More than one string to her bow

By WILLIAM DART

Hilary Hahn is one self-possessed young woman. At 24 the American violinist has won more awards and kudos than some musicians would dream of retiring with. Hahn is one of the NZSO's trump cards this season and completes her New Zealand tour with two concerts this weekend.

Life on the road isn't too bad, but she misses her pet guinea pig Psyche and you can meet Psyche and thrill to his adventures on Hahn's wacky website. Get yourself into hilaryhahn.com and, under the title Itty Bitty Things, you can also read 20 things to do in a hotel room if you are bored.

She admits that so far, in her Wellington hotel, she has "tried some Tai Chi and rearranged the furniture". We gasp at the hideousness of hotel room art and she describes "a kind of scary picture of ghost figures that I'm glad I can't see in bed but at least it's not a generic flower painting".

You can sense Hahn is a driven soul. The website is explained as "an excuse to make myself write" and, after graduating from Philadelphia's Curtis Institute she spent a further three years catching up on all the more general arts courses she felt she had missed out on.

"My mom studied anthropology so I think I get it from her," she explains. "I grew up with no television, but I read a lot of fairy tales and old stories and that led to literature and things like that."

The subject changes to music and Hahn suddenly sharpens. What does she look for in a conductor? "I'm not the one hiring them," is the quick riposte, although she admits she does have a say with her recordings.

Her latest Deutsche Grammophon venture with Colin Davis and the LSO playing Elgar and Vaughan Williams was "wonderful. It's nice when people are famous but it's really nice when they work well with other people."

On Friday and Saturday we have the Paganini First Concerto and Barber's solitary work for the instrument. She defends Paganini when I play devil's advocate and suggest it's a bit thin as a score.

"It's great music," is the response, "but people discount it because it's virtuosic. The trick with it is that not only do you have to play it well, you have to make it musical."

There are no tricks with the Barber but she admits that "what you hear in your head isn't always easy to get out technically. There might be a stream of melancholy that pervades the whole piece but the last movement is plain mischievous."

Our conversation leaps all over the place. Lamenting the paucity of classical music on television she announces, "Classical musicians used to be the rock stars before rock and roll existed."

Among the personal challenges awaiting her is wall climbing. "I love heights and I'm always climbing up things. But I have to watch out for stuff that will throw my joints out."

An intensive chamber music retreat in June seems a safer option and she is looking forward to this.

"It is the essence of collaborative classical music, with a much more personal interaction and you learn a lot about music through it."

When I spoke to Hahn a few weeks ago she had just arrived and felt she was bound to fall in love with New Zealand. "I love places where mountains and sea are close to one another."

She came with predictable visions of sheep and green hills but ended up with another research topic and, who knows, a possible subject for the website: "There was a member of my family who wanted to become a sheep farmer in New Zealand in the 1970s. It seemed a hippy thing to do. But I wasn't aware of the native culture playing such an important role.

"As soon as I got on the plane I was looking through the airline magazine and I thought I'd try to explore the Maori artwork, symbolism and all that, because it's so rare to find that so accessible any more."

There will be a lot of work to do on the website when Hahn gets home.

Performance

* Who: Hilary Hahn, with the NZSO

* Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Friday 6.30pm; Saturday 8pm