This content was created by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This content was uploaded by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This is a YouTube video excerpt (official trailer for Part 2 of Season 4 Episode 15, posted April 6, 2024) of a podcast-style interview featuring pianist Danny Holt and a host (labeled SPEAKER A). The host and Danny discuss Danny’s new album Trailblazers — a duo record with violist Molly Gebrian that presents transcriptions of cello sonatas for viola — and the backstory of how the project and chosen works (including pieces by lesser-known female composers such as Bosmans, Ethel [likely Smyth], and Dora Pejačević) came about. The trailer also directs listeners to the full episode, the album on asisproductions.com, and the show’s YouTube channel; thumbnail and metadata indicate this is promotional material for the episode.
your latest album called The Trailblazers with the violist Molly— how do you pronounce her last name?
Yes, good for you for asking because people usually don't get it right the first time. It's Molly Gebrian. Molly and I met when we were like 15 at a summer music camp, so we've been friends forever and we have very rarely actually been in the same place at the same time, but we really like collaborating, so we've created a couple projects as an excuse to to work together. And this most recent project, um, the album that was just released called Trailblazers, is no percussion on this one, just viola and piano. But they actually aren't viola sonatas, they are cello sonatas that Molly has transcribed for viola. The genesis of the project is kind of funny. Molly was cleaning her house and listening to something on YouTube, and then when the piece she was done listening to finished, YouTube autoplay started playing one of these cello sonatas. I don't remember which one was the first one, but, and she was listening. She was like, wow, this is a really cool cello piece. Like, and then she went and looked at the composer. She was like, I've never heard of this composer. And then the autoplay feature played another one of these cello sonatas by this, you know, not very well-known, uh, female composers from the late 19th and early 20th century. And again, so she had, so these 3 pieces came on back to back.
Wow.
And it was the same reaction every time. It's like, why haven't I heard these pieces? Mm-hmm. And these composers are amazing. And like, I think these would work well on viola, maybe. So Molly took it upon herself to transcribe these works for viola, and then she asked me if I'd be interested in performing and recording them with her, which of course I wanted to because it's right up my alley. You know, I love being able to showcase composers like this who have mostly been, you know, in obscurity. And the Bosmans in particular is a piece that really, really spoke to me. It's got that great early 20th century energy, and all of this music is very, very— it's very accessible, even though two of the pieces are from the early 20th century. They're, they're more backwards looking stylistically. They're more romantic.
And other two female composers you included in the album are Ethel Smith and then Dora— Dora Pejacevic.
And, you know, we're really excited to to have a chance to introduce this music to folks who haven't heard it before. You should hear Molly play because this sounds really, really great. Listen to a really good violist. It's an awesome instrument.
For our listeners, please check out Danny's latest album, Trailblazers, on asisproductions.com. If you haven't listened to the first half of this fantastic episode with Danny Holt, please check it out on your favorite podcasting platform. The video format of this episode is available on our YouTube channel. Check out all the links in our bio or in the description.
