Music makes people go through a joint emotional experience. This time, we talked to Mrs Nyela Basney, a truly successful conductor from the United States of America. Mrs Basney came to Sarajevo to conduct a concert at the National Theatre with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert was composed out of L. van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Op. 21, C major, J. Bancks’s Lumen and J. Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Besides the Orchestra and Mrs Basney, there was also Daniel Paul Horn on the piano... Mrs Basney, how did your musical path started? When did you first started playing and conducting? My father was not so very happy for his daughter being a musician because it has been a hard life for him. So, I didn’t have any lessons, I just played, since I was four years old until I was twelve. But by then I was already playing Beethoven’s sonatas on the piano, not so well – but I was doing it, for three or four hours every day. I loved it. Then my father decided he should give me some lessons. That’s when I became serious about piano. So when I was 14-15 I started practicing more in order to catch up my friends. My inspiration was largely my father and the concerts he conducted when I was little. It’s my primary musical inspiration. And besides your father, was there some other role-model in the world of music? I think the next role-model would have been my conducting teacher. I finished Eastman school in piano and then I moved to New York City and I was making a living as a pianist but I started studying conducting with Vincent La Selva. He was teaching at Julliard and conducting at NY State Opera. He saw a talent in me for conducting rather than piano. He became a very big inspiration for the next eight years. He thought me and then gave me my first job as an assistant in his opera company. I learned twenty operas with him… What is your connection with the BHAAAS (Bosnian-Herzegovinian American Academy of Arts and Sciences)? I first heard about the Academy in 2011 when Almer Imamović invited me to come here. We came here to do the concert and I saw many members of the Academy talking about their support of music, science here in BiH. I felt fortunate that they invited me to be honorary member of the Academy. I maintained contact with them, and they invited me again to come. So I’m here. (novovrijeme.ba)
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