Freya Goldmark on performing pop, founding a festival at 19 and the joys of just going for it

Alongside your classical career, you perform as a pop session musician, playing in Barcelona alongside Pulp last summer. How do you manage the mental shift from classical to pop?

I think a common misconception with music is that everything has a different value. I often hear people putting down the easier stuff, like playing with pop artists because the notes are easy, but my teacher really drilled into me this mindset that everything has equal value. If my bow is going to touch the string, it's going to mean just as much no matter where I am. I treat everything with the same passion, focus and drive. Some people might disagree with me, but I think my experience in pop improves my classical performance. Just walking out onto a stage, no matter what you're doing, makes the next time you walk out on stage easier, and being on stage with Jarvis Cocker who is a master of his craft, even though it might not be the same craft as mine, taught me a lot.

There are a lot of things that people don't think about too. When you go on stage with a pop musician, you're probably clipping a microphone on the side of your violin to amplify your sound. That is something you don’t learn at music college, and I remember my first time looking around at everyone else and they all seemed to know exactly how to position it. Suddenly you feel like you're new at something, even though you've trained since you were four. When you’re playing pop music, you’ll also have earphones in so you can hear yourself, the other performers, or potentially a click track and someone giving additional instructions. The notes might be easier than some classical repertoire, but you're suddenly contending with all these new things.

You founded the Stamford International Music Festival in 2015. Could you talk more about why you decided to launch a music festival in Stamford, and what the launch process was like?

The idea behind starting the festival came purely from a love of chamber music, which I was super lucky to have had really nurtured from a young age. I've been lucky enough to go on summer music courses from around the age of eight, where I made great friends while playing amazing repertoire. Then when I went to Royal College of Music I missed that fun, joyous element of playing. I had had the idea for a festival for a while so I decided I would just put a festival on in November 2015.

Goldmark is currently working on her debut solo album, set to be released later this year ©York Tillyer

I did five concerts the first time around. If I was doing it again now, I would have started with two to check that it worked, but I had put individual concerts on as a teenager when I was preparing for competitions; my parents would help me hire a local church, we'd design posters and I'd put them up, so I had that concept of how to do it. I chose pieces that I loved and I invited my friends from college to play with me. I just went for it.

You were 19 when you founded the festival – do you feel your youth was an advantage when launching this event?

A lot of the time it was harder because I looked a lot younger, but the fact that I got it all done and got through all the hiccups early on is helpful. It gave me an advantage in that by 22 or 23 years old I had learnt a lot already and because of that I was able to get a job running a much bigger festival (from 2019-2021 Freya was the youngest director in the history of Cambridge Summer Music Festival). I would tell anyone who says ‘I really want more performance opportunities’ just to organise them, do it yourself. There’s no shame in providing your own work.

You manage the entire festival: fundraising, programming, directing and performing. How do you balance managing the practical elements of the festival while maintaining the creativity needed for the artistic side?

It’s really, really hard. I'm at my limit now because my career has grown a lot in last year, so I’m going to look for someone to help me. When I was starting the festival, I used to get up at 5am to do admin work then practise, but that’s not possible anymore – you can't get up at 5am if you're performing at night. But when I'm focused, I can get a lot done very quickly, so when that focused feeling comes, I get to work. I have also learned to go into a different room to do admin work. When I’m practising I’m in this beautiful creative flow state, and then to sit and write a fundraising application in the same place is really hard. I moved out of London in 2020 to a house near the sea with different rooms to work in and that has made a massive difference.

©York Tillyer

In 2024 you played in New York, Chicago, Bogota, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, Bergen and Philadelphia. Are there any tips you can offer readers maintaining a demanding schedule like this?

I'm working on it. I recently learned that going to see an osteopath or getting a sports massage is extremely helpful. I don't think musicians talk enough about how much we use our bodies when we practise and perform, then we carry a violin or pull a suitcase and get in a cramped seat on a train or drive for hours. It's not very glamorous and you can hurt yourself. I try to stay as comfortable as possible when I travel. I recently bought a foot hammock to use on planes and invested in a high-tech neck pillow and eye mask.

I also swim a lot. Even if it's just 20 minutes, it's a time where you can't look at your phone, you can't do anything but breathe. I found it’s really good for mentally relaxing and for keeping myself from getting too stiff. A balanced diet is also impossible to maintain while travelling. My partner bought me metal travel cutlery for Christmas because I couldn't bear to use one more wooden fork from a service station or airport. Standing in M&S knowing their entire Food To Go selection is so depressing, so I to vary what I eat. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a massive foodie so when I’m away I will try to find somewhere super nice to go and have one really good meal as a treat to myself.

'There was this moment where we all took our shoes off and ran around the stones like children'©Alex Kozobolis

You performed at the Barbican premiere of Erland Cooper’s unearthed Carve the Runes, then played the piece at Stonehenge for the music video. Can you tell us about the experience of performing in the stone circle?

Erland Cooper has become a really great friend, and I don't know how he managed to persuade English Heritage to let us (along with quite a large film crew) into the middle of Stonehenge. We turned up at 5pm when it shuts to the public and were escorted into the middle of the stones. We were all really well behaved, because we felt a sort of pressure, but there was this moment where we all took our shoes off and ran around the stones like children. Even though it was summer, it was quite overcast and cold. I was just wearing a white dress so when we weren’t shooting everyone would put all their coats on me and blow on my hands so I could play.

Usually, you make a music video by recording the music, then miming to the music in the video, but we weren't allowed to play any recorded music within the stones; the only music that could be created was me actually playing. I played in the stones and we recorded that on an iPhone in Erland’s pocket, then when we got back to the studio, I re-learned all of my phrasing and fingering so that it would match up when I recorded it in the studio. That made it look really realistic.

Having the chance to play at Stonehenge was a massive privilege, the sound was amazing. When they were setting up the cameras, I got my violin out and played a little folk tune, and the stones amplified the sound, it wrapped all the way around. It’s amazing, and there's no way it wasn't built with acoustics in mind.

Creative combination: Goldmark's partnership with composer Erland Cooper has led to her giving the premiere of his Carve the Runes work as well as Cooper co-producing Goldmark's upcoming album ©York Tillyer​

You will be working with Cooper on your debut solo album – what can audiences expect from this release?

The album is something that I've been waiting to do for a really long time. It centres around Goldmark Variations, a solo violin work that British composer Gavin Bryars wrote for me in 2018 and gifted to me in my final year at college. I've wanted to record it since then but I wanted to wait until the right time, when I had the right people and the right things to pair it. I had talked to Gavin about adding electronic sound and he said, ‘It's yours to do whatever you like with’. One of Gavin's most famous pieces, Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, loops a field recording of a homeless man singing, with a melody Gavin made to go with it and Erland’s music also uses a lot of field recordings. I suddenly saw this link between the two composers, and I thought the sound worlds would sit really well together. I approached Erland, and he said he'd be really happy to co-produce the album.

If you said to me three years ago that I’d be taking this sort of multimedia approach, I wouldn't even know what that meant, but through all this other work that I've done on the contemporary side of things, I've had my eyes and ears opened to all these sound worlds. All the sounds we use, including the electronics, will all have originated from me. Every sound will have come from me or from my voice, there's nothing added that isn't Freya.

Freya Goldmark is set to perform Erland Cooper’s Birds of Paradise with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jack Sheen on 8 February as part of BBC Radio 3’s 25 for 25: Sounds of the Century project. Her debut solo album will be released later this year.