Nordic American Voices Nordic Museum Interview of Kristine Ewing June 20, 2017 Seattle, Washington Interviewers: Gordon Strand; Arnfridur (Affa) Sigurdardottir; Judy Kramer Judy Kramer: [0:01] This is an interview for the Nordic American Voices oral history project. Today is June 20, 2017, and I’ll be interviewing Kristine Ewing. We are at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, Washington. My name is Judy Kramer, and with me today are Gordon Strand and… Affa Sigurdardottir: [0:22] Arnfridur Sigurdardottir. Gordon Strand: [0:27] Welcome, Kristine. Judy: [0:29] Welcome to the Nordic Heritage Museum, which you’re very familiar with. You said you’ve been here for 21 years. Kristine Ewing: [0:35] Yes. [Laughter] Thank you. Gordon: [0:38] If you could start with your name, year of birth, where you were born, and a little bit about your family history, and then we’ll get into the main part of the story. Affa: [0:48] And your parents’ names, also, please. Kristine: [0:50] All right. My name is Kristine Louise Ewing. I was born in Spokane, Washington in 1950. My parents are Albert Howard Ewing and Beuna Dean Flower Ewing. My grandmother’s maiden name was Stenson. That’s my connection to Scandinavian things. That’s a Swedish name. That was her maiden name, as I said. I was born in Spokane, as I said, and I started playing music professionally at 16. I went to Eastern Washington University, where I was a music major for three years. [1:29] Then I switched to chemistry, and got a bachelor’s in chemistry there, and a master’s in chemistry at Washington State University. Then I moved to Wisconsin for five years. I worked there at the Institute of Paper Chemistry. Then I came back to this area, and moved to the Seattle area, and worked for Weyerhaeuser for 28 years. I traveled to Europe a number of times. One of my trips was to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, so I have visited those countries. [2:03] Soon after that, I joined the museum. Then there was a music festival, called the Grieg Festival, celebrating, I believe his 150th anniversary, held partly at the University of Washington, and partly here at the museum. Sometime either there, or shortly thereafter, was when I met Lisa Bergman. About that time, Lisa and Olaf had the idea of starting the Mostly Nordic concert series. Nordic American Voices Page 1 of 13 Gordon: [2:34] Olaf Kvamme. Kristine: [2:35] Yes. Olaf Kvamme. They had the idea of starting the Mostly Nordic concert series— chamber music, classical chamber music. There was an article in the museum newsletter asking for volunteers. Since I had been a musician, and also since I had performed in a quartet, and had arranged concerts, and because I had research skills, I felt I had something to offer to the program. Gordon: [3:06] Could you talk a little bit about your concert time? Kristine: [3:11] Sure. I played with the Spokane Symphony professionally for seven years on string bass. I put myself through school that way. As I said, I moved into chemistry, and went on to graduate school. Since then, I have mostly played amateur, but some playing professionally. Judy: [3:35] What instrument did you play? Kristine: [3:36] I played string bass in the Spokane Symphony, and I also play bass clarinet, saxophone, timpani and percussion. I’ve played in a number of groups around the area. So, I felt I had something to offer to the music series. We started our meetings here at the museum. There were about seven of us. We met here, and in the dining area, the auditorium. I remember once, we met up in the library. Marianne was part of that group. She was very involved in this procedure. She not only came to the planning meetings, but she helped me set tables for the dinners. Gordon: [4:20] Marianne Forssblad. Kristine: [4:21] Yes. She was very involved in the series, getting it going. We started out thinking, well, we might get 25 people, wondering how we would do, because there is a lot of music in the Seattle area, particularly chamber music. But we actually have been quite successful, and sometimes even sold out. Gordon: [4:42] What was the mission at the start? How did you define… Kristine: [4:45] The mission was to have five chamber music concerts. We were expressly staying away from the folk music genre. We were going for classical. One concert would focus on each of the five countries. Then the idea that Lisa had was to include the dinner, because we felt that would really draw people in. There is lots of competing chamber music in the Seattle area. It’s interesting that our audiences come from different areas. [5:23] Some people are music lovers that have no Nordic ties whatsoever. Some come to just the concert for their country. And some come to the whole series. So, we have a variety of reasons why people are here. It was my idea to include, also, a free visit to the museum when they came. People like to come to concerts early, get a good parking spot, and I thought then if they take a quick look at the museum, they might want to come back for a longer visit. That was my idea. [5:55] The “mostly Nordic” concept… We started thinking about local musicians, most of whom don’t know this repertoire. Everybody knows Grieg, and Sibelius and Nielsen, but there are a lot of Nordic American Voices Page 2 of 13 other composers that we have discovered through this process that have equally delightful music that was never very well-known outside the local countries. I think part of that was due to the Nordic countries’ remoteness from continental Europe. The music didn’t go that direction that much. [6:37] But we’ve found some wonderful composers— Wilhelm Stenhammar, and Friedrich Kuhlau, Toivo Kuula— names that we don’t know, but that have very delightful music. By doing “mostly Nordic,” we would still have some familiar songs, so-to-speak, to bring people in. Familiar music, but also expose them to new pieces. So, that’s been one drawing card of our series. The meal would also reflect the food of that country. [7:16] We started out… the museum ladies would do the cooking for the first year or two. Then we’ve had various catering organizations since then for the meal. What I contributed… I did several jobs at this series that I’ll talk about. The big thing that I did was research. I’ll get back to that in a minute. The first ten years or so, I set tables. After that, Lisa said, “You’ve done your share. Let’s get a younger crowd in here for that.” And I seconded that theory. I’ve also sold CDs. My record was 22 that I sold at one concert. And I’ve tried to pass on my techniques to whoever is doing that. I had a methodology there for doing that. The artists, we’ve allowed to sell CDs at the concerts. I’ve handed out programs, taken dinner tickets. Once I even did box office, but I didn’t enjoy that so much. [8:26] My biggest role was in the research end. I happen to collect CDs. I have over 6,000 in my own personal library. Of those about 150-200 are Nordic chamber music. I bought a lot of them with this series in mind. At the beginning, before things were on the Internet, I would take my collection over to Lisa’s home, and we’d spend a day playing excerpts. We didn’t have time to sit there and play a whole 45-minute piece. But we’d play little excerpts to decide if we liked the piece. And we’d think about how we wanted to program. Obviously, she’s the Artistic Director. About ten years ago, she gave me the title of Artistic Assistant. [9:15] So, we would do that. We’d try and change the genres, particularly for the people coming to just one. [For example], if one year, if Denmark was a woodwind quintet, then the next year it might be a string quartet, and then next year it might be a soprano. So, we’d try and vary the types of groups that were coming. We started with the thought of it being local. Then, as the years progressed, our fame spread. She established contact with the Nordic countries particularly with trying to get the actual sheet music for the musicians to play. [9:57] Over there, music, as you know, is more state-funded than it is in this country. A lot of times, they’d say, “Well, we’ve got somebody coming to the U.S. on tour. We could have them come by and hit your series, too.” So, we started getting some overseas artists as well. In our 20th anniversary year, we particularly wanted all artists from the Nordic countries. So, we had them for all five concerts, from overseas. Sometimes they are people of Nordic background that actually live in the U.S., and were maybe born over there, or they were funded, a lot of times from their organization. [10:39] I’d do a lot of research, also, besides my own collection. I’d look at CD lists on databases on the computer, as that became more readily available.