Pianist Louis Lortie joins Grant Llewellyn and the North Carolina Symphony for concerts in Chapel Hill (Nov.10) and Raleigh (Nov.11 & 12), featuring works by Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Hailed as “one of perhaps half a dozen pianists it is worth dropping everything to go and hear,” (Daily Telegraph, London), Lortie is known for the fresh perspective and individuality he brings to his performances. He took a few moments to answer some of our burning questions about his life and work.

1. Tell us a little about yourself: where were you born and maybe something about your family?
I was born in Montreal but my parents are not really artistic.

2. How and when did you become interested in the piano? Where did you study?
It’s a genetic thing . I had two grandmas who should have been pianists if they had been born in the right age.

3. What is it about classical music that speaks to you—what made you choose it over other forms of expression?
I don’t think one chooses music ...I think music chooses you.

4. What is the best thing about having a career as a classical pianist?
Being immersed in so many different cultures and travel through different centuries and continents within one lifetime .

What about the worst thing?
Playing on mostly badly regulated pianos . It used to be a family tradition (to be a piano technician) but now that is pretty much over. Big piano companies keep being sold and most of the new instruments are a shadow of what the production was in the 1950s and 60s.

5. What music do you like to listen to in your free time?
I can have quite a craze for jazz and world music (for example: Brazilian).

6. Who do you think is the most underrated classical composer?
Maybe Liszt ...I am playing it this week but most of his works for orchestra are completely ignored by conductors.

7. Some critics are concerned that classical music is a dying art form. How do you respond to that?
What is REALLY a dying art form is music criticism that knows how to describe interpretation . Writing about music is one of the most difficult tasks I know of and it has become increasingly vapid and slowly disappearing from the media. If there are 35 million young Chinese pianists at the moment , I don’t see the problem of classical music “dying.” With the western world ignoring more and more the humanities at school and in general education , we are already betraying our own heritage and that goes beyond just “classical” music.