like to talk to entrepreneurs. I like to talk to the people who are disrupting old industries and bringing a little innovation. Turns out, classical music is one of those industries that is ripe for a little disruption. How do we take something old and keep it relevant in our modern world? Stay tuned. Let's be honest. Most people think classical music is just good to relax to or play in the background or well for old people. That's why Anastasia Kobakina may be one of the most important young musicians of our day. Yes she was a child prodigy, and yes she's an award winning cellist who has soloed with some of the world's most prestigious orchestras. Unlike most of the other arts, classical music as an industry seems to be working hard to stay elitist and out of touch with the modern world. But not for long. Anastasia stop by to tell me what she's doing to make it relevant for a new, modern audience, and how she's doing it may surprise you. She also kindly brought her cello with her to play some tunes from her remarkable new album Events. This is a bit of optimism Anastasia. I can't tell you what a treat it is to sit down with you. I invited you into the podcast as an act of total selfishness because I'm a huge fan of yours, and to be able to sit with you with your magical strativarius cello is such a treat. Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you so much for your invitation. What a treat for me.
I'm a huge classical music fan. I grew up listening to it. I have friends who are musicians. And one of the things that's confounded classical music more than I think most of the other arts is how to keep it alive and keep it fresh for young people. You know. One of the big challenges that you know, some of the big orchestras have is their subscribers are just dying.
Yeah, but on other side, imagine you are turning sixty five or seventy or sixty, your kids are already grown up. Where would you go rock concert? Classical concert? Yes, yes, it's the place where you were this evening.
This is but this is something that I think that you are doing that's actually very important, which is how I discovered you. I discovered you in a very modern way on the Instagram, and you were playing the third movement of Vivaldi's A Minor Cello Concerto, and you did it differently than it's usually done. You were banging on your cello and you were giving it a youth and a vitality that that is uncommon, right, you don't bang on your cello when you play it. That's not normal. And I posted it. I reposted your clip and the number of people who fell in love with it and I and then your album came out and I sent that piece to a lot of friends and the number of people who aren't into classical music who fell in love with that piece. I think it is a gateway drug. And so I think you're doing I don't know if you even realize this, if this was your intention, but you're opening up classical music to people to appreciate that it can be fun, that it's not always serious.
Because classical music is fun just as any other music. Yes, it's just how to find that approach. I think, in a way, in classical music, there is every single you find in the pop music, there is a beautiful melodies, hunting harmonies. The all content is there is just the form. Sometimes symphony is forty minutes concerto, and you know, there's a lot of certain frames and rules that sometimes make difficult to new public to access it.
So I want to talk more, but I think for people who don't know what we're talking talking about, can you play that movement and have as much fun as you want to have?
Well, it's a movement reasonably, I know it.
I know it's with an orchestra, but we're gonna hear.
We're gonna hear the cello part because it starts.
It's such magic. I have to believe that in Vivaldi's time that was rock and roll.
Yeah, well, we don't know how it will be how it was. But the energy of the music, the pulsation there. Yeah, these carrying waves of music, they're almost physical. Yeah, and it's corresponds to us, the humans of today.
Yeah, when did you start banging on your cello?
Because I wanted to play a percussion instrument, and it's just, you know, that just came naturally. We were jamming with the orchestra and recording this movement, and I didn't know how it will turn out because everybody just suddenly we got into this flow of improvisation, and the violins were aiding some trills over there, and suddenly I found myself just doing and you know, it was just the music that was inviting us to add more to to yeah, to get free of the rules of the frame.
So how old were you when you started playing cello? That was four.
It was a baby cello, and I didn't like to play with the boy it was too boring, So I was just playing the pizzicato and singing to it.
And your dad's a composer, right, So you grew up with music in the house obviously, And did you want to play an instrument or did they sort of highly encourage you as a four year old to play one?
Well, it was just fun of making music. I enjoyed to sing, to dance, to play a little bit of cello. I didn't practice, you know, repeating the piece until it gets perfect.
And then when did you start How old were you when you started actually realizing that you were good and that you were actually taking it seriously.
Maybe at the age of nine or ten.
Okay, so still pretty pretty young.
Yeah, I think the pieces just got more complicated. So I realized to be feeling good on stage and maybe need to start to practice first of all, just maybe before the concert is a little bit. Then maybe one day before, two days before.
Wait say that again, you only practice two days before the concert.
Yeah, I realized that to be good, I have to maybe start a little bit in advance.
Oh yeah, two days a little bit. Sure. Yeah, So I mean I think that it's fair to say, and I think this has been said of you that you are a prodigy, or you were a prodigy, because to be to have that kind of talent that you practice two days before the concert.
And still pull it off at the age of ten.
At the age of ten, yeah, I think you know, there's a there's an inherent raw talent in there that that is exciting and rare.
I think it's a lot of environment and the support of parents. Of course, what would the others see in you as a child, And then you, of course focus on this and you see that you can you can be different, you can become get more. Laugh Also with plain cello, all little Humans of was seeking for the love and attention, and cello was also my tool of getting this a bit different and I had fun. It was not hard to work for me.
So you're from Russia.
You live now in Germany, Yeah, about twelve years.
Twelve years in Germany, and you live a life as a solo musician, a soloist, which means that you perform as a guest. Usually you're not in an orchestra. You don't have a regular day job in an orchestra. It's a hard I mean when I know of that life, it's a hard life. You're on the road a lot, right, because you play by invitation, and the invitations come from all over the place. And then you'll play for what three or four days. You probably go a little earlier to rehearse.
Yeah, there is one day of rehearsal, and usually next day there is a.
Concert, of course, because I remember, you don't need more than a day or two before. So you say, just like this, so you come for a day before for rehearsal. Obviously, if it's a difficult piece, you'll do some work before and then you have the performance, which is between one or three performances.
Something like this, Yeah, and then you leave. Yeah, that's a very short encounter. You have to find the chemistry between eighty musicians in the orchestra and the conductor. You have to find the way of approaching this piece because of course we studied everyone studied this at home, and then we meet. We have the scores and there is a conductor and we have to find this common language.
But it's the lifestyle that I'm interested because the only other profession that has that lifestyle of comedians, where your career requires you to just be on the road all the time. How does that affect you? How does that affect your energy, your social life, your ability to maintain friendships, relationships, you know, just like the desire to play music and the lifestyle that is required to play music to perform, at least they don't seem in simparaco. One is about being present and the other one is being on the road in airports and trains. Just tell me a little, what about sort of the life that you live. I don't think people appreciate how difficult it is to be a soloist in classical music.
Yeah, probably when you're doing this every day, you're not very much looking at this from a side, And yeah, I think the everyday challenge is for me is this preparation to the concert. You know, I want to be in my best at the concert moment. You know, when I come to the public, I want to feel my strengths. I want to feel the desire of being open and sharing the music. But sometimes I just wake up and I feel introvert and don't feel like living my path and also psychologically preparing myself for the concert, because every time it's never the same. I have, of course my doubts and weaknesses that I know I have, But in the moment of the concert, when I perform for the public lick, I have to feel just so open, you know, just feeling the light that is going from my chest, this desire of sharing all these emotions that are in the music. It's like one way from one concert to another, the preparation. There is certain point that I'm approaching, and I feel how I approach with it, you know, how I get anxiety, or how I get my heart beating faster towards the concert. How I feel today about standing there, vulnerable, open, desiring for this connection, desiring for communication with the people, because often people think that being in a concert it's a passive thing, not at all. I can exactly tell how people are listening to me. It's like telling a story to someone. You can tell how the other one is listening if it's maybe every third word or half a year, or is it really intensively as somebody goes with you. And I always desire for this connection, and the people in every place are so different.
I mean you're twenty nine, right, yeah, twenty nine, so you're young in your career. You've got a long career ahead of you, and so you have the energy to do it. And I can relate to what you're talking about. You know, when I started speaking a lot, I can always tell, as you said, I can give the same speech over and over and over again, like you can play the same piece over and over again, but it's different every time because it's the audience. And that's true. Actors talk about the audience. You know, how do you do a Broadway show the same time, the same thing every day, eight days a week, eight times a week. And it's the audience and the desire to connect and bring my message and be fully present with the audience. And there was excitement leading up, but then I always remember coming home, it's just like, oh, and I just want to stay home. And I never wanted to leave my house because I was out all the time. That being home was magical. The differences. I think the last thing I wanted to do was speak when I was at home. The last thing I wanted to do is have you know where you do? You play for yourself by yourself.
Sometimes less less but less. Yeah, of course I have certain certain deadline, the pieces that I have to, like an athlet you know, build the strengths, build the muscles for for this certain performance. And I have to of course catch up. It's a different pieces of music, so I I look how I prepare them over the next month and.
Get them in your fingers. Let's play a little more music. Is that okay? Yeah, I'm going to choose another piece from your album because I love it. It's another short one, the canto. This is not this is how old is this piece?
So it's from the movie Casanova. But since for to CELLI, you know, I have to pick up and I have and I have made a little version when I sing and accompanied to me like like it was at the very beginning when I was a kid.
Wonderful penn Ne Violence, Aparvy.
PENI a voluntary food again, Wolger, Larger lizy Wood Company, cerologic.
Sor just little Vinici And.
It's the thing that is unusual about your album as a classical music album, is it's rare to have one movement on an album. Usually it's a whole piece, a whole piece, a whole piece. And for people who so classical music, you know, a symphony usually has four movements. A concerto usually has three movements. Is that right? Yes, usually not always, and the three movements one is fast, one is slow, one is something else. And you don't necessarily like all the movements, but they always make sure you have all the movements on the album. You didn't do that like that Vivaldi, for example, You didn't put the whole piece. You put one movement. What was your thinking to be so selective and not push out you know this.
I just took the best, what I thought was the best.
And you know, in classical music, this is what I'm saying about the old mentality, it's sacrilege. It's considered a sin to break a piece, you know, Yeah, to only play one movie and not the whole not the whole piece.
But at the times of Beethoven, for example, they had the separate pieces. For example, Chopin, he never performed his piano and cello sonata as entire piece. He chose the second and third movement as his favorites, and it was you see it from the programs, there was just movement, separate movements. So it's actually their old tradition which is now seen a bit like, oh what this is not we played the whole the entiret thing.
Play the whole peace. But this is why I think you're important. And I said, and going right back to the beginning of the of our conversation, which is, I think you're very, very important for classical music because I think you're coming at it from a young person's point of view. You're bringing Instagram. I learned about you on Instagram. You know, you're bringing social media. You're changing the pieces to make them suit your mood. You're banging on your cello, you're singing along. You're putting one movement on an album because you like that movement better, you know. And I think what you're allowing new audiences to classical music. You're showing them is you don't have to be a snob, you don't have to like it all. But if the musician herself says, no, I'm putting this one movement on my album because that's the one I like. Then why do I have to listen to the whole piece. I can just go listen to the one movement that I like. And I think you're making music accessible. I really think what you're doing is probably bigger than you realize.
Indeed, I never thought about this, you know, I was just doing what I felt was fun for me. You know what you said, it's about the album. It's like playlist, you know, you put these things that you like and what I took this album as a playlist, though, So to create something, a little Venetian portrait of music that I thought was presenting it.
That's genius. That's exactly what you're doing. In a playlist society where we don't even buy albums, we buy songs. We don't even buy music. We stream it and we make playlists of a piece here, piece there. We break things up, we mix genres, and we are a playless society. We're not an album society anymore. And classical music is still stuck in an album mentality. When I go to the symphony, they play the first symphony, then they play the next symphony after the intermission, and I have to listen to two albums. But I don't even know I've ever been to a concert where it's just a movement here and a movement there, unless it's you know, a Pops concert or something. And I think what you're doing is is so important, which is you're bringing you're modernizing the way we listen to music. And as you said, this is how they used to do it. Anyway, it's a playlist mentality for a playlist world. Ah, brilliant.
We just found a new term.
Yes, we'll be right back. Where do you go when you play?
It's the one thing that I've always loved about great musicians when you see a soloist. There's something about a soloist or a great musician where and this is you could say this is a rockn roll as well or pop music where they get completely lost in their music when they start playing, they go somewhere. They're not just playing, they're not watching their fingers, they're not watching the bow. I mean you you close your eyes and I lose you while you're with your cello. Do you know where you go? Or do you just be? Like what happens when when you start playing?
I think it's like the other activities in life, is catching the floor Yeah, when you're in this moment of presence, you're just in the now and not in the past or in the future, and there's this precious moment of now. Because this is the only way of making music. Yeah, I play the music that is written already, but I improvise because I can shape some scene in so many different ways. Yeah, and like saying one phrase, like say in one phrase, yeah, Like with the text, you have so many things. And for example, the the first especially with music of Bach, Yeah, it's really eternal and you can play it in millions of variations, for example, the first prelude, which is probably the most famous cello piece, hm. And I can play it completely different I can play it or some other is shaping it differently. You know. It's that's what is beautiful about the music, about this timeless pieces that you can you can always find the reflection of you today's feeling, of your life situation in the music that you play, and you connect to your emotional world. And this is also the beauty of music, beauty of listening music, of or making music, because you connect to your emotions and this I think is very necessary thing.
Are you better at telling us your emotions? When you play cello, or you good at with your words? Like if you're trying to express anger or frustration or love to someone, are you good with your words? Or is it better that you pick up your cello and I know how you feel?
Probably I'm more clear with the cello because the words always tricky. You know, you you can always hide your intentions with it.
So what is about prelude when you're angry?
Well, it's hard to shape. Probably the first brilliant Yeah, it's so peaceful, it's so.
Of course you find the music if it's the movie. Yeah, of course, of course.
Just the coach. It's always, yeah, it just the coaches. The best really is the energy.
Oh yeah, But I think what you're capturing here is you know, it's what It's always been a pet peeve of mine when I say to people, oh, I love classical music, and they say to me, oh, I love classical music too. It's so relaxing, and I.
I was like, no, like no, like, yes, some of it is really, some of it is lovely.
But the stuff that I love, the stuff that I love, I don't like pretty music. And this is what I think is so magical about classical music which is it's so broad and there's so much there. There's stuff that's easy to listen to, that stuff that's difficult to listen to, that stuff that you can put in the background because it's just pleasant, like Paco Bell major key, and there's stuff that literally you have to concentrate because it's really hard. Shasta Covich is hard to listen to. If you're just learning classical music for the first time, you don't start with Shastakovich. It's too hard. You start with Mozart.
But at some point you get to rewarded.
And you get but you get to And I love taking friends to the symphony for the first time, and I always tell them, you don't have to like every piece. You don't have to like every movement. I love the Beatles, I don't love every piece on every album. You find the things you like, and it's like going to an art museum. You don't have to like every piece of art in the art museum. Find the piece you like and say, I like that one, and then find out who made it, and then go look at more of their work, and then find out who was making work at the same time, and go look at it's the same with music, it's an exploration.
Exploration to find what is reflecting in you, what is walking your memories, your emotions, how this music corresponds with you. Classical music is a bit behind some the other arts, yeah, the other arts, and there is a lot less experimentation on a big stage because maybe classical music is a definition of tradition, and there are some good things about traditions, but there are also I think this is the good balance of there needs to be a good balance between mixing the tradition with a new ways, new approach, new ways of presenting it to our modern times.
You know, it's I think you said it best, which is before we before we turn on the microphones, before we went live, we were talking about your cello, and your cello was remind me again the.
Year it was built, sixteen ninety eight.
So the cello was made in sixteen ninety eight by Antonio Stratavarius and it is a beautiful, beautiful cello. And Strata variuses have great reputations for their sound. They just sound, you know, musicians will tell you, we don't know what it is. They just sound better. And what we were talking about before the microphones went on is that you said that modern instrument making is so good that if you close your eyes it would be very hard to tell the difference between a modern cello that was made last week and astrad. But you said something about why you keep playing an old instrument that I thought was magical.
Yeah, it's piece of art, piece of history. Yeah, that is caring in it so much, and this ability of interact with it every day and to share it with so many people.
You said to me you were playing history, and I fell in love with that. I'm playing history. I mean, can you imagine the number of people who have played on this instrument in hundreds of years and the playing and will be playing it on hundreds of years after you. You know, good ones and bad ones, and you're playing a piece of history. It's not just the sound, it's what it represents, which I think is magical. But you said it right, which is and we have to update it. You're banging on a strad you know as well. You should. You've been so gracious to play a few things that I've asked, Like, when I write books, I don't have any desire to write unless I completely obsess about an idea. And when I'm obsessed. It's all I want to talk about. It's all I want to think about, it's all I want to read about. Then I was like, oh, I'm probably going to write about this at some point. Do you obsess about a piece you become because I can become obsessed about a piece, like I've listened to your your Vivaldi the third Movement. I cannot tell you how many times I've listened to it over and over and over and repeat, and like, I'll go a week and that's the only thing I'm listening to over and over and over again. It's obsessive because it's so good. And and by the way, I went and listen to other versions, yours is the best.
It's so good, right, it's improvised, it's so good.
Whatever, it's so good. Do you also become obsessed with a piece or a phrase that you just can't Yeah.
Of course, something that is. I think it's very much about how I feel in this moment because we find the how does say, like a music track of the life, you know, of a certain period of life that is just fitting the best?
What are you obsessed with right now? What's the piece that you whether you're performing it, or not, whether you're whether whether you're recording it or not. It's the piece right now that you when you pick up your cello and you're just sort of getting ready and you're you're warming up your fingers. It's just the piece that you you can't what's the piece that stuck in your head right now? If maybe you don't have one, but I'm so curious what's stuck in your head right now.
It's also the piece with this a bit of singing and by contemporary composer Petrislasks.
Wow, that is hauntingly beautiful and.
A different acoustics. It sounds so different than in the church. I just I played another concert two days ago in the church and I played it and gave me goose bumps.
Wow. I hope you record that. It's really good.
We'll be right back.
Can you tell me a story from your life, something you were part of, something you did. It doesn't matter if it was commercially successful or not, but something you did that you loved being a part of it. And if everything in your life was like this one thing, you'd be the happiest personal life.
It's probably happening now with this album. Venice the program that I chose, that I put together, and I have fully, you know, shaped the concert experience and listening experience of my audience. And I don't get that every every time. Usually the piece that I'm playing is chosen by the promoter and I'm asked to play it, and there is certain Yeah, of course I like this music, but I didn't choose it myself, and with the program that I with Venice, it's something that I it's it's mine and this is a very special feeling. And I hope I will I found this and I will I will do more of that in the future. Mixing different genres because music is music. I think one shouldn't separate it too much between the styles and genres.
Yeah, and you play some pieces that are from movies, you know, as well as with Vivaldi. Yes, famous classical composers. Tell me an early specific, happy childhood memory, something I can real love with you, something like I'm watching a movie, something that you can tell me that you can re love with me.
I remember that my grandma was not feeling well, and I think I was about six or seven, and I felt I wanted to do something for her. And yeah, everybody was a bit concerned, and there was some kind of tension moments, and I thought, yeah, I can. I can console her best with the with the piece that I just, you know, just learned. I remember getting in the in her room and getting everybody out of your little room, closing the door, and just just blamed for her little piece that I just learned. This is probably one of the moments when I realized that one can say more sometimes there's music, then with the.
Words thank you. What's beautiful about both of those memories, the one about the way you describe Venice your album, and the one that you describe about this experience you have when you're six or seven with your grandmother. In both cases, you chose what to play. In both cases, you use music as a way of communicating something that you said it so many times throughout this conversation with you. So many times I'll ask you a direct question and you say, well, it depends what I'm trying to give my audience. It depends what I'm trying to help them feel. You keep talking about the audience, not about them. Composer of the musician. When I talk to other musicians, they talk about the music, They talk about what Beethoven intended, what you know Bach intended, and what they're trying to capture from history mentioned none of that. And you've talked obsessively about the audience and how you are like your grandmother when nobody else knows what to do, this tension in the room that you have the ability to speak a language that tells people exactly what they want to hear in the time they need to hear it, Which is why it makes total sense why you would break with convention to pull a movement from here or a piece that's old combined with a piece that's new, Because it's not about taking music and putting in form aldehyde and preserving it for life, but it's about using it as a tool to communicate. And you are a poet, and you choose your music and you choose your notes like a poet chooses their words to evoke something in us that we need that we don't even necessarily know that we need at the time. And you have a tremendous range of emotions to share. And you I think you're I think you're a very important musician for all the reasons we've talked about. Because it's not about it's not about the composer. It's not even about the way that the notes are on the page. It's about what the notes are intended to do. They're a gift. Music is a gift, and I think classical music has such a range of emotions and such a remarkable ability to communicate that I honestly believe if you continue what you're doing, you will have an effect on this. If we come back, If you and I go to a concert of any of the major symphonies anywhere in the world, any of the major philharmonics anywhere in the world, if we go back and watch a concert together, in ten years, the way it's programmed will look nothing like the way music is programmed today, and the audience will look nothing like the audience has looked today. A lot of gray hair will be replaced by young people who are coming to feel something, not to sit in a witness history.
Yeah, I really hope for that too.
You you are continue playing for your grandmother, but we are now your grandmother. Thank you, You're amazing.
No, it's tell you, thank you. I didn't realize so many things.
Before today.
Good do you want to usher us out with something? You dealer's choice? You can you can play wherever you feel. Oh, this has been a magical treat for me. I can't even tell you.
I don't know. I keep thinking about this song. You can sing together, believe go do you love?
Yeah?
Yeah? Yeah h thank you, thank you so much, so good. Oh that was so good. I didn't expect that, perfect piece. Perfect peace. End Leonard Cohen, Thanks, thank you. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts, and if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website Simon Sinek dot com for classes, videos and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by David Jah and Greg Reiderschan and Henrietta Conrad is our executive producer.
