“Alma Deutscher is an accomplished British composer in the classical style,” states Scott Pelley on Sunday’s (11/5) 60 Minutes. “She is a virtuoso on the piano and the violin. And she is 12 years old. She’s different from other prodigies we have known, because at the age of ten she wrote an opera, which demands comprehensive mastery; not just how to play the piano, but, what is the range of the oboe? What can a cellist play? … This past summer, in Austria, we watched Alma prepare her violin concerto and the premiere of her piano concerto [with Joji Hattori conducting the Vienna Chamber Orchestra]…. Q: When did the composing begin? Deutscher: When I was four, I just had these melodies and ideas in my head, and I would play them down at the piano. And sometimes my parents would think that I was just remembering music that I’d already heard before. But I said, ‘No, no, these are my melodies, that I composed.’ … Her parents, Guy and Janie, are professors.… Both of them are amateur musicians.” Deutscher’s operas The Sweeper of Dreams and Cinderella have been performed by professional companies in Vienna and Israel.
Posted November 7, 2017
