She plays barefoot in jeans with a thrilling unpredictability that makes every show electric. Ahead of a performance that promises to transform the concert stage into a living room, we meet the whirlwind violinist
‘Something should happen in a concert,” says Patricia Kopatchinskaja. “I don’t know what. But every time, I’m expecting a miracle. I’m not very humble about this!” If audiences have learned to expect inspiring and surprising things from this restless and unpredictable violinist, that’s nothing compared to the standards she sets for herself. On stage, Kopatchinskaja is an impish presence, a coiled spring that could unwind in any direction. In conversation, she talks seriously and softly, yet every so often an idea forms that especially pleases her and her eyes get a mischievous glint – a look that, in performance, means she and her fellow musicians are indeed about to make something happen.
The musician is happiest at the centre of eclectic ensemble programmes that encourage us to listen actively and to be delighted, provoked or even scared: programmes that blur the lines between music and theatre. The latest example, with which she continues her residency at London’s Southbank Centre on 24 April, is Everyday Non-sense, which she has devised to play with Aurora, the UK orchestra known for mixing up the standard concert format and often playing whole works from memory. It’s billed as “a concert-theatre experience that transforms the stage into a living room”: one publicity photo shows Kopatchinskaja crouched next to a washing machine – she might be about to put a load on, or pick it up and hurl it across the room.
