Violinist Siem strikes fashion high note
>> His chiselled features have fronted a campaign for the British men’s brand Dunhill, smouldered in black and white advertisements for Giorgio Armani and Dior fragrances, and graced the pages of L’Uomo Vogue.
Fashion insiders were left breathless in January by his energetic catwalk performance at the Giambattista Valli show in Paris. And he drew more gasps two months later, appearing in the front row on the arm of Wendi Murdoch.
But this fashion It boy is neither a model nor an actor, neither a playboy nor a prince. Charlie Siem is one of the rising stars in classical music. British-born and educated at Eton College and Cambridge University, he is a violin virtuoso who has played with some of the world’s top orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony.
The 30-year-old, who began playing the violin at three, regularly writes his own musical compositions and, aside from his fashion forays, has collaborated onstage with a host of pop and rock stars including Lady Gaga, Bryan Adams and the Who.
Siem is intensely passionate when talking about classical music but mildly bemused when pushed on being the subject of the fashion world’s fawning admiration.
“It’s been a way of finding a whole new audience for my music,” he said. “My first steps into fashion were five years ago, which was just when menswear brands started having an interest in using real people as models. Having artists, musicians and personalities in campaigns is relatively mainstream now. But back then, I was definitely part of an early wave.”
Among his earliest admirers was Valli, who said he had hoped to have Siem play at one of his shows for some time.
“He truly is an extraordinary character, unpredictable, eccentric, so timelessly chic,” Valli said. “Then finally, in January, along came the right collection, where the intensity of Charlie’s musical interpretation perfectly matched the tension of the silhouettes, sharp like the sound of the strings of his violin.”
Siem said that he has made many friends in the fashion world. But he added that they had also given him insight into the rather unpredictable and chaotic nature of the industry, one very different from the rigours of classical music.
“Everything I’ve ever been booked to do has been so last minute: 24 hours’ notice, sometimes less,” Siem said. “It is a bit odd, when you think about it, given how they are often spending millions of dollars on their marketing. Sometimes I do wonder, shouldn’t they be thinking about it all a little bit more? I am amazed at how it all always seems to come together.”
With a relentless travel schedule that has him on the road over 300 days a year, performing in countries like China, Mexico, Italy, Norway and the United States, not to mention hours of practice each day, it is hardly surprising that when it comes to what he wears onstage, Siem chooses decisively to think less.
“It’s just easier to wear the same thing, isn’t it?” he said. “A uniform of sorts. I needed something specifically engineered for all the movement that takes place during a performance. Trying to wear traditional suiting is virtually impossible. So I decided to design something myself.”
Siem is a descendant of the 19th-century Norwegian violin virtuoso and composer Ole Bull, a wild musician who sold soap bars with his name on them and who built his own fairytale-style castle on an island where Siem played a concert last year.
“I was fascinated by him as a very shy child,” Seim said. “He was a wild character and supreme talent, and an amazing early self-promoter. He was a huge influence on how I thought about myself, how I could warm to the limelight and the path I became determined to take.”
These days, he said, a classical musician is almost perceived as an interpreter of music that was written in the past. And his chosen role, as a violinist willing to straddle multiple genres and flirt with popular culture, has put him in the firing line of some purists.
“There are lots of elitists, I suppose, who are still slavishly devoted to a particular way of thinking about how classical music should be,” he said.
He stressed he had learned powerful lessons from performing with pop stars. Never a natural performer, he saw the importance of connecting with the audience in a physical and visceral way.
“When you play Brahms or Beethoven, technically you really need to focus on pieces that are incredibly and exhaustively demanding,” Siem said. “Whereas with a pop song, musically there is no challenge at all. Most of them are only based around three or four chords.”
“With classical, the art is in the music, but with pop, emotions and narratives can also be conveyed in the energy that you can create in that moment.
“My great love is my music. I will change what needs to be changed, do what needs to be done, go wherever I need to go in order to carry on.”