Artist Interview: Hélène Grimaud

Last weekend pianist Hélène Grimaud played Brahms' First Piano Concerto in d minor, Opus 15 in Houston. Originally the program had her playing Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with the Houston Symphony and guest conductor Xian Zhang.
But Zhang cancelled because of her recent child birth and another conductor Hannu Lintu was hired to fill in for the concerts.
Also on the program was to be Bernstein's Three Dance Episodes from On the Town and the Suite from The Three-Cornered Hat by De Falla on top of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4. Instead, Stravinsky's Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss and Ravel's La valse were on the program. An obvious question was about the program change, and polling friends, colleagues and listeners, they wanted to know about Grimaud's association with wolves. As I have been listening to the new Bach release, it was the natural place to start. You can take a listen to her answers and more as we chatted Saturday afternoon in the hotel lobby.
Listen to our interview here. (mp3 file)
You can also hear our previous conversation at Carnegie Hall here and my first interview over the phone here.
Thanks to Ernie Villareal for taking these pictures during our chat, and to Amanda Ameer for setting things up.