Fabian Ziegler joins Orchestra Wellington with Luca Staffelbach for Spring Symphony, Odyssey of Sound and Day of Percussion. We sat down and caught up with Fabian ahead of May's performances!
Hello Fabian! We're very excited to have you here with us in New Zealand. How does it feel to be performing somewhere so far-flung given the difficulties we've all had to face for the last few years?
Hello! It is such a pleasure to be joining Orchestra Wellington in May 2022. After those long 2 years of not being able to travel with my music, I am happy to restart my journeys. It will be exciting to tour New Zealand with orchestral and chamber concerts.
You've performed at some incredible places and won some extremely impressive awards, especially given how young you are! Is it possible to pick out any career highlights so far?
It is hard to pick highlights of it. I see every concert, every award as a step on my journey. Especially the work together with John Psathas as well as some of my orchestral debuts and my appearances on many different stages in the world are for sure a big achievement. Next to playing as a soloist I am lucky to be able to play in chamber groups with amazing musicians, with whom I just recently won another competition, the first victory in the US with our Trio Colores.
We feel very lucky to have John Psathas as our Composer-in-Residence. What is it like to operate alongside him?
As I said before, my journey together with John Psathas is already very impressive. We worked on so many great works together and developed new, epic repertoire for percussion. I am extremely excited to show many of our collaborated works on our tour, especially the new double concerto “The All-Seeing Sky.”
Finally, perhaps a bit of a broad question. Could you give any words of advice to young, aspiring musicians who wish to emulate your level of success?
Get out of your practice rooms and show the people what you are doing. To work on getting better every day is a lot of work but you also need influences from all over the place to enrich your playing. Listen to other musicians, search for new repertoire and new composers and create your own profile. I am sure that working hard will bring success at one point. And success doesn’t always mean to play in the biggest halls with the biggest orchestras, but to be able to enjoy your job as a musician, play with interesting people, play interesting repertoire and enrich people with your art.
