Practice Room Breaks

Pianist and composer Conrad Tao joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about the creative process, autograph manuscripts, and inhabiting multiple musical identities. We explore how Debussy's notation reveals compositional logic, what Beethoven's crossed-out passages tell us about artistic decision-making, and where the line between composer authorship and performer interpretation really lies. Tao shares insights from examining holographic manuscripts, discusses his favorite piece (Mozart's ...

How does a tiny student side project become the largest classical music library in the world? In this episode, IMSLP Founder & CEO Edward Guo joins Natalie Nedvetsky for an honest, funny, and surprisingly intimate look at the story behind IMSLP — from its beginnings at NEC to the moment it suddenly exploded across the global classical community. Edward shares his journey from growing up in China to studying in the U.S., how conservatory culture shaped his thinking, and the exact moment th...

Zlatomir Fung — one of the leading cellists of his generation — joins IMSLP to trace his path from prodigious beginnings to becoming the youngest-ever International Tchaikovsky Competition winner, unpacking the mindset of competition playing and the balance between intensity, restraint, and interpretation under pressure. He delves into the intersection of analysis and expression — transcribing for the cello, Popper etudes, chess-like pattern recognition, and the balance between composer inten...

Internationally renown violinist Simone Porter joins us to talk about her journey from early debuts with the Seattle Symphony and Royal Philharmonic to playing with the nation’s top orchestras. She answers listener questions on stage confidence and managing performance anxiety, and reflects on moments when live music completely transported her — or taught her something through the unexpected. We also dive into her debut album ad tendo, inspired by Simone Weil’s idea that “absolute attention i...

On this episode of Practice Room Breaks, Host Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky sits down with pianist extraordinaire, Alessio Bax. Diving into is musical upbringing, deep artistic philosophies, and how winning top prizes at the Hamamatsu and Leeds International Piano Competitions at such a young age shaped the course of his career, Alessio shares his meaningful approach to programming, the mindset behind competition preparation, and the art of transcribing some of his favorite works. From his surpris...

What did Liszt refuse to teach - and why? In the debut episode of Practice Room Breaks - the podcast, host and classical pianist Natalie Vargas Nedvetsky sits down with internationally acclaimed pianist, pedagogue and scholar Steven Spooner to uncover the surprising origins of the recital and masterclass, share untold stories from Liszt’s life and the era in which he lived, and hear excerpts from Spooner’s monumental 10-volume Liszt album — consisting of over 300 works and 35 hours of music. ...