TEHRAN – French musician Nicolas Krauze who will accompany the Tehran Symphony Orchestra as a guest conductor during its upcoming two concerts has called the program a difficult task.

“My plan is first to work as well as possible with the orchestra in order to produce the best possible result for the audience; the program is not easy,” Krauze told the Tehran Times in a recent email interview.

He is scheduled to conduct the Tehran Symphony Orchestra at Vahdat Hall during performances on August 21 and 22.

“I have no idea how it will be, and I prefer to discover it as a surprise! The only thing I looked at on the Internet are pictures of the concert hall, and it looks very beautiful,” he added.

Krauze said that he doesn’t know any Iranian musician personally and he has never been in Iran and added, “That will be a big first! I’m very curious and looking forward to it.”

He also noted that he has not performed any compositions by Iranian musicians in his performances with international orchestras and added, “My training and musical life has been very centered in Western and Eastern Europe.”

“Over the past years, my carrier has been growing, and I’ve also had the chance to perform with many orchestras in other parts of the world, such as Brazil, Argentina, China, South Korea and Kazakhstan, but in the Near-East it will be a first,” he explained.

The musician said that he will be staying in Iran a bit more than a week.

“Of course, if there is some time left, I’ll be very happy to visit the historical and interesting contemporary things, meet local people, go to original places, and taste Iranian food specialties,” he added.

“Although I’m French and born in France, I had the opportunity to travel quite a lot when I was young, and the intense years of music study for me were in Moscow, Russia and Poland.

“Today, I conduct about 50 concerts a year, about half with my orchestra in France, and half as a freelance conductor here and there in the world,” he asserted.

“I also love opera very much and from time to time I conduct operas, too,” he added.

The Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Forza Del Destino”, French composer Paul Dukas’ symphonic poem “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, French composer Maurice Ravel’s one-movement orchestral piece “Boléro” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 are among the compositions to be performed during the Tehran concert.

Photo: French conductor Nicolas Krauze in an undated photo.

RM/MMS/YAW