Gabriel Prokofiev

Summary

‘Contemporary classical music shouldn't be only for initiates, for people who are fortunate enough to already know about it.’

It was of course a thrill to meet a descendant of such a famous composer – Gabriel Prokofiev's father, the artist and poet Oleg Prokofiev (1928–98), was Sergei Prokofiev's second son. But I had a more serious reason for asking him to be interviewed for this book: I wanted to acknowledge the phenomenon of the pop-star-turned-classical-composer and I thought he would be the ideal person with whom to discuss it.

His own background is in electro-acoustic composition and he currently works not only as a composer of classical concert music but also as a producer of electro, hip-hop and grime records and as a DJ. In addition he is the founder of the Nonclassical record label and club nights at which contemporary classical music is performed in unconventional venues. I therefore knew that this would be an atypical interview, one that would be based on few of the questions I asked the other contributors.

I’d decided before we met that I wasn't going to ask him about his family connection because I wasn't sure of its relevance to our conversation. After all, he was born more than twenty years after his famous grandfather died. But it was one of the first things he spoke about when describing the unusual path that his career has taken. He was open, friendly and talkative (‘Stop me at any time – I can keep chatting away’, he warned me) and this was an interview of the most enjoyable kind, the sort that's essentially a spontaneous sharing of ideas and a stimulating discussion of them.

It took place in January 2015 in his studio on the top floor of a slightly run-down 1960s office block on a main street in east London. And it is a studio, not a study: approximately four metres by four metres, with a window running the full width of one wall, it was virtually filled with an enormous mixing desk, a variety of keyboards and consoles, microphone stands, speakers, racks of CDs and lamps. I also noticed, more incongruously, a solitary old-fashioned music stand, a trombone and, underneath the window, an old sofa barely visible beneath electrical cables and a pile of folders.