KMFA 89.5 is pleased to broadcast this special interview with Sir Neville Marriner on October 3, 2016 at 3pm. If you missed the broadcast, simply press the play button at the top of the page to hear the interview. 

In March of 2008 I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was the height of the spring arts season in Houston and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (ASMF) was set to begin an eleven-city American tour in honor of their fiftieth anniversary in Jones Hall, the home of the Houston Symphony. Murray Perahia, then the Principal Guest Conductor at the ASMF, would be both the soloist and conductor. As it happened, Perahia had a medical issue and had to cancel at the last minute. 

There was a flurry of activity that eventually resulted in Sir Neville Marriner rearranging his schedule to lead the anniversary tour for the ensemble he founded in 1959 and with whom he’d recorded over 500 albums. The piano soloist was a then relatively unknown young Chinese woman by the name of Yuja Wang. She was just twenty-one years old when she met Sir Neville in the car on the way to our radio interview that morning. They had not yet rehearsed. Wang had only just learned the music for the first time the week before. None of this was known to me as we started the interview which I share in its entirety for the first time since it was broadcast in 2008.

Note: This interview was originally broadcast on a show called "The Front Row" out of Houston Public Media.