{"id":94794,"date":"2023-02-24T12:31:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T17:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=94794"},"modified":"2023-02-24T12:31:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T17:31:46","slug":"interview-piano-prodigy-sunny-ritter-talks-music-upcoming-concert-sinfonia-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2023\/02\/24\/interview-piano-prodigy-sunny-ritter-talks-music-upcoming-concert-sinfonia-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Piano Prodigy Sunny Ritter Talks About Music And Her Upcoming Concert With Sinfonia Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sunny
Sunny Ritter plays Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in January 2023 (Photo courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sunny Ritter is currently in the midst of a flurry of travel and activity from Salzburg to Canada in a few days for her performance with Sinfonia Toronto on March 4. Her voyage to Canada will represent the first time she\u2019s travelled alone.<\/p>\n

Although, at 12, Sunny has travelled more miles as a performing artist than many musicians twice her age.<\/p>\n

Born in Vienna, she began professional training at age seven at Vienna’s University of Music and the Performing Arts (MDW). Later, her family moved to Canada, where she continued her studies under a full scholarship at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with Dr. Michael Berkovsky.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, she’s back in Europe, studying with Pietro de Maria at the Universit\u00e4t Mozarteum.<\/p>\n

From her first competition gold medal at age six, she’s barely looked back, clocking in more than 25 international competitions, including wins at the Steinway Klavierspielwettbewerb and the Grand Prize across all age categories at Mihaela Ursuleasa International Piano Competition, among others.<\/p>\n

She made her orchestral d\u00e9but in Bucharest and Vienna in 2018, and her solo recital d\u00e9but in Ottawa the same year, and has gone on to play many of the world’s finest stages.<\/p>\n

We caught up with her to ask a few questions about her work, and the upcoming Toronto concert.<\/p>\n

When did you decide that music was your life\u2019s work \u2014 is there a moment you remember in particular? Or was it something that grew naturally as you began to play years ago?<\/h3>\n

I<\/em> always knew it, but my mom took a while to catch on. When I was two, she enrolled me in ballet and karate. When I was three, I had to decide between them, and of course I chose ballet, because of the music. Ballet was fun, but the best thing it brought me was my first piano teacher, Aya Kaukal, an accompanist at the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy. I started piano on my first day of school and there was no turning back.<\/p>\n

If there was a moment when I consciously realized that my survival depended on music, it was during lockdowns. I was in Canada at the time. I had given some real-time livestreams, and my wonderful teachers, Michael and Coral Berkovsky, had kept me going by plying me with marvellous new repertoire. But I also needed to perform, I needed this thing that Yehudi Menuhin called Live Music Now. A painting can be finished in the artist\u2019s studio, but we musicians need our audience. Without your ears, our music is lost. When the stay-at-home order was extended in April 2021, I despaired. I threatened to jump off the balcony. \u201cStay home, stay safe,\u201d was a contradiction in terms, because the 16th floor wasn\u2019t safe for me anymore. Europe had started to open up, I had concert-invitations in Italy and Austria, and we booked the next flight. My mom called me a gig junkie. But I think we both understood that, whether I end up busking in the subway or on the Elbphilharmonie stage, music is the air I breathe.<\/p>\n

Why did you choose the piano \u2014 or did it choose you?<\/h3>\n

Why the piano? That\u2019s a good question. The piano is pretty scary. It looks like a coffin. Or a three-legged monster with tonnes of teeth, some of them black. Gross! And it can sound so percussive. I mean, are we pianists crazy? BUT! If you give it lots of TLC, this monster will be transformed into a prince with the most ravishing voice. Like in a fairy tale.<\/p>\n

Sunny Ritter plays W.A. Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat-major, KV. 271 \u201cJeunehomme\u201d in Salzburg.<\/em><\/p>\n