Season 3: Episode 7

Musician Shasta Ellenbogen talks about changing the audience for classical music.

This season I am talking to artists about their first solo.

Shasta Ellenbogen is a musician, violist and founder of Classical Sundays.

I met Shasta in the summer of 2020 at a socially distanced Classical Sunday’s concert at gallery Wiesenberg, in Wedding, Berlin.

Shasta has a vision for growing a new audience for classical music. Her approach is experimental, cross cultural, and successful as Classical Sunday’s has reached over 1,000 people and expanded to play in multiple venues across Berlin.

We talk about the harsh culture of classical music, Shasta’s journey to find the strength to do her own thing, the challenges of leadership across cultures, and her hope for the future.

In the case of having only one rehearsal, the axis is more on trusting each other and getting to a place where you all together are just there and seeing what happens. And relying on the strength of the music itself instead of making it about us and our interpretation.

– Shasta Ellenbogen

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Shasta Ellenbogen studied at conservatories in Amsterdam and London, and was professor of viola and theory at the KM Conservatory in Chennai, India. She is based in Berlin where she the Artistic Director and organizer of Classical Sundays, a bi-weekly concert series in Berlin designed to help bring new audiences to classical music.

Alongside her career as a soloist and chamber musician, she has worked with several pop artists and is active in experimental and improvised music. She has performed in Canada, across Europe and in Asia. In Berlin she is also a founding member of the Irresistible Wiesenburg Quartet.

Season 3: Episode 7

Musician Shasta Ellenbogen talks about changing the audience for classical music.

Listen Here

Photo credits: Eva Abvril