My Life in Culture: Violinist Claire Duff

The last thing I saw and loved… the Irish Chamber Orchestra performing an arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations with Henning Kraggerud directing from the violin. It was performed in the Royal Irish Academy of Music’s beautiful new Whyte Hall. Henning and the orchestra played with such joy, spontaneity and finesse. It was a very inspiring performance of one of my favourite pieces of music.

The book I keep coming back to… Marianne Williamson’s poem Our Deepest Fear. My mum gave this poem to me when I was young and I would recommend everyone to read it. I find I keep referencing it when I am teaching performance. My favourite novel is probably Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin – it’s brilliant! 

I find inspiration in… nature and especially the sea. I love going for walks but there is nothing quite like swimming in the sea to be totally immersed in nature’s beauty. While swimming, all the different colours shimmering on the sea seem more vibrant; I notice the birds soaring above and landing beside me; I love the feeling of the waves bobbing me up and down, and very occasionally, I experience the sheer magic of swimming near porpoises. I swim in the sea year round and every time it is a different experience but it is always so invigorating, energising and inspiring.   

My favourite film is… Untouchable (or Intouchables in French). I have always loved French films and this is a brilliant and beautiful film in which the characters use humour and imagination to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  My favourite children’s film is The Jungle Book (the original version). It’s a timeless classic. 

My career highlight is… I find it hard to narrow things down to one highlight. Every year is so varied and each project is an exciting challenge for me, so here are a few experiences I have cherished in recent years:

1. Performing trio sonatas with Rachel Podger.  I am a huge fan of this world-renowned baroque violinist so it was a real honour and such a pleasure to play chamber music with Rachel and other members of the Irish Baroque Orchestra.  
2. Performing a Vivaldi Violin Concerto with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and the wonderful Italian director Alfredo Bernardini.  The concerts were so much fun and so exhilarating. 
3. Leading the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Dmitri Sinkovsky.  
4. Directing the Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra at the Varazdin Baroque Evenings Festival in Croatia and winning the Ivan Werner Award 2022.

The song I listen to to get in the zone is… any music by J.S. Bach – the Goldberg variations, the cello suites, the violin concerti etc., or any 17th-century violin music; music by composers such as Pandolfi, Biber, Schmelzer. 

The last book I recommended is… My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. I just read it on holidays last week and it is a very beautifully written book.  

I never leave the house without… my mobile – I know that mobiles and technology can be a curse sometimes but I just love my phone! It transforms travelling. I feel very grateful to be able to head off on tour with a very small device in my pocket and be able to catch up on emails, update my work calendar, take great photos, listen to wonderful music, use the metronome and tuning apps and obviously, be able to phone home anytime. As for Google Maps? I’d be lost without it…literally! 

The performance I still think about is… several years ago, when I was performing Handel’s Alcina with The English Concert and Harry Bicket in Carnegie Hall, the wonderful soprano Joyce Di Donato ornamented a cadenza. Everyone was silent and there was something about the way she sang a very simple note and took her time over it and savoured the silence after it, that made time stand still. I experienced a feeling like the world had stopped. Her energy was so expansive it was like in that moment she connected us with the stars and the universe beyond. It was an amazing experience for me.  Afterwards, we all spoke about how special this moment was, but I was stunned when I read a review of the concert on the flight back from New York and discovered that the reviewer had the same experience of time standing still and connecting to outer space as I had.  It really summed up the power of live performance for me.  

My dream piece to perform would be… I performed Mendelssohn’s Octet in the US when I was on tour with the Irish Youth Orchestra a long time ago and since then, I’ve always hoped to perform Mendelssohn’s chamber music again. I’ll be performing a Mendelssohn quartet for the first time in November with our newly formed Lumière Quartet as part of an NSQF tour and I’m very excited about it.

The best advice I’ve ever gotten… Eckhart Tolle gives the advice to ask yourself  ‘Am I breathing right now?’ Of course, you know intellectually that you are breathing. But if you just tune into your body and see if you can notice yourself breathing, then in that very moment, you have brought yourself into presence, into the now. It’s a great way to tune out of your busy mind and just be in the moment. I try to remember to tune into my breathing each day and I will always tune into my breath before and while performing.

The art that means the most to me is… I love reading about or listening to podcasts about mindfulness, body mapping for musicians and Feldenkrais. I also love to practice yoga and these arts.  

The most challenging thing about being on stage is… the fact that there are no second chances. It is not like a recording session or a rehearsal where you can have another chance to play the music. So if something doesn’t go as planned on stage, you have to learn to immediately move on to the next note and stay in the moment. If you fall into the trap of dwelling on the mistake you just made, you are no longer in the now and therefore you are more likely to make more mistakes as a result. So, it is very challenging but also exhilarating because it is all happening live and you and the audience are very much present in the now. If you manage to stay in the flow state, it is the most wonderful feeling of spontaneity and creativity and it is very energising and powerful.  

After a performance, I… love to go out and celebrate with the other musicians, if I can. Or even better, if there is a post-concert reception, it is so lovely to interact with the audience afterwards too. I’m usually on a high afterwards, as the performance gives me lots of energy, so it’s nice to wind down together, even if we are just on a coach heading straight on to our next destination. Once a live performance is over, it is gone. It can be easy to start thinking straight away of the next project or the next thing on the to-do list. So, I have recently started making a conscious effort after a concert to really savour the feeling of having performed a great concert and to feel grateful for this joint experience shared between fellow musicians and the audience. Covid and lockdown were a good reminder not to take live performances for granted. 

If I wasn’t a musician, I would be… an architect. Since I was young, I have loved art and design so I’ve always had an interest in architecture.  

The magic of music to me is… how it can give expression to all these feelings we have that we often cannot put into words. Music can really stir the soul and move us in such a profound way. I also love how every human responds to music in some way. All babies react to it, toddlers automatically want to dance to it and adults who have lost most of their cognitive abilities through strokes or Alzheimer’s disease, still respond to music.  Music is profound and is innate within each of us. 

Claire Duff directs the award-winning Irish Youth Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s Water Music on Saturday, July 20 at 7.30pm in the Conference Room, The Printworks, Dublin Castle. You can find more information and get tickets here.

Imagery courtesy of Claire Duff.