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World Athletics long jump champion is also a classical pianist with a passion for Chopin and Schubert

Malaika Mihambo is a world champion long jumper, and plays classical piano to unwind. Picture: Alamy / Fabian Hensel Photography

By Siena Linton, ClassicFM

 

Malaika Mihambo, an Olympic and world champion long jumper, plays classical piano in her downtime. 

Born in Germany in 1994, Malaika Mihambo is one of the greatest long jump athletes competing today.

She currently holds the titles of Olympic, world, and European champion in her sport, most recently winning the gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon on 24 July.

This recent win marks her second gold medal at the competition, having taken home first place in the 2019 event in Doha, Qatar, as well as Olympic gold at Tokyo 2022. She also won the gold medal at the 2018 European Championships, which usually take place every two years but were cancelled in 2020 due to the global pandemic.

Like many athletes, Mihambo has several methods for de-compressing and relaxing after competitions and rigorous training sessions, and one of her great passions outside of athletics is classical music.

In an interview with the German magazine Concerti, Mihambo reveals that she didn’t discover classical music until 2016. She began playing the piano aged 22, and through her learning of the instrument began to delve deeper into the genre.

“Musicians and athletes have a lot in common”, Mihambo says. “Diligence, discipline and passion, which you have to show in order to achieve good results and progress, are particularly important’’.

The German athlete also says she enjoys learning at her own pace without the pressure of success, as a sort of contrast to her thriving career in competitive sport.

In a post shared to Instagram, Mihambo is pictured at her piano with a book of music by Chopin, captioned “Music is a universal language. It give you emotions and something to think about. It’s definitely soul food”.

Mihambo also shared a short clip from Franz Schubert’s Sehnsuchtswalzer as she prepared for the European Indoor Championships, in February 2022:

From ‘Nessun dorma’ at the 1994 World Cup to Ravel’s Boléro soundtracking the most memorable ice dancing final in history, classical music and sport have long been intertwined. Discover the most famous examples here.

73-year-old conductor collapses and dies mid-performance at leading German opera house

Stefan Soltesz was conducting at the Bavarian State Opera when he collapsed at the podium during the first act. Picture: Getty

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Stefan Soltész is the fourth conductor to collapse during a performance at the Bavarian State Opera over the past century. 

Hungarian-born Austrian conductor, Stefan Soltész collapsed at the podium of the Bavarian State Opera on Friday evening, and died later that night.

The 73-year-old maestro passed out towards the end of the first act of Strass’ Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) which he was conducting at the Munich based opera house.

Over the weekend, the Bavarian State Opera released a statement on its website reading, “It is with shock and deep sadness that the Bayerische Staatsoper has to announce the loss of Stefan Soltész.

“He passed away on the evening of July 22, 2022 after collapsing during his conducting of Die schweigsame Frau by Richard Strauss at the Nationaltheater. Our thoughts are with his wife Michaela.”

Serge Dorny, the opera company’s general director, tweeted on Friday night that, “We are losing a gifted conductor, and I have lost a good friend.”

Read more: Tragedy at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre as actor killed on stage

After Soltész’s fall, the opera came to a halt, with an immediate 30-minute interval called for the audience. When the audience returned after the break, the state opera’s artistic operations manager, Tillmann Wiegand, announced that the production had been cancelled.

Soltész was seen by the on-site doctor at the theatre, before being rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead later that night.

The maestro is the fourth conductor to collapse mid-performance at the Munich based opera house. In 1911 the 56-year-old Austrian conductor, Felix Mottl, collapsed while conducting his 100th performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. He died 11 days later.

In 1968, the 60-year-old German conductor Joseph Keilberth died at the podium during a performance of the same opera. And in 1989, the 57-year-old Italian conductor, Giuseppe Patanè collapsed while conducting Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Patanè was pronounced dead at a hospital just hours later.

Read more: Concert pianist who suffered heart failure during a concerto performance, has died

Artists across Europe and beyond have taken to social media to mourn the death of Soltész over the weekend.

Born in 1949, Soltész trained in Vienna before going on to lead the Aalto Theatre in Essen to international acclaim as the opera house’s artistic director. He was also the music director of the Essen Philharmonic, and earned a Grammy nomination for an album he directed with the ensemble.

The Strauss opera Soltész had been conducting was a revival of a 2010 production by Australian opera director, Barrie Kosky. The two artists had worked on numerous projects together throughout Germany.

On learning of Soltész’s death on saturday morning, Kosky shared his grief and told the New York Times that the conductor was “an amazing musician”, and “the real thing”.