Classical Chromatic Episodes

Yoonseok Lee joins me on episode 141. Yoonseok is from South Korea where he first took up the tremolo harmonica. He discovered the chromatic when he heard Sigmund Groven playing at the Asia Pacific Festival in 2004, and started taking lessons with Sigmund. This culminated in Yoonseok studying at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo with Sigmund as his professor. Returning to South Korea in 2020, he enjoys a successful career as a freelance chromatic player, and returns to Norway to teach at ...

John Sebastian joins me on episode 135. John had considerable chart success in the 1960s as part of the folk rock band, The Lovin' Spoonful, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the year 2000. John was also inducted into the songwriters Hall Of Fame. Probably better known as a singer songwriter and guitar player, harmonica was John’s first instrument, inspired by his father, also called John Sebastian, who was a renowned classical harmonica player. And we discuss some of his...

Sigmund Groven joins me on episode 127. Sigmund is a chromatic player who is a household name in his native Norway. He was inspired to take up the harmonica after hearing Tommy Reilly on the radio. After taking some lessons with Tommy they formed a lifelong friendship, with Sigmund even becoming his manager. Sigmund has released over thirty albums in his own name through his illustrious career and has played in venues and orchestras around the world, including Carnegie Hall, throughout Europe an...

Shima Kobayashi joins me on episode 124. Shima is a classical chromatic player originally from Japan, who has been living in the UK since 2004. After winning the World Harmonica Championship in 1995 she was awarded a bursary by the Japanese government to study with the great Tommy Reilly over a twelve month period. Shima has two albums to her name. The first has a number of pieces composed for chromatic harmonica. Her second album, Chromatic!, contains some pieces written for Shim...

Yeore Kim joins me on episode 119. Yeore is from South Korea, where she first picked up the tremolo harmonica at the age of six. Her mother is a piano teacher, so she also learnt piano and other instruments, including trumpet, before focusing on the chromatic harmonica from age 18. Yeore has released two albums of duets with different pianists. She moved to France in 2018 after meeting her guitarist husband, Antoine Boyer, with whom she has released an album, Tangram. This contains a great mi...

Isabella Krapf joins me on episode 116. Isabella is from Vienna, Austria, where she started teaching and performing concerts in her late teens and has had a career in the harmonica ever since. Isabella is a collector of harmonicas and puts on exhibitions. She played a part in keeping the Seydel factory in business when it was looking for new investors in the early 2000s, by ordering 1000 ‘boomerang’ harmonicas. In 2011 Isabella was asked to visit North Korea to teach groups of music students ...

Harmonica group Svang join me on episode 112. Svang are a harmonica quartet from Finland, who have been performing and recording for over twenty years now. They first formed in 2003 when Jouko was teaching at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and suggested forming a harmonica group with two of his students. The group doesn’t play the typical harmonicas of a harmonica group, with a harmonetta used instead of a chord, and bluesy diatonics used as part of the sound alongside chromatic. Their repe...

Jim Hughes joins me (again) on episode 88. Jim is a chromatic player who was last interviewed on the podcast in October 2020, back on episode 26. He is now at the grand age of 93 years young, and he shares the wisdom he has developed over many years of playing the chromatic harmonica. Jim has has become blind since the last interview and after being a life long sight reader has now had to learn how to play by ear. He shares how he has adapted to these new challenges and is finding new joy in ...

Rocky Lok joins me on episode 79. Rocky lives in Hong Kong, where there is a vibrant harmonica scene. Harmonica is taught in many schools there, which is how Rocky got started playing himself almost 50 years ago. He went on to become part of the King's Harmonica Quintet which has played many prestigious concerts, including in front of an audience of twenty thousand, as part of the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch procession and winning the group competition at the World Harmonica Championship in T...

Joe Powers joins me on episode 65. Joe started out playing diatonic harmonica along with blues records as a teenager, before deciding to study music composition at college, taking up the chromatic there. Joe’s passion for dancing led him to Argentina and tango music, where he has become the current leading exponent on harmonica. He believes the chromatic harmonica is the perfect instrument for tango music, and talks us through how to play this captivating genre. Although known as the ‘tango h...

Gerhard Mueller joins me on episode 59. Gerhard is the Product Manager for Hohner harmonicas, a role he has held for 28 years. His father worked as a gardener at the Hohner factory in Trossingen, and as well as getting his son harmonica lessons, he even had a hand in helping Gerhard land his dream job at Hohner. Gerhard talks us through the fascinating history of Hohner and how it was established as the leading harmonica brand in the world having sold over 1 billion harmonicas since the compa...

Cy Leo joins me on episode 48. Leo is from Hong Kong, where he started learning to play classical chromatic harmonica from age 6, under the direction of his father, who is an accomplished player himself, having won the ensemble category at the 1997 World Harmonica Championship with his quintet, helping to raise interest in the harmonica throughout Asia. Leo quickly gained recognition in his own right, winning the World Championship youth category at age 15 before taking the adult crown at age...

Robert Bonfiglio shares with us the world of the concert chromatic harmonica player. After studying composition in New York, he spent five years under the tutelage of Chinese classical player, Cham Ber Huang, and another 12 years studying with the first flute player of the New York ballet. Robert has been playing classical harmonica concertos since 1986, and has played in some of the great venues around the world. He has performed all the major pieces composed for the harmonica, as well as relea...

Fata Morgana are a Dutch harmonica quartet, who first formed in 1980 after meeting at the Eindhoven Harmonica Club. Two of the original members survive from that time, with the current line-up existing since 2001. The group have played at many festivals around the world, including in Asia where harmonica groups are still very popular. They have released six albums, with their latest one in 2017 including four guest harmonica players from across Europe. They share how they put together their own ...

British Chromatic royalty Jim Hughes joins me on episode 26. Jim has been playing professionally for over 60 years. From his early success in harmonica competitions, he went on to forge a successful career as a session musician, with countless appearances on the BBC, including playing on the hit TV show, Last Of The Summer Wine. Jim set up quite possibly the biggest harmonica festival of all time, The World Harmonica Championship in Jersey, 1987, as well as involvement in other festival...

Chromatic player, Antonio Serrano, is the current SPAH harmonica player of the year. And with good reason. Antonio’s father was a great influence on the fledgling harmonica player. And Antonio met Larry Adler at a young age, and performed with him for the first time, at only 13 years of old. Since that time Antonio has made a big splash on the Spanish music scene, not least when he played with flamenco legend Paco de Lucia. He has recorded with many artists and released some albums under his own...