Franz Ferdinand star on high-brow beat
Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos faced a different kind of crowd tonight as he took part in a high-brow discussion on the future of music.
Alongside distinguished composers and academics in Edinburgh, the rocker admitted that facing the 300-strong audience was more daunting than appearing at the forthcoming Brit Awards, where his band has been nominated for five gongs.
Kapranos was joined in the Scottish capital’s Reid Hall by classical composer James MacMillan, Nigel Osborne, a composer and professor of music, and sociologist Tie DeNora for the event, hosted by the University of Edinburgh.
Speaking before the question-and-answer discussion, Kapranos joked: “This was more daunting by a long way. I don’t really care about the Brits. It’s going to be great to go down but I have actually had to exercise part of my brain tonight.”
The singer also called for more British government help for musicians, but warned against them taking sides with politicians.
“I don’t know if having tea with politicians is always a good idea,” he said.
“I think the role of musicians is to question politicians rather than to go to bed with them.”
He continued: “For any cultural output to thrive there needs to be some kind of state input to that as well. There are elements of our musical output which require sustenance because they aren’t self-sufficient.
“But so-called commercial music would benefit from investment as well.”
Kapranos and his Glasgow four-piece band have been nominated for best British Group and Best British Album at the Brits.
The nominations top a successful year for the group, which rose to fame with the debut single Take Me Out.
As Kapranos sat cross-legged on the stage with the other participants, he told the audience, made up of members of the public, that the key to Scotland’s role in making music in the 21st century – the title of the discussion – was listening to a range of music.
He said: “When I told the other guys in the band about this evening they weren’t so convinced by the grandeur of it all.”
He spoke of a “hostility” to classical music, adding: “There is very little done to break that hostility other than Classic FM.”
Kapranos said people should not be restricted by their taste in music, adding: “We say: ’I like this.’
"Because I listen to Nirvana and Korn I am a troubled individual. I’m riddled with angst because I listen to Chopin and Debussy. I listen to Kylie Minogue and Scissor Sisters because I’m upbeat and I like to party. I listen to Wagner because I like the smell of napalm in the morning.
“We define ourselves as a nation by the way we encourage our creativity.”
Mr MacMillan said people lived in a world where they had forgotten to listen to music actively.
“We need to rediscover our ability to listen,” he said.
The evening was part of the hugely popular Edinburgh Lectures series, which began in 1992 and has featured former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and scientist Stephen Hawking.
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