She plays the Tchaikovsky, just as she takes up the theme of the Hunger Games saga: violinist Esther Abrami wants to pass on her love of classical music to the younger generation, by sharing it on social networks and reinterpreting cinema hits. “This is my passion. I love classical music,” the 27-year-old musician told AFP. She says she loves “the vibration” of her violin, “the fact that we are so close”, that it “is stuck to the throat”.
As a child, she even “really had the impression that it was (her) voice passing through the instrument”. It was her grandmother, a violinist herself, who introduced her to it when she was three years old. She took her first lessons around 9-10 years old and fell “in love with the instrument” and said she “wanted to do this for life”.
She began with the Aix-en-Provence Conservatory, before Chetham’s School of music in Manchester, the Royal College of music in London and, finally, the Birmingham Conservatory… Many studies, during which she visited However, consider how “impressive”, elitist and “closed” the world of classical music can be.
“It’s extremely sad to think that, perhaps,” classical music “may no longer be listened to by the younger generation,” that it “may die with an aging generation,” laments the violinist, black eyes, pale complexion and long black hair. “So we just need to make it a little more current,” she continues.
Despite “a lot of judgments and criticism”, she decided in 2016 to launch herself on social networks. On TikTok, some videos have been viewed 4 million times and show her playing and asking her more than 400,000 subscribers to guess her song, or in concert or recording her latest album. “The reaction from people was extremely positive,” she says, “I gained a lot of followers” and “formed a community on many networks” (Esther has nearly 300,000 subscribers on Instagram.
Esther Abrami also wanted to “create bridges” by recording music from films or series “that everyone knows”. “It’s orchestral music, it’s written like classical music.”
Hence the album Cinéma, released in September and which she presents on tour, including a performance on January 24 at Salle Gaveau in Paris. There is an adaptation of hits from the series The Witcher or feature films such as Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, Les choristes, In the mood for love or Hunger Games. “I would really like everyone to be able to listen to classical music the way they listen to rap, pop or rock. Let it be in your playlists!,” she says.
What is also close to her heart: introducing female composers. At the end of her 15 years of musical study, she realized that despite studying many musicians, “I was never taught the history of a woman, ever.”
“I want to change that, on my own scale,” enthuses the young woman, who introduced American composers Amy Beach and British composer Angela Morley in a short album (Spotlight, 2022). She also wants to increase collaborations with Rachel Portman, the first woman to receive an Oscar for her music in 1997.