For the composer Max Richter it was love at first sight when he spotted the visual artist Yulia Mahr at Edinburgh festival in 1988. She was performing in a play of the Mahabharata, and he was impressed by her talent and beauty. “There were only a few people there. I saw this woman acting and fell in love instantly,” he remembers. “Of course, I never thought I’d see her again, and she never saw me.”
Two years later, their paths crossed again. Yulia was working as a director for a theatre company in London called the Arts Threshold. “It was set up by Brian Astbury, to give young people their first chance in theatre. There was a lot of experimental stuff going on,” she says. “I needed a composer for a show called The Painted Lady, and someone suggested I speak to Max.” Having studied music, Max was in the early stages of his career, performing regularly as a pianist and trying to make a name for himself as a composer. The interview took place in Maison Bertaux, a Soho patisserie that was a popular hangout for artists at the time. “He cycled there, so my first impression was: ‘Who is this sweaty man?’” laughs Yulia. As they began chatting, she was impressed by his “inquiring mind … He was really up for experimentation. He was clearly happy to question himself and the world,” she says. “I hired him to do the composing role, as I thought he’d turn up and be committed, which is what I really needed.”
