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Hooked on crossover

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THE EMI BOARDROOM in Kensington, west London, has the overpowering less-is-more minimalism of an architect's bedroom. There's a full-on fluffy carpet that probably gets replaced each time somebody even thinks of treading on it, trendy fitted wardrobes and pop-art-style graphics.

Then there's the mother of all tables, with 26 seats reserved for the 21st-century knights of the music biz, the heads of departments. Yet today the only royal sitting here is the new king of classical crossover, Maksim Mrvica, the 28-year-old Croatian pianist who has stormed the Hong Kong charts (and soon Taiwan and Japan, we are told) with The Piano Player, stealing hearts in the process. Mrvica (pronounced Maravitsa, with a heavily rolled R) is doing classical piano differently, a la violinist Vanessa Mae and string quartet Bond, his stablemates under impresario Mel Bush. His CD gives a modern once-over to classics such as Croatian Rhapsody and Handel's Sarabande. His frenetic version of The Flight Of The Bumblebee could feature at a rave (if you pump up the bass) - although to me it sounds suspiciously like Richard Clayderman on Ecstasy.

Mrvica has wandered across town from his new central London flat to collect his gold disc, earned with sales of 10,000 CDs in Hong Kong in five weeks. EMI execs are joined by a dozen-strong pack of journalists, thousands of kilometres away in the SAR, and all gazing at the musician during a video conference from Exchange Square, asking brash questions such as will he be going shopping in Hong Kong after his Miss Hong Kong appearance on August 23 ('yes'); will he be a judge ('no') and does he like Chinese women ('yes, very elegant').

A stroll through the modern, trendy EMI offices is a million miles away from the fuddy-duddy world of classical music. EMI does things differently, and sits journalist and his quarry in a 'listening room', possibly where recordings are judged hits or misses. Staff call one the 'spanking suite', another 'The Hugh Hefner Room'.

Being ushered into a room called Hugh Hefner, replete with scarlet velour seats and dark sensuous walls, with a two-metre-tall Croatian pop star with big hands is worrisome, especially when the PRs ask if we'd like some soft background music. Strange visions of men dressed as Playboy bunnies appear.

Given Mrvica's clubby clothes (designer jeans, suave sandals, a black top from London's Camden Market), his stage antics and his crossover music, why does he play piano, not lead guitar? 'My best friend had a piano in his home and from age six I always tried to play it. I loved the sound,' he says. 'So I forced my mum into enrolling me into music school.' Aged 12, he performed Haydn's C major piano concerto, but three years later his town, Sibenik, on the Adriatic coast near Dubrovnik, became the frontline of the 1991-1996 war in the former Yugoslavia. 'There were 1,000 shells a day,' he says. 'But you can't just stop living - you must go on. The only thing I could find to help me was my piano.' He practised in the basement, the barrage making him more determined. 'For five years nothing worked in the town, all I had was my piano. My professor, Marija Sekso, insisted we practise.'

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