Eugene Friesen Interview

KITTY CAPARELLA LAURA SCHWARTZ ellist Eugene Friesen—artist, musician, educa- tor, collaborator, improviser—has been a musi- C cal idol of mine since I "rst heard him perform, Field Music, 2019 in 1989, at the Davies Symphony Hall in my hometown Yellow, gray, and cream encaustic paint-stick on wood, 12 x 12 in. A COVID-19 of San Francisco, California. That evening, I watched the Paul Winter Consort, Friesen’s artistic home for over four Conversation decades, perform with the Russian folk ensemble the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble: American contemporary meets Rus- in B Minor sian traditional folk, in what could only be described as a supernatural metamorphosis of sound. An interview with I can still vividly recall seeing the consort members, Eu- gene Friesen on stage right in front of me, as they watched Eugene Friesen their Russian collaborators, colorful in their traditional peasant regalia, #ow down the aisles from the back of the music hall and onto the stage to join them—swirling, throat singing, smashing tambourines, clanging "nger cymbals, mixing all forms of percussion wildly and raucously with the consort’s smooth, contemporary jazz tones of saxophone, piano, cello, and drums. The consort members themselves appeared as trans"xed as I was: in this transcendent moment, shared between performers and audience, the music itself was the star. COVID-19 led me to Friesen’s virtual door. I wanted to know what his work brought to him at this moment in time where every profession—and most profoundly, the performing arts—had been leveled and brought to its knees. I wanted to talk with him about what mattered most to him at this time and how his relationship to his music has prepared him for one of the most unanticipated crises in human history. The following interview took place via Zoom in May 2020, as both Friesen and I were locked down in the "rst COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandate, he in his home of- "ce in Boston, Massachusetts, and I in mine, in San Francisco, California. *** LAURA SCHWARTZ: Eugene, I have followed your career for a very long time, and I’m aware that you are not only a brilliant, classically trained cellist, you are also a master of both collaboration and improvisation. Those two skills, collaboration and improvisation, seem linked in a way I can’t extricate from one another, but I’m hoping you’ll educate me on that today. CATAMARAN 71 EUGENE FRIESEN: Well, I’d love to—I’d love to be art in particular, is to explore the options as opposed to LS: Is it that you might trust that it’s not right, but not EF: That’s right. able to put that in a bottle. [laughs] getting attached to any option early on. And that’s actually necessarily the reason your collaborator has suggested? a really painful lesson to learn. LS: What about when you join a collaboration of musi- LS: The "rst question I want to ask you is: What have At the beginning of my career, when I was collabo- EF: Exactly. cians, say, the Paul Winter Consort, where you’re not nec- been the central and de"ning elements of the collabora- rating with people who were much more experienced essarily improvising but are performing established pieces. tive process that you’ve discovered and developed over than me, I really experienced a rejection of a creative LS: Well, I think we’ve just segued to the next question: Would the elements that make it possible for you to have thirty, forty years? idea as something very personal, something that really, What makes it possible for you to work with another musi- a satisfying improvisation be the same in a collaboration really shook me. Getting attached to any one thing, and cian? And speci"cally, in close collaboration? What are of this kind, or would they be different? EF: I suppose, at the very basis of it, one thing that every- especially beginning to see that idea as some re#ection of the differences in improvisation versus collaboration? Or thing has in common is just the listening that’s required a precious part of yourself that needs protecting, that’s just are they the same in terms of what allows you to work EF: I think the biggest one, certainly in collaboration, is to do any kind of collaboration or improvisation. I’d say a kind of madness. Which, thank goodness, I believe I’ve with another? going in with the kind of positive attitude that we are going it’s kind of two-headed: listening and not knowing. gotten over, but it took a long time. to be successful at doing this, however we de"ne that. And The listening is something we musicians should be EF: A collaboration is very often kind of a goal-oriented also, that what I have to offer will be shaped by what the masters of, because, of course, music is all about that. But LS: Were there things that helped you to let go of that? situation. And so it’s helpful to have a clearly de"ned goal. people around me have to offer, and what I have to offer even in music, people can hear without really listening. I say “clearly,” but nothing is clear in my line of work. But will be in#uenced by the context that the group is creating. In other words, you’re taking in the sound waves, and they EF: Yeah. Humor is the best thing, and to work with you could say for example, “We want it to be six minutes So, the group really does have “credit” for the unfold- are hitting your ears, but it’s our own processes, our inner people whom you basically like, whom you basically love. long. We want to include these instruments. And this is ing of a piece of art. And I’ve done this just one-on-one processes, that could become so deafening that it really And that way there can be humor in the absurdity. I think the title I’m going for, this the image I’m going for.” And with another artist, I’ve done this with the trios I’ve played makes it almost impossible for us to really take in what’s that has helped tremendously. As well as, in the case of sometimes that’s enough. So to have some agreed-upon with, done this with the Consort, and then I’ve done this actually happening in the room. So that is the "rst thing music, you generally recognize when something is really starting point is really helpful. also with dancers—with large companies, with a dozen to learn, that kind of open and deep listening. working, or not. There are lots of different ideas, but with And a kind of mutual respect, I think, is hugely im- dancers and three or four musicians and a director and music, it seems like it becomes fairly clear to the collab- portant. But that doesn’t really have to do with having choreographer. The collaboration can happen with a large LS: And are there things that you’ve learned to do to orative process and to the individual, if you’re open to it, a respect for your collaborator’s résumé, necessarily, or their number of people, but I think the only commonality is that support that? what’s really working and what isn’t. accomplishments. Because I "nd I can get there with my you’re going to offer things from your own experience that There’s no hard-and-fast rule for what works and what students, who, on the face of it, don’t really have the kind may in#uence the #ow of other people’s work, rather than EF: Well, I don’t think so; I think it just comes through doesn’t. Otherwise we’d all be super#uous. In the process, of credibility that a more established artist might have. And be a speci"c solution in any design challenge. a lot of trial and error. It comes through the kind of dis- where you really don’t know how it’s going to turn out, yet I "nd that’s a place that’s easy for me to slip into, even comfort that happens when you’ve become attached to generally it’s the music itself that speaks to you at a certain when it’s with a little kid—and I’ve had some surprising im- LS: I’d like to apply that to considering improvisation any one thing that you expect, or any idea that you bring point. provs with little kids, kids who can barely play their instru- again. When you’re talking about meeting in a collabora- to a forum. It seems like the greater the expectation that ments but have this kind of spark in their eye and they’re tive realm where what you’re bringing is not the piece or you bring into a situation, the greater the discomfort that LS: And have you found in your collaborations that when really listening, they’re really paying attention. They may the composition, but, instead, the in#uence of individual can arise from that, if you’re really in the creative situation it’s speaking to you, it’s also speaking to your collaborators? be scared to death, but they’re responding re#exively and collaborators upon a collective execution—how would and mutually committed to coming up with alternatives.

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