Music and Being a Musician Is Our Way Of Life
What happens when a husband and wife are in the same job? Typically, it can be very dynamic, as the bridge between private life and work never ends. If that bridge is music, however, things get even more colourful and interesting. I should add that everything is spiced up with Žiga’s cooking, while Alja takes care of cycling around the world and discovering beautiful countries. That’s only to be expected, as the Faganel couple are truly unique.
- You are both exceptional musicians who create wonderful stories together. I was surprised that the ears can also be a path to love. Music is often the movie of our lives. Did you meet through music?
A lot of people, especially when we first meet them, assume that we met in an orchestra, or at least on a concert stage. That’s a logical assumption, of course, but the story is actually a little different. We first heard many of each other’s life stories in the hairdressing chair of a mutual friend and her family.
Despite their constant insistence that we should get to know each other as soon as possible, it was ten years before we met for the first time, which is something we still laugh about today. At our first meeting, it was clear that the food at Žiga’s place was good, but when we met for the second time, we played together at a spontaneous house concert in the company of some musician friends, and of course it was immediately obvious that the insistence of our family friends that we should meet had not been without reason.
- Žiga, you love to cook, so I’m really curious about what you like to create in the kitchen.
It’s true. My other passion besides music is spending time and creating at the kitchen bench. Some of our bookshelves are bursting with cookery books. The greatest treasure among them is my grandmother’s recipe book from the 1930s, which she wrote at the hotel school she attended in Lucerne, Switzerland. My passion for cooking is most inspired by the tradition of the flavours of Italian cuisine. On our honeymoon, when, among other places, we stopped in Naples, there wasn’t an antique shop or a bookshop in the vicinity of Dante Square where I didn’t seek out old Italian cookbooks. Alja and I love to host friends, and quite often our culinary-inspired gatherings turn into a spontaneous home chamber concert. Alja really enjoys baking and preparing desserts, so her creations almost always complete our culinary indulgences.
- Your instruments, the cello and the violin, are related but at the same time very different. Do they complement each other?
We string players are very lucky because by passing the bow over the strings we can coax a lot of different sound colours out of our instruments. The better we know our instrument, the greater the palette of sound worlds available to us. This is undoubtedly a similarity between our two instruments. When we play together, the greatest joy is when we both play a melody in a similar way without having previously agreed on it.
- What is music for you two? We know it’s your work and obligation – after all, it’s how you make a living – but what does music give you on a mental, intimate level?
Music and being a musician is our way of life and our mission. Everything revolves around it. The ideal we strive for is an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a constant search to find a way, by practising, to address listeners, even in the case of a complex melody. We are happy that we can live and fulfil this mission as members of the Philharmonic. As musicians, we are very lucky to be in daily contact with the greatest artistic creations, into which we breathe new life from concert to concert.
- You both work within the Philharmonic, which is a big family, but it is probably also very demanding. What challenges do you face in this sense? What does it mean to be part of the Slovenian Philharmonic?
Together with its predecessors, the Slovenian Philharmonic is the oldest musical institution in Slovenia, having been in existence for 322 years.
To be a member of such a prestigious institution with such a long tradition, on whose stage many great composers, conductors and instrumentalists have stood, is something we regard as an honour. The special energy that spreads through the orchestra the moment before the conductor’s signal to start a piece, and after the end of the last note, is our reward for all of the hours of practice. It’s something you can’t experience anywhere else than on stage. Sometimes it’s a challenge for us to find inspiration for a composition that doesn’t really appeal to us, but a humorous remark about the piece from a colleague always puts us in a good mood and the inspiration quickly returns. It’s also nice that the members of the Philharmonic are friends with each other, and we often get together outside of our duties.
- What about travel? I know you both enjoy having luggage in your hands. That’s another of your passions. Which places have impressed you the most, or which holiday has given you the most?
It’s true that we love to travel and discover new places, sometimes even by bike. Above all, we like to combine our passions, so our travels and experiences are mostly related to music. We’ve already seen a lot of the world with our instruments on our shoulders and we’re always looking for new opportunities to play together, which is what we love the most.
Last November, we were invited on a special experience, this time not related to music. Žiga’s best man married an Indian woman, and together we enjoyed four colourful days of wedding celebrations in the east of India, in the beautiful region of Gujarat. We had an opportunity to get to know a completely different but truly wonderful culture and way of life of people who welcomed us with open arms. That was undoubtedly a trip we will remember for a long time.
- I read that in the Friulian language Faganel means songbird, which I find extremely interesting. So can I write that music was placed in your cradle?
That’s right. In Friulian, Faganel means bullfinch. Both of my parents are musicians and so is my brother. Although Alja’s parents aren’t musicians, they are our most loyal audience.
