Who Are the Guitar Goddesses?
December 21, 2011 at 8:55 pm | Posted in Strings | 2 CommentsListening to the radio on the way home from work today, I heard the DJ refer to Jimmy Page as a “guitar god.” I like Jimmy Page, but I don’t know that deifying him is necessarily called for. But that statement got me thinking about the great guitarists.
A half dozen names popped into my head immediately, followed quickly by a dozen more. But I noticed something: I couldn’t come up with a single female guitar great. In the pantheon of guitar gods, who are the guitar goddesses?
I considered that the shortcoming might be my own, so I decided to look online at other people’s lists of the best guitarists, hoping to find the women that I somehow forgot. I typed “best guitarists” into Google and then clicked the first four links (see below) that seemed pertinent. What I found was sad, but also expected, unfortunately.
Jimi Hendrix topped each list as the best guitarist of all time. Though their rankings varied, the next top nineteen guitarists were pretty consistent among all the lists: Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, and Eddie Van Halen were on all, with appearances by Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, and others.
Guitar World recently posted its “30 on 30,” in which thirty great guitarists were asked to name their guitar heroes. (They must have been asked not to choose someone already mentioned because no two guitarists chose the same hero.) Of those thirty guitar heroes, not a single one was a woman.
But that’s not half as concerning as DigitalDreamDoor.com’s list of the top 250 rock guitarists. (The list is actually longer, but they stop ranking them after 250.) Of 250 rock guitarists, how many do you think are women?
If you guessed twelve, you’re off by a dozen. Not a single woman appeared in that list of 250 guitarists.
The guitar world isn’t completely exclusive. LA Times Magazine‘s “guitar experts” chose their top fifty guitarists and then asked their readers to rank them. This list cast a wider musical net, including classical and Spanish guitarists. The top favorites are pretty predictable. Not until almost the end of the list do we see a glimmer of femininity: Sitting at number 48 is Sharon Isbin, a classical guitarist and founder of the Juilliard School’s Guitar Department. She’s certainly an accomplished musician, but not a household name.
You can’t discuss guitarists without looking to Rolling Stone magazine. It offers its own sleek-looking list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, with Hendrix, Clapton, Page, and Richards at the top. Farther down, past photo after photo of long-haired, axe-wielding men, you’ll find Joni Mitchell sitting at number 75, sandwiched between Dick Dale and Robby Krieger. A hop, skip, and jump away, nestled between Carl Perkins and Tom Verlaine, sits that blues beauty Bonnie Raitt.
So what’s going on here? Is it true that, as Rolling Stone‘s list implies, only 2% of professional guitarists are women? Is the business of pop music inherently sexist? Are girls just not interested in learning how to play guitar? Or is that possibility not being communicated to girls during their formative years? Are they just lacking role models?
I don’t know the answers. What I know, though, is that this disparity just feels wrong. But instead of focusing on why things are the way they are, it’s better to focus on how we can change things.
As a novice guitar player and father of two boys, I don’t have a lot of sway with young women looking to branch out musically. Luckily, it isn’t just up to me. If you’re a guitarist, or if you have a daughter, and especially if you’re a guitarist who has a daughter, make sure she knows that the six-string avenue is open to her, that she isn’t limited to flute, violin, and piano. And when you find an outstanding female guitarist like Bonnie Raitt, share her music with your sons and daughters alike.
And if you’re an outstanding woman who is also an outstanding guitarist, consider following the example of Sharon Isbin — making great music, being a great role model, and passing your knowledge to tomorrow’s great female musicians.
There must be some women out there playing great guitar. Who are they, and what are their greatest performances?
Posted by Andy Hollandbeck
Long Ago, in a Symphony Far, Far Away
December 7, 2011 at 8:03 pm | Posted in Humor, Strings | Leave a commentTags: cello, star wars
Like most people, I often wonder what the music scene might like in the world of Star Wars. Certainly we know about the little jazz combos that Jabba the Hutt prefers, but what about what we here on Earth would call “classical music”?
Finally, someone has answered this eternal question, giving us a glimpse into the rivalries of deep space cellists. Steven Sharp Nelson and ThePianoGuys show us what might happen when a cellist from the Sith Symphony Orchestra challenges a cellist from the Jedi Philharmonic.
It’s just too awesome not to share.
Hollywood and Halloween Treats, October 30, 2011
October 31, 2011 at 11:07 pm | Posted in Concerts | Leave a commentOn the night of October 30, the Indiana Wind Symphony put on its annual Halloween concert, with band member and many audience members in costume. This year, the theme was “Hollywood & Halloween Treats.”
This is always one of my favorite concerts — part pops , part serious music, all fun. On the pops end was music from Toy Story 2, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Wicked, and Star Wars. On the more serious side was Donald Gillis’s January February March, Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld Overture (transcribed by Clark McAlister), Eric Whitacre’s Ghost Train, and a new piece from Butler University’s Composer-in-Residence Michael Schelle called The End of the World.
Most of those pieces have been played over and over by bands around the world; not so with Schelle’s The End of the World. The idea of this piece was inspired by the apocalyptic writings of Nostradamus and the whole end-of-the-Mayan-calendar thing due in December 2012. But the main inspiration came from something more unexpected: the tsunami that devastated Japan in March of this year.
The piece comprises three movements: The Exhausted Sun, Bullet Train from Hell, and After Afterlife. As you might imagine, the piece is tense and intense. Walls of sound like unstoppable waves crash over the audience. Unexpected eddies swirl and twist like rushing water, like solar flares, like time. It’s so intense that, if you think too much about what it represents, it might be too much to listen to.
But then, in the third movement, the dissonances slowly resolve to something calmer and more stable. The waves recede, and the sun pokes through. All around, the evidence of cataclysm and death is still apparent, but so is the sunlight, and hope. The piece ends with the singing of angels.
The End of the World is one of those pieces that you have to hear live, and if you get the opportunity, you should.
Urbanski Shows Control, Musicality, Connection
September 21, 2011 at 8:36 am | Posted in Concerts | Leave a commentKrzysztof Urbanski made his debut as the new director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra last weekend with performances of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto (with Garrick Ohlsson), and Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla.
No one was really quite sure what to expect from this young and relatively unknown conductor. A few IWS members were on hand for the performances and came away with a sense that Urbanski was a good choice for the ISO.
IWS director Charles Conrad attended the Friday performance, and he wrote,
Fantastic concert tonight by the Indianapolis Symphony — Shostakovich #5 that was amazing. I am very impressed with new Music Director Krzysztof Urbanski. Dynamic range, especially in the strings, was more than I have ever heard before from the ISO.
Clarinetist Katherine Peters, who was on hand for the Saturday performance, wrote,
I wasn’t sure about Urbanski just because of all the hype and I’d never seen him before, so we bought tickets in the stage terrace so we had the orchestra’s view and could watch his conducting, which was great. It wasn’t necessarily the gestures and facials, although they were expressive, but it was the communicative nature of his conducting all the way through. Some conductors are flamboyant and flashy without actually being connected to the musicians in front of them, and it takes humility to communicate to everyone else on stage rather than drawing attention to oneself. There was a partnership taking place, they were presenting art together, and he, as the point man, was very clear on his intentions. I’ve not heard the ISO (which is not at all shabby, mind you!) play with that amount of vigor and inflection. The Glinka was fun and full of detail. And after intermission, Shostakovich… I literally said “wow” out loud after the last movement. It was brilliant. I appreciate that he was bold enough to make some of the very clear decisions that he did and competent enough to make them work so very well. And then, he was very gracious in his recognition of the musicians and his reluctant acceptance of applause, and it seemed sincere. I saw orchestra members welcome him onto the stage with fond smiles (not forced smiles) at the beginning and call him back for a bow at the end. Last reason for liking him: he walked past our usher in the connecting hallway at intermission, stopped, and shook his hand and introduced himself. No one else was around; the usher was so impressed that he told us about it. That’s class.
One problem with the concerts: Empty seats. A big, premiere concert like this ought to have been sold out each night, but there were still plenty of seats available when the baton dropped. This doesn’t bode well for the future of classical music in Indianapolis.
To learn more about Krzysztof Urbanski, check out krzysztofurbanski.com.
IWS Open Auditions
July 18, 2011 at 10:45 am | Posted in Instruments | Leave a commentThe Indiana Wind Symphony announces auditions for several open positions and for consideration on the substitute list of musicians.
The IWS is Indiana’s premiere adult concert band and is a resident ensemble of the Palladium at the Carmel Center for the Performing Arts. There are immediate openings for piccolo, oboe, bassoon, baritone saxophone, French horn, trumpet, trombone, string bass and percussion (mallet proficiency necessary), however all instruments are encouraged to audition.
The auditions will be held on Thursday, August 4 from 6-9 PM and on Saturday, August 6 from 10 AM until 2 PM at Asera Care/Golden Living (8460 Bearing Dr. Suite 300), which is near 86th and Georgetown. Please email IWS Personnel Manager Julie Burckel (creola0615 (at) sbcglobal.net) to schedule an audition or to ask questions about the IWS.
Please prepare 5 minutes of music that shows your playing at its best. Sight-reading will be part of the audition. High school musicians are welcomed to audition for substitute spots, but only players 18 and older will be considered for full positions.
Les Six & the Sixth
March 23, 2011 at 10:04 am | Posted in Composers, Concerts, History | Leave a commentThis Sunday afternoon, the IWS will present a concert titled “Les Six & the Sixth” that features France’s “Les Six” (or Groupe des six) composers. Perhaps you’ve heard of “The Five,” a group of five Russian composers who met in St. Petersburg to try to create a specific form of Russian art music. (Can you name The Five without looking? Answers at the end.) Les Six was so named in 1920 as a comparison to The Five by music critic Henri Collet.
Though these six composers had disparate musical backgrounds, tastes, and expectations, they were joined by a reaction against German Romanticism, at least in the beginning. They were also friends and frequent collaborators. All six officially collaborated on only one project, a collection of solo piano music called L’album des six, published in 1920.
Here, then, is some brief background information for each of Les Six composers, whose music you can hear this Sunday at 3:00 at the Palladium in Carmel, Indiana. You’ll also hear what we believe will be the Indiana premiere of James’ Barnes Sixth Symphony, written in 2008.
Georges Auric 1899–1983
Georges Auric was a child prodigy whose compositions were first being published when he was only 15 years old. By the time he was 20, he had established himself as a composer and arranger of stage music, especially ballets and incidental music for other stage productions. When Jean Cocteau, Auric’s friend and one of the major influences of Les Six, started making movies in the early 1930s, Auric went with him and started writing movie scores. His success in French and British films led him to writing movie scores for Hollywood. Some of his more well-known successes were Beauty and the Beast (1946), Moulin Rouge (1952), Roman Holiday (1953), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956).
In 1962, he became director of the Opéra National de Paris and gave up writing for motion pictures. He continued to produce new chamber works, especially for winds, until his death in 1983.
Louis Durey 1888–1979
Louis Durey was a late bloomer, musically speaking. He didn’t decide to pursue a career in music until he was 19, when he was inspired by a performance of a piece by Claude Debussy. He was mostly self-taught, but his music caught the attention of Maurice Ravel, who introduced him to his publisher. Durey’s extreme left-wing views ultimately held him back from what might otherwise have been a more successful career. After the Nazi occupation of World War II, during which he was an active member of the French Resistance, Durey joined a group of other hard-line communist composers who wrote in accordance with communist doctrines of art, which required their music to be of mass appeal. His uncompromising adherence to these political tenets ultimately hindered his career. Though he composed throughout his life, nothing he wrote after World War II met with either popular or critical success.
Arthur Honegger 1892–1955
Born in Le Havre to Swiss parents, Arthur Honegger’s first foray into music was with the violin. He eventually studied in Paris, joining Les Six in 1920 and shooting into the limelight with his dramatic choral work Le Roi David. Honegger had some eccentric traits about him. A consummate lover of trains, Honegger’s 1923 Pacific 231 was a musical depiction of a locomotive, and it won him even more fame. In 1926, he married pianist Andrée Vaurabourg on condition that they maintain separate apartments; except for one failed attempt at living together and during the last year of Honegger’s life, when he could no longer live alone, this arrangement remained in effect.
Unlike his fellow Les Six friends’, Honegger’s work — especially his later works — showed the influence of German Romanticism, as well as Bachian counterpoint. Honegger was the first of Les Six to die, in 1955; Darius Milhaud dedicated his Fourth String Quartet and Francis Poulenc dedicated his Clarinet Sonata to the memory of Arthur Honegger. Honegger also always maintained his Swiss nationality, and he was honored at the end of the century by being featured on the Swiss 20-franc note.
Darius Milhaud 1892–1974
When Darius Milhaud joined Les Six in 1920, he was still looking for his musical voice. He found to during a trip to Harlem in 1922, when he heard “authentic” jazz for the first time. From that moment on, his music showed the influence of both jazz and polytonality, the simultaneous use of more than one key.
One of the twentieth century’s most prolific composers (his opus listing ends at 443), Milhaud wrote all genres of music, including ballets, operas, symphonies, vocal and choral music, film scores, and chamber music. He was also a well-known and well-respected teacher. The only Jewish composer of Les Six, Milhaud fled the coming Nazi occupation in 1939; he and his wife emigrated to America in 1940, and he took up a teaching position at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he mentored such musical greats as Dave Brubeck, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Burt Bacharach.
Francis Poulenc 1899–1963
Francis Poulenc’s mastery of music was largely self-taught. Though his earlier works during the 1910s gained the attention of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Bartok, and others, he didn’t get his first taste of formal musical training until 1921, the year after Les Six was created. Throughout the 20s, his early work was marked by a musical irreverence common among Les Six. During the mid-30s, following the unexpected deaths of some close friends, he rediscovered his Roman Catholic faith, his compositions in turn became more austere, and he began writing more sacred works.
Poulenc had a lifelong fondness for wind instruments. He had intended to write a sonata for each of them but, alas, had finished only four — for flute, oboe, clarinet, and horn — when he died of a heart attack in 1963.
Germaine Tailleferre 1892–1983
The only woman in Les Six, Germaine Tailleferre was born Marcelle Taillefesse but changed her name when she was young to spite her father, who refused to support her musical aspirations. Tailleferre was a prolific composer, though just how prolific we may never know. Many of her works are considered lost, but some — like her dramatic ode “Sous les Rempart d’Athànes” and her ballet “La Nouvelle Cythère” — have been discovered in partial or condensed score and are currently being reorchestrated and revived, mostly through the work of Tailleferre scholar Paul Wehage.
Though her turbulent personal life — which included two failed marriages and taking guardianship of her granddaughter — hampered her success as a composer, she did continue composing right up until her death on November 7, 1983.
Which of Les Six composers do you enjoy playing or listening to most?
Answer: The Russian Five were Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and Cui.
Posted by Andy Hollandbeck
Eric Whitacre, Music, and Technology
March 1, 2011 at 10:18 pm | Posted in Composers | Leave a commentTags: technology
Eric Whitacre is a composer and conductor working out of LA. The IWS has played his “October” and “Noisy Wheels of Joy” before and had fun with them. Recently, though, he has managed to put together his love of composing and conducting with current technology and created something beautiful, original, and beautifully original. The Virtual Choir.
The idea is rather simple: Write a piece of music, send the music out into the world where people can record themselves performing each piece, and then bring those pieces together into a single musical performance.
Last year’s project was called “Lux Aurumque.” It brought together 185 voices from 12 countries in this ethereal performance:
Whitacre will release this year’s project in April. Find out more about it at EricWhitacre.com. Submissions are already closed for this year, but maybe next year you can become one of the voices from around the world to contribute to this music.
Music isn’t immune to advancements in technology, and it shouldn’t be. Changes in technology open up new horizons in music, just waiting for a creative mind to put ideas together and create something new, original, and beautiful. What ideas do you have for combining technology and music in new and interesting ways?
An Interview with Kelleen Strutz
February 16, 2011 at 7:17 pm | Posted in Concerts, Interviews | Leave a commentPianist and vocalist Kelleen Strutz is a rising star in the Indianapolis music scene who will be performing Rhapsody in Blue with the IWS on February 26. (Info and tickets here.) I was lucky enough to get to sit down with her and talk about where she’s been and where she’s going:
Andy Hollandbeck: According to your Web site, you’re from Valders [rhymes with "pal furs," I had originally mispronounced it], Wisconsin. How would you describe that? Is it a small town or is it a suburb or . . .
Kelleen Strutz: Yes. It did not ever break 1,000 [people]. Lots of farms around the area, and . . . just . . . very small. But there was a city nearby called Manitowoc, which had, like, 30,000 people, so we did a lot of things there.
AH: What kind of musical outlets and opportunities did you have nearby?
KS: Mostly within my family, we did music together. Ever since I was . . . ever since I can remember, music was in my life. Our nickname was the Von Strutz family, instead of the Von Trapp family from The Sound of Music, because if company came over, we’d all perform — with accordions, and guitars, and we would sing a capella harmony. I had four brothers and sisters, and so we had a great time entertaining people. And we were in the church, so we did a lot of music there. We were always part of the church program, and I accompanied the congregation from the age of nine. So that was a good outlet, the church.
We were home schooled, so we didn’t have “school music” so much, you know, but my mom taught me piano up until the age of, like, 10, and then we found a really amazing teacher for me. And I did competitions in the area.
But it was really when I came to the big city, Indianapolis, where I felt like, “Whoa! There’re all these opportunities!”
Kelleen Strutz
AH: Four siblings? Where are you in the hierarchy?
KS: I’m the baby.
AH: How many brothers and how many sisters?
KS: Two of each.
AH: Any of them get the music bug after they grew up?
KS: My oldest sister, she still plays to some extent — piano. And my parents play in church.
AH: So eventually you left Wisconsin; you were offered a full scholarship to Butler University. Had you ever been to Indianapolis before?
KS: No. It’s kind of a funny story because I remember going to the theater to watch Hoosiers, the movie, and we just loved that movie. It was almost like there was some Hoosier in me at that point.
We took a vacation to French Lick . . .
AH: Okay, Larry Bird’s town.
KS: Yeah. We saw Larry Bird, actually! We were all excited and we wanted to go to the actual scenes of Hoosiers. We were just that into it. I never would have thought that I’d end up living in the Hoosier state.
[Later on,] it was very serendipitous that the professor of music at Butler [Panayis Lyras] happened to be performing with the Sheboygan Symphony and did a master class at the local college. I happened to be in that master class. I’d never heard of Butler at all. So I played in the master class and really enjoyed his teaching style, so he was like, “Hey, if you’re interested, I can help you get to Butler.” So I auditioned, and I loved the campus. I loved everything about the city. It was a very easy decision to come here. And I haven’t left, so, obviously, I like Indianapolis.
AH: Tell me about your CD, “Simply Beautiful.”
KS: Throughout my courses at Butler, I was the very heavy, of course, classical pianist, and I slowly was also working on my jazz voice. A couple of professors at Butler [Mark Buselli and Dr. Tim Brimmer] really mentored me in that area of jazz.
When I graduated, I really wanted to do a CD immediately and, you know, do something. I was all excited to get myself out there. And so Bill Myers, who I had met at the Jazz Kitchen, he helped brainstorm with me. (He’s a bass player in town that I collaborate with.) He and I had this great idea to do a seasonal album and to invite many many musicians on board. So we started calling people up. Everybody was very supportive, and we had over 30 musicians on the album. We gave back the money to the Butler Community Art School. So it was a worthy cause, and some musicians donated their time, and it was just a wonderful experience. It was very difficult to put together, and we did it in like two months’ time. We were crazy, but . . . you know.
AH: That was a Christmas album, right?
KS: Yes.
AH: Do you have a favorite song from that album?
KS: Ummmm. That’s a little difficult. I really like “A Child is Born.” I like the soul ballad-type pieces, mostly, to sing.
AH: You’ve been doing both classical and jazz for a while now, do you prefer one over the other?
KS: No, I really like the combination of both because it really makes things exciting, and I get to collaborate with so many diverse people within the two fields.
AH: I heard you participated in a recital at St. Luke’s [United Methodist Church] last Sunday, right?
KS: Yeah.
AH: You did a Liszt piece?
KS: Yeah.
AH: Someone described it to me as “ferocious.”
KS: Oh. Yes. It’s one of my favorite pieces — since high school, actually. It’s just very viscerally exciting. Pianistically speaking, I like the really fast exciting things. But for singing, for some reason, I like the more emotional, heart-wrenching things.
But yeah, the Liszt is a real workout. And I enjoy performing it.
AH: Since you do jazz and classical both, do you do any composing as well?
KS: I do. One of the projects that I’m going to be doing this year is my own CD of originals, maybe mixed with some cover tunes. My style happens to be not real super-jazzy, but it’s kind of a hybrid of pop and jazz — and some other elements in there. And I want to use strings. I’m still brainstorming.
AH: It’s still in the early stages then.
KS: Yes.
AH: What other projects do you have?
KS: I have a trio right now called The Three Beats. It’s with cellist Yoonhae Swanson and a violinist, Miri Chung. We do classical trios — like Beethoven — but we also do world music. And some jazz. And pop hits. It’s just exciting to work with and collaborate with other people. It’s sometimes more fun than just, you know, practicing alone. We can bounce ideas off of each other. It’s invigorating having that input with them, and that’s exciting.
I’m going to be traveling with a horn band called Souled Out. It’s an 11-piece horn band, and we do corporate events, and I sing like Aretha Franklin and Gloria Gaynor. I bet you can guess which song I sing of Gloria Gaynor’s — her one super-big hit.
AH: No, I try to stay away from that whole area of music.
KS: [Laughs] But that’s been a real stretch for me, and I absolutely love it. I had no idea. I love all of that music that they played. It’s just really groov-i-licious.
AH: Did you say groov-i-licious?
KS: I said groov-i-licious!
AH: OK. Groov-i-licious. Nice.
KS: And then I’m going to be traveling with Angela Brown some this year as well, doing recitals with her.
AH: I know you perform every Thursday night at Sangiovese. Do you have any other regular gigs that we should know about?
KS: Yes. Starting March fourth, I’m going to be performing at Seasons 52, which is a new restaurant at Keystone at the Crossing. They’re going to have a piano bar seven nights a week, and I’ll be there on Fridays and for the grand opening. Which is March fourth.
AH: You said you like the visceral kind of piano music. So are you really heavy on the romantic music . . .
KS: Yeah.
AH: . . . and not the, uh, the Bach.
KS: Yeah. I know Bach is one of the greatest composers, but he’s very difficult to play in a different sense, whereas romantic [music] is . . . you know, you can . . . you can be sloppy and no one will know. [laughs]
AH: I’m with you there. Bach, and even Mozart — they have their moments, but it’s everything that came after that’s more interesting.
So, professionally, what is your dream gig? Is there some pie-in-the-sky thing that you would just love to get?
KS: I think it would be very awesome to be able to perform with a large orchestra — you know, with a string section — and to be able to do a real merging of my classical and jazz skills. And really present it in a nice, concise way. To have a show that combines both, because right now I do jazz and I do classical, and they’re not always mixed. So I think that would be a great challenge to be able put a show together and to work with the classical idiom of strings, but also adding jazz with it.
AH: That would be nice. If you had to choose — these are the hypothetical questions now. If you had to choose between being known as a great singer who could play the piano or a great pianist who could sing, which would you choose?
KS: I would . . . say . . . that is very difficult . . .
AH: I can ask in a different way. Try this: You get two e-mails on the same day. One is for a well-paying piano-playing gig, and the other is for a well-paying singing gig — but they’re at the same time. Which one do you choose?
KS: [After some thought.] I would say the singing.
AH: Yeah?
KS: I think partially because if you’re playing and singing, the most crucial thing is that you present the lyrics. That’s the most important thing. And that you have an instrument and technique that can do that. So your piano is supporting the “main act,” which is your voice. So in that sense, I think it’s better to be a great singer that maybe can’t play as well. That would be more important. But I enjoy both so much, so it’s very difficult to say.
AH: Well, that’s why it’s only hypothetical.
KS: Yes!
AH: What would you say is the best part of having a life in music?
KS: For me, you know, it’s not work. It’s just what I am. I feel like I’m working 24/7 in a sense. I eat, breathe, and sleep music. There isn’t a line, like, “Now I’m done with work and I’m going to relax.” I feel like I’m always connected with music, but it’s not a chore.
AH: I think it was Louis Armstrong* who said, “A musician is someone who plays when he works and works when he plays.”
KS: Yes!
AH: So what’s the worst part?
KS: Probably the same thing! [laughs] Because you can always be better, you can always hone your craft, and do more research. Even when I’m out [listening] at a concert, I’m still working in the sense that my brain’s working and I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to steal that” or “I really enjoy that.” At times, you can’t turn off your need to be working. To get better. But that’s not necessarily bad. It’s just . . . you can become a workaholic, I guess.
AH: So what do you do that isn’t music?
KS: Well, I enjoy reading.
AH: Any particular genre?
KS: No. I really am across the board. I do everything from Osho — he’s a philosopher — to, like, Ken Follett. And I like to cook. And travel, or read about travel.
AH: I suppose traveling is better than reading about traveling.
KS: Oh yeah. [laughs] But it’s fun to dream, too.
AH: What do you think you’d be doing if you hadn’t gone into music?
KS: Well, sometimes I say I’d be a massage therapist.
AH: Really? It’s all in the hands, huh?
KS: Yeah, it’s partly the hands, but it’s also giving back to people, making people feel good. Just like music. Otherwise, a personal trainer. I’ve thought that, too, just because it’s similar. You’re making people feel better about themselves.
But probably a massage therapist.
AH: You might’ve been great at it, but we’re glad you went into music instead.
All right, so here’s the big question, which I’m sure you’ve thought about: You have a long career ahead of you…
KS: Oh, I know where this is going…
AH: Where would like to see yourself in, say, thirty years.
KS: You said in how many years?
AH: Oh, thirty.
KS: Thirty? Oh Wow! Usually it’s like five years.
AH: Oh no. Those are the short-term goals. What’s the long-term goal?
KS: That is really difficult. The nice thing about being in the genres that I’m in [is] they really can sustain themselves. If I was a pop singer and I start fading or whatever, I wouldn’t have a career anymore. But the jazz world — Lena Horne and any of the greats — they sang until they were in their late late years. But as I age . . . I think, in 30 years, I might be more in a mentoring role at that point. Not that I wouldn’t perform, but I think it would probably shift to giving back to young artists that are looking for encouragement and help.
AH: Do you do any teaching now?
KS: I do teach. I don’t teach voice, but I have about eight piano students. And I’d really like to teach piano in the future, too, I think. Maybe in a more university setting.
In my 20s, I hated that question because I didn’t ever really have to think about my future. But as you get older, you start to think, “Yeah, I really better think about this.”
AH: I’m about 15 years behind on that question myself!
Is there anything else you’d like to add or to tell your current and future fans?
KS: I do want to say just how excited and fortunate I am that I have this opportunity to perform at the “epic hall” — at the Palladium — with the Wind Symphony. To be a part of their first official concert there.
AH: We’re excited about it, too.
* Apparently, I was wrong. Although I’m fairly certain I’ve seen this attributed to Armstrong, the original quotation is from an anonymous source, and it was about actors, not musicians. So it goes.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that after hearing one performance, you’ll become a fan. Catch her at Sangiovese Ristorante every Thursday night; then hear her perform on-stage with the IWS on Saturday, February 26, at 7:30 p.m. at Carmel’s new concert hall, The Palladium.
Find out more about Kelleen, her work, and her CD “Simply Beautiful” at KelleenOnline.com.
Posted by Andy Hollandbeck
A Different Sound to “Rhapsody in Blue”
February 7, 2011 at 12:16 am | Posted in Concerts | Leave a commentTags: video
The Indiana Wind Symphony is playing its first Palladium concert on February 26 at 7pm. The centerpiece of the concert is George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with local pianist/vocalist Kelleen Strutz. There are a number of arrangements of “Rhapsody in Blue.” If memory serves, the song began as a piano solo, and then Gershwin adapted it as a jazz concerto of sorts.
And then there are arrangements like this. Here is Larry Adler, harmonica virtuoso:
What do you think?
(Oh, and buy tickets to the upcoming concert online at www.TheCenterForThePerformingArts.org!)
Posed by Andy Hollandbeck
ISO Mall Flash Mob
February 5, 2011 at 11:53 pm | Posted in Strings | Leave a commentI’m such a sucker for this sort of thing. It’s very simple idea: You gather your cohorts, go somewhere public (and, these days, warm), and create some art where people aren’t expecting it.
It’s a flash mob. I’m such a sucker for a flash mob. Some of the strings from the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra dropped on on the Keystone Fashion Mall on January 29 with their old friends Piotr and Antonio:
Posted by Andy Hollandbeck
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