Paula Robison talks to Michael Miller - a Berkshire Review Podcast


Paula Robison

On the day following her amazing recital with Katherine Chi at Jordan Hall, Paula Robison and I met at the house she shares with her husband, Scott Nikrenz, with its bird's eye view of Frederick Law Olmsted's house and garden. In the hour or so we talked we covered a lot of ground: the concert, her preparations for it, and some of the music she played...we talked about Sidney Lanier, the poet, linguist, and self-taught flute virtuoso, who died at 39 of tuberculosis contracted as a Confederate prisoner of war, and Charles T. Griffes, who died at 35 of the same disease, leaving behind a remarkable body of exploratory compositions, Paul Taffanel, the founder of modern flute playing and the teacher of Ms. Robison's teacher, the great Marcel Moyse. We talked about Isabella Stewart Gardner and her museum, Bernard and Mary Berenson, her brother Logan Pearsall Smith, Marlboro, Marcel Moyse, Rudolf Serkin, and Pablo Casals. We also talked about spirituality, Christianity and Judaism, and the CDs she has made in collaboration with Berkshire artist Jim Schantz, Places of the Spirit, featuring the Berkshires in one album and the Israel in another. And then there was the Tannery Pond Concerts and their knowledgeable audience, the heritage of her progressively-minded parents...and driving in Boston!

Hear the interview 
on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


(download)