Jessica Cottis, you are returning to Romania to conduct the National Radio Orchestra in the concert on March 8^th. How would you describe the reunion with the ensemble members?

I really enjoy working with the National Radio Orchestra. We have a very flourishing collaboration, we have a lot of fun during rehearsals. It's a very good orchestra, all the musicians have a lot of experience and exceptional musicality. So, I'm looking forward to this week of rehearsals with wonderful music and exploring ways to bring it to life.

The Friday concert is on International Women's Day, so in the spotlight will be female performers, like you, the pianist Adela Liculescu, and the composer Diana Rotaru. Do you think it would be interesting for our listeners to know how a female conductor is perceived nowadays?

It's an interesting thought. As a leadership position, it has always been male dominated. Over the past 100 years or so, this has slowly begun to change, and now it's much better, with almost equal representation between male and female conductors, but for me, gender doesn't matter. We are all humans, coming together to make music.

Last year you conducted a piece by Dan Dediu, and on Friday you'll present the audience Choirs and musical boxes from Diana Rotaru's creation. How would you describe the work, and how is Romanian contemporary music perceived, considering you've studied works by two Romanian composers of our time?

I'm very excited to perform this music by Romanian composers, I find it very interesting. Dan Dediu's piece we interpreted had wonderful elements of folklore, rhythms, and melodic structures of folk origin, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Diana Rotaru's piece is very different. It takes us into an imaginary, almost magical sound landscape and presents these ideas in various ways. It creates unique colors through the timbres of instruments, such as those of percussion instruments, and uses other instruments in unusual ways. It's a truly special piece of work.

You promote 20^th and 21^st century music worldwide. How are these creations perceived by the audience, and what do you think is the best way to incorporate this music into listeners' preferences?

Often when I think about new or contemporary music, I reflect on art galleries, how we go to see modern paintings, which we often admire, such as works by Rubens, Rembrandt, and other great masters of visual art. We are often happy to go and see new works - which were painted just last week or last year - or new art from the 1960s - 1970s. This makes me wonder why music makes an exception to these trends towards inovation. We should do the same with music; we should desire to engage with the music of our time. In my opinion, this is something we must do as musicians, to invite the audience to come to our concerts and ensure they trust us when we perform this new music.

It's very important for us as musicians to create concert programs in a way that encourages the audience to be all ears when they come to the concert hall. We could do this by including a piece they adore, along with other music they haven't heard before, but which might excite their imagination, sharpen their senses; there are so many sounds and pieces of music we could share with the audience in an intelligent and deliberate way.

You enjoy creating exciting programs for your concerts. Do you think this is the key to attract young audience to concert halls?

This is a tough question. How do we attract young audience to the concert hall? But I'll ask a question back. How do we bring music closer to as many people as possible, so how do we share what we know and love with those around us? And this is possible if we show the world what we do, and it involves education, musicians' exposure in the community, and organizing small concerts outside concert halls, thus encouraging the audience to step into spaces we are familiar with and try this experience. Because nothing compares to live music played by a symphony orchestra. It's truly very different from listening in headphones or through an audio system.

Another important aspect in the process of attracting the audience is how you create a concert program. If there's an interesting idea behind a program, in a way, it doesn't matter what kind of music is being played; people come to an event that stimulates their intellect or imagination.

You've stated in a previous interview that you perceive sound through colors. Does this synesthesia relate to certain timbral sounds of instruments or harmonies?

I, personally, see slightly different colors depending on the instruments playing those harmonies. For example, an E major chord played on brass instruments (trumpets, horns, and trombones) will produce a slightly different painting in my mind than if the same chord were played by the string section. In a way, it's not exactly about color but texture. I'll go back to paintings; some are very soft and bright, while others are more intense; you can clearly see the brush strokes on the canvas, and here is a parallel with synesthesia for me.

What are the challenges of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23?

One of the most important aspects in interpreting Mozart's music is, for me, playing a work written for a symphony orchestra as if you were playing chamber music. So even though we have a large orchestra on stage, we should have the flexibility, almost the freedom, to play as if it were just the piano, a few violins, and a cello. Finding this feeling takes quite a while, but once you reach that step, then Mozart can sound almost like spontaneous music, created at that moment, and for me, that's the most important thing.

How would you describe the Suite from Richard Strauss' opera The Knight of the Rose?

The Suite from The Knight of the Rose is such refined music, absolutely charming. There are some wonderful moments, fantastic sonorities written for each musician in the ensemble, and most of these moments are based on the Viennese waltz, so we encounter dances throughout the suite, in which we have a kind of synthetic version, a summary of just 24 minutes of the opera, which lasts a little over three hours, all in one suite.