MUSIC:She's the classical equivalent of Leona Lewis, a TV talent show winner with a bright future ahead of her, but Sophie Cashell is content to do things her own way, writes Arminta Wallace.
IRISH FAMILY DYNASTIES are noted for producing three things: politicians, musicians and misery memoirs. Of the three kinds of family, the musical milieu appears to be easily the most enjoyable - and, if Sophie Cashell's radiant energy is anything to go by, the healthiest - in which to grow up. At 19, Cashell is the youngest of a trio of prodigious musical siblings, and having won the BBC's Classical Starcompetition for young musicians, she's poised on the brink of a major career.
Well, perhaps "poised" isn't the right word. Something closer to Einstein's speed of light would be more appropriate for Cashell, who speaks at a speed somewhere between prestoand prestissimo, and thinks - if her rapid-fire answers to questions are a reliable guide - even faster. And she knows her own mind. She has just turned down an invitation to guest on a well-known television programme. Why?
"They asked, 'Can you play us some Coldplay?' I was like, 'No.' So they went, 'Some jazz?' 'No.' 'Famous bits of classical music?' 'No.' As much as I love Coldplay and as much as I love listening to all kinds of music, it's not what I want to do with my life."
Such is the downside of a career in classical music. But there are upsides, one of which is that she gets to work - aka, spend time with - her brother Ben and sister Anna.
"We've just come back from Cork, from the Callino Quartet's festival. It's great to play with my brother and sister. It's funny, too - because we're not a trio in the sense of playing together all the time. Our personalities are totally different. Our rehearsals are hilarious. We've all branched out in our own different ways. But then, we always did our own thing when we were growing up as well - my brother played lots of soccer and everything like that, and I read, and whatever."
It's hard even to imagine what it must be like to have four children who are all hugely talented - the fourth Cashell, Hugh, is also very musical but chose not to make a career of it ("he's an engineer: sane" is his sister's verdict). The Cashell parents deserve, surely, a whole bunch of plaudits for ferrying their offspring to and from lessons and rehearsals and recitals and workshops and master classes and all the rest. But it sounds like Chez Cashell was also refreshingly normal.
What does young Sophie remember about making music when they were all even younger? "I think my first memory," she says with a fond grin, "is of breaking my violin. My parents were out, and I was practising. We were all allergic to bread, so whenever my parents were out we always went for the bread and tried to eat as much of it as we could. The others grabbed the whole loaf and ran away, and I ran after them - but my violin got stuck in the door. And then the door closed on it. We hid it under the sofa and thought that our parents wouldn't find it. The genius of what you do when you're, like, six."
But why was she practising the violin when she's a pianist? Turns out she began by studying both, but opted for the piano. "It just appealed to me more," she says. "Practising the violin was always a big chore. My brother and sister are both string players - my sister's a violinist, my brother's a cellist - and I think what they love about it is that they can actually produce the sound. With the piano you do have to get past the fact that it's a machine and you have to work harder to bypass all the hammers and stuff, and just connect with the music. I'm not sure how much I thought about that back then. But now, it's great to be able to play this monstrous beast."
AFTER A SPELL with Audrey Chisholm at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Cashell followed her brother and sister to the prestigious Menuhin School in London at the age of 13.
"I really loved it," she says. "My sister had finished when I was there but my brother was there, which was really nice. It sounds cheesy, but it's very much a family atmosphere - there are only 60 people at the school and you get to know everyone very well . . . Even if I haven't seen someone from there for about six months, immediately I meet them it's like there hasn't been any gap, you know? That kind of bond is really special. And then there's the music teaching, which is ..." - she slows down dramatically to acknowledge the understatement - "... pret-ty good."
The same might be said of her musical prospects just now. Winning the BBC competition brought the opportunity to record her own CD, Debut, which will be released in June. It features Chopin, Debussy, a "tiny bit" of Philip Martin and - another instance of Cashell digging in her heels, this time with her label, the recording giant Universal - a healthy slice of Liszt.
"He's very under-rated," she declares. "People think his music is over-sentimental or over-indulgent or whatever - but it's just so perfect for piano. It fits really well. And he has a great way of using the piano to bring out his musical points."
This week she's performing the Shostakovich piano concerto, which TV viewers saw her play in the final of Classical Star, at the RDS with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Written for the composer's 19-year-old son Maxim, the piece is light-hearted, straightforward and beguilingly energetic. Or, as Cashell unabashedly puts it, "in your face". And with a stint at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry in June followed by a three-city tour with the National Youth Orchestra, that, pretty much - and happily for Irish audiences - is where Cashell will be, too.
Sophie Cashell is the guest soloist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, conducted by David Brophy, at the RDS on Wednesday April 16th at 8pm. For details see www.rte.ie/performinggroups