  Our next guest is just ten
years old. She turned ten
in February. She composes
music for piano, violin
viola, string quintet and
she's just-, strong quartet
even. Probably a string quintet too
to be honest. This little girl composes
in her sleep. I mean that
literally. She's also just finished
her first full-length
opera based on the story
of Cinderella. She's been described
as 'the new Mozart'
and you're about to hear why
She's thoroughly charmed audiences
around the world, including
the likes of Ellen DeGeneres on her
TV show. We are so
excited to be able to welcome
her to Zeitgeist. Alma
Deustcher.
  Alma, in a minute people
are going to hear us talking
and we're going to talk more about your music
and what inspires you, and why
you write music. First of all
I would just like you to play for this
audience. What would you like to play
I'm going to play The Bee and
you have to-, and it's all about the buzzing
of the bees. The bee buzzes forward
and backward and he
gets softer. Perfect musical evocation
Why don't you go to the front of the stage?
  See what I mean? Now, Alma
that wasn't a piece that you actually
composed yourself. No
it wasn't. But you do spend an awful
lot of your time composing
How old were you when you realised
you had this frankly miraculous
musical gift. Well
as much as I can remember
myself, I was always
overwhelmed by music. I
must have been 3 when
I heard this beautiful lullaby
by Richard Strauss
  (sings)
  and after I heard it I
went to my parents and asked
them, 'How can music be so
beautiful?'
  Then when I was 4, then
I didn't know it was called composing
I just had these ideas
and melodies running in my head
and then I would sit at the piano
and try and play them.
  Then when I was 5, then I wrote
them down in my notebook, and
I remember one of the first
things I ever composed was
  an opera of a story
that my mummy told me about
a pirate called Don Alonzo
but it was very simple.
  I'm sure it was deeply complex
probably, compared to what the rest of us
could manage.
  Earlier Nile Rodgers, who's
another musical legend, was talking
about how Darwin, the great
evolutionary thinker, wondered
if humans had had a proto language
that was musical before we could
speak. I was asking your dad, Guy
yesterday when we were making the pasta
together, and by the way Alma was also
the champion pasta maker
as if the musical talents weren't
enough, and he said that actually you
were singing before you could speak
So clearly it was in your
blood and in your DNA
Do you come from a musical family
Yes, well my parents are
amateurs (laughter) but
they-
 , No offence,
  guys.
  My father is an amateur, plays
the flute and my-, but they love music
  My father is an amateur and plays
the flute, and my mother is
an amateur, also plays the piano. You told
us about how music comes
into your head and sometimes you're not
necessarily aware of why it's coming
in, and you don't necessarily even want
it at that time. Can you tell us more
about that process, about how the
melodies arrive
Well when I try to get a melody
it never comes to me. It
usually comes to me either
when I'm resting, or when
I'm just sitting at the piano improvising
or when I'm skipping with
my skipping rope. We've seen
the skipping rope here.
  Oh, even when I'm trying
to do-,
  even when I'm trying to do something
else and somebody's talking to me
or when I'm trying to do something
then I hear this beautiful
melody. I hear a melody
inside my head.
  It can be played by any instrument
  One time it's a human
voice singing, and a different
time it's a violin
  Another time it's horns. Even
horns, sometimes.
  I just hear this melody
It plays inside my mind
What do you then do with that melody
What's your process? How do
you turn it into a violin
concerto or a piano sonata
or indeed an opera? Well, lots
of people think that the difficult
bit of-, the difficult part of composing
is actually to get
the idea, but actually
that just comes to me. The
difficult bit is to then sit
down and with that idea
to develop it, and to combine
it with other ideas in a coherent
way. It's very easy just to
throw a soup of
lots of ideas which don't make
any sense together, but to
sit down and to develop it
and to combine it, and then afterwards
to tweak it and polish
it, that takes ages
sometimes even years. I
remember when
  I was 6 and I wrote my piano
sonata-, As you do. Yes. I remember
when I was 6 and I wrote
my first piano sonata, I
already had all the ideas for
it but I couldn't imagine how long it
would take me
  to write that piano sonata, and
that was just a small piano sonata
Now I'm 10 and I'm writing
now a whole opera.
  You've written a whole opera! Yes. We'll talk a
bit more about that opera in a moment
We've been thinking this morning about evolution
about how time progresses
about how everything connects to everything
Nile Rodgers again was talking
about the evolution of music
and how that just never, ever
stops. Can you tell us about
your inspirations? Who
most inspires you from the history
of music? Well of course
the composers I like best
with the beautiful melodies
and beautiful harmonies like
Mozart and Schubert
and Tchaikovsky. Also
I am inspired by
the girls in the past
  who wanted to become musicians
like Fanny Mendelsohn
and Nannerl, Mozart's sister
but they weren't allowed because
in those days girls weren't
allowed to become musicians, though
they were extremely talented
  So I'm very glad
that I'm not living in the olden days
and that I'm allowed to become
a composer and a musician, and I
don't have to stay at home and knit
and cook.
  We're all very glad about that too
yes. I
can see
Miriam in the front row laughing
cheering on that one. There will be
many females in this room who heartily
agree with that, Alma. Also, well
  I know that Larry Page
and Sergey Brin, they
changed the world and
I want to change the world too
I'm a little bit inspired by them
  It's funny that you should mention
that because, actually, I was looking
at your YouTube page
and I'm just going to pull out some of the
comments that are on there. 'The word
'genius' is pathetically
inadequate. Today I hear
this and I've run out of adjectives
run out of superlatives
My whole life is changed
My entire view of the
universe.' I'm sure Stephen
Hawking would have something to say about
that, but that's just one of the comments
'In this piece I hear faint echoes
of Tchaikovsky, Sibelius
Smetana and Johann Strauss
but most of all the wonderful voice
of Alma Deutscher loud and
clear. It's exciting to think
one day we will speak of her
only by her one name
like the grand masters
of musical history.' Then my
personal favourite, 'Dear Alma
you are going to change the
world.' So clearly for some people
you already are changing the
world. Now can you tell us about
how you do this? What is your ordinary
day? What's your average day
and how much of it is spent making
music? Well, all morning I
do music. So, well
after breakfast, then I practice
I sometimes practice. I practice the piano
and I practice the violin. Then
especially now I'm composing
Cinderella,
  I compose music
and, so,
  it's quite a lot of effort, you know,
  to spend all on music. I'm
sure it is. Then after lunch
then I skip in
the garden, I play with my
younger sister and a
lot of time is spent reading. I
love reading and that's also how
I learn.
  Then I skip with my skipping rope
  And all those melodies pour
in. One of which is your
piano variations in
E flat major, is that right? Yes
Tell us about this piece. We're going to hear you play
a little variation from it. Okay
so I'm going to tell you how I got
this melody. So
  it was two years ago and
we were staying in Berlin. So
just to remind everyone, you were eight
Yes, and I was staying in Berlin. It
was the middle of the night and I
was dreaming. I had this beautiful
melody when I was dreaming, and because
I thought it was so beautiful
and I woke up, I must have
woken up, and
  in the dead of night I sneaked
out of bed.
  Because I didn't want to forget
it, I wrote it down in my
notebook, and it took me
quite a long time, actually. About
three hours, almost.
  Then in the morning
I didn't want to get up, and my parents
wondered why I was so tired
  Then of course afterwards, then the
real work came, because
once I had the idea then I had
to turn it into-, develop
it and turn it into the variations
Can we hear them? Of course. Thank
you.
  I
  think,
  if only all nocturnal
adventures in Berlin could yield
such wonders. Alma, thank you
very much indeed. I feel like I had the
best view in the house there. Now, you mention
scribbling in your notebook
presumably onto manuscript
paper, one of the most timeless
ways. This is how composers have
written down their thoughts
and ideas for as long
as they've been composing. Do you use
any technology, though, and
how does technology have an impact
on your life as a
musician?
  Well, I compose usually
sometimes in my head and sometimes
I write things down, and sometimes
my father, he tells me, 'This
is not interesting enough
This is too boring,' or, 'This
is nice.' Then I have a
teacher in Switzerland
and we have lessons
on Skype. We have
lessons on Skype and our
keyboards are connected. So I
play on his keyboard, and
he plays on mine.
  So that's technology too
Also there's this very
kind professor who lives in
Chicago. I sometimes send
my music to him
  and he sends back rude comments
  I suspect there are lots of people around the world
who will be sending back
  comments that are very praiseworthy
and not rude at all. Now tell us about
Cinderella, because this is a full
length opera that you've written here
I know you're very inspired by Mozart
opera in particular. What
made you want to write an opera about
Cinderella and how did you approach that
story? Well, Cinderella is
one of my favourite stories, because
I like stories in which
the beautiful girls triumph
in the end, despite being girls
and are taken seriously
And irrespective of their beauty
as well. Because, well, I'm
a little girl and I want my music
to be taken seriously. Sometimes
  it's a little bit difficult for people
to take me seriously because I'm just
a little girl.
  So for instance my previous
opera, The Sweeper of Dreams
there's this girl Alex who committed
two terrible crimes
First of all she's a girl, she's a child
and secondly, even
worse, she's a female.
  Despite that, she manages to
triumph in the end. So
I like stories like that, which are
similar.
  For Cinderella, I didn't want Cinderella
just to be pretty. I
wanted her to have her own mind
and her own spirit, and to be
a little bit like me. So I
decided that she would be a composer
  So the whole story
is based in an opera company
which is run by the evil stepmother
and the stepsisters are two
Prima Donnas who think
themselves great singers when
actually they're completely talentless
and pointless.
  The prince is a poet
so part of the drama in the story
is that Cinderella finds a
poem which is written by
the prince but without knowing
that the prince wrote it.
  She loves the lyrics and is inspired
to put it to music.
  Then in the ball she sings
the music to the prince
with the prince's words, without
knowing that he wrote
the words and without him
knowing that she composed
the music. So it's all a lot of suspense
but in the end they find each other
like lyrics find words
  We are so lucky, because we
are going to have a world premier
now. Alma is going to play us
and sing us a little
moment from Cinderella. Before
she does, I just would like to say
that a production of Cinderella is going
to be mounted in Israel this summer
but as yet no production
in Europe or indeed
Africa. Middle East, sorted. So
if anyone in this room would like to help
with that, then, you know, we'll
be talking to you afterwards. There's
Guy over there. In fact, you can find him
Alma, thank you so much. So
I just wanted to say a few words about
this.
  So what I'm going to play now
the opening aria, that's the
opening song of the whole opera
and it starts when Cinderella has
been awake all night working
extremely hard, copying
the parts of all the orchestra
for the rehearsal the next day
because the stepmother is slave-working
her as a copyist as well as lots
of other things, of course.
  So it's now early in the morning
and she can hardly stay awake
and she can hardly concentrate
anymore, and now she's copying
the most boring part
a double bass.
  Oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah. And above this, suddenly
a beautiful melody springs
into her head. She tries to banish
it and says, 'Stop it, Cinderella
Take your silly melodies out of
your head, they do not interest anybody
and start concentrating. The double
bass needs its part for
the rehearsal tomorrow morning or
your stepmother will be very angry
with you.' So she resolutely starts
to copy again, but the melody
comes back louder, and louder
and louder, and louder, until
she can't resist it and breaks
into the song. Up in the sky, merrily fly, flocks of wild geese on their
way to
  warmer
  lands. Flapping their wings, rolling
in swings, over sand
  and
  seas, gliding on the breeze, they're heading
for the sun. Look how they rise, carefree and
blithe.
  Oh, if I could join them. Spreading my wings, I'd soar in the
  air, leaving all care behind. Though with them
I never can fly
459
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:39,060
music still
  can
  reach to the sky.
  Reach
  to
  the sky. On wings of my sun
I'll soar
  through
  the air, and leave all my cares behind
  Up in the sky,
  merrily fly, flocks of
wild geese on their
way to warmer lands. Flapping their
  wings,
  rolling win swings, over
  sand and seas, gliding on
the breeze, they're heading for the sun. Look
  how they rise,
  carefree and blithe.
  Oh, if I could join them. Spreading my wings, I'd soar
479
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:29,090
  in
  the air, leaving all care behind. And apparently classical music has no
future, and young people just
aren't interested. Thank you so much
Alma, for busting that stereotype
and don't you think it's time that we had
Cinderella mounted in Europe
Let's make that happen, people
Alma, before we go, I just
have to ask a huge favour
because we've been talking today about
the human at things, and
about how we need to connect
and how we need to empathise
with others, and listen to other people
and communicate, so I have
a big, special favour to ask
It's a little bit indulgent, but I hope
you'll agree and we'll do it very quickly
For me, the ultimate piece of
music that encapsulates
all of those things, humanity, empathy
compassion,
  is a piece of Bach. We were hearing
earlier from Nile about how music evolves
and everything's connected, and this
for me is the blueprint of it all
Can we play some Bach together? Of course
Thank you.
  I'm going to go on this side
shall we go a bit
  forward? This is like
a dream come true for me, so-
Thank you.
