Violinist Mari Samuelsen recommends her favourite listening, reading, viewing, eating, and places to visit.
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Music
I really like the soundscape of Jon Hopkins, I think his album Late Night Tales: Jon Hopkins is wonderful, also the track ‘Emerald Rush’ from Singularity is super haunting. I love artists and tracks that just make me want to hear more, and he’s one of them. Luke Howard is someone I’ve really become a big fan of over the last year – “In Metaphor, Solace” and “Portrait Gallery”, both so pure and beautiful!
Reading or Podcast
My favorite magazines is probably Vanity Fair, The Economist, and The New Yorker – I find them interesting, and they write articles which are worth reading. I’m trying to reduce my time in front of laptop and on cellphone (it’s hard!) so having some beautiful magazines laying around really helps.
I do have several half read books laying around, and one I’m getting a good start on is Atonement by Ian McEwan – apparently a masterpiece! My all time favorite book is probably Mikhail Bulgakov The Master and Margarita. Just brilliant.
Film, Movie, or TV Series
I’m currently watching I Know This Much Is True with Mark Ruffalo (HBO) – just wow! So deep, dark, painful, brilliantly directed and played, it’s not uplifting at all, but really worth watching! A must. And I also recently watched When They See Us (Netflix) – another fantastic mini-series I can highly recommend, based on a true story. Again – sad, tragic, painful, but seeing what’s going on in the world today, this series is equally relevant now.
YouTube Video
I ususally use YouTube for research when working on music, but that’s not too interesting to share, so I’d rather share another favorite of mine, Sir David Attenborough. I love watching small snippets with his voice on stuff from nature, ocean, animals, our planet. I think he’ll always be worth watching!
Eating
I try to cook as healthy as possible, lots of greens and organic food. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, but very conscious on what I eat, and when eating meat, it’s not processed industrial meat. I’ve so many favorite restaurants, but let’s go for one in Berlin, that would be Standard – Serious Pizza in Prenzlauer Berg. Napoletana pizza, organic, simple and so good!
Place To Visit
Norway and Scandinavia! I like very many places in the world, and I need to be in big cities from time to time, but when recommending an area to visit I’d say Norway, Sweden, Denmark and also Iceland are unique countries. I think nature up here is quite spectacular. This time of the year it’s so light here, so much energy, and so green. Water is clean and the air is fresh. Copenhagen is probably my favorite city up here, with fantastic food and atmosphere, arts, design, architecture and culture!
Follow Mari Samuelsen at marisamuelsen.com