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Hi, you're listening to Practice Room Breaks, IMSLP's interview series, where we have conversations with some of classical music's most brilliant and creative artists today.
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I'm your host, Natalie Nadvetsky.
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If you like what you hear, don't forget to follow and subscribe to the podcast.
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Enjoy! Today on the show, we're doing something a little different with our very first classically adjacent episode.
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We are joined by celebrated singer-songwriter and opera composer Rufus Wainwright, alongside Grammy-nominated arranger and conductor Chris Walden.
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They're here to talk about their brand new collaborative album, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, recorded with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, an incredible project reimagining the music of Kurt Weil, bringing the worlds of 1930s Weimar Cabaret and Golden Age Broadway together.
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And I like big intervals and I like to belt and then I like to go very, very quietly.
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And that is very unusual in the pop world.
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You know, in the pop world, it's just it's more like just you're singing on a kind of straight line, and I don't sing that way.
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Thank you so much for joining us on IMSLT, um, our first uh classically adjacent segment.
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Uh very honored to have you here.
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Well, thank you.
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Thank you for having us.
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So Rufus, yes.
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You've built a career that moves very fluidly between pop songwriting, opera, and the classical canon.
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I mean, you wrote two opera, you wrote a requiem.
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And Chris, you you grew up with a mother who specialized in Renaissance and Baroque music.
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You went to conservatory, you spent decades arranging for orchestra and jazz ensembles.
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Before we get into kind of the heart of the interview, which is your while project and album, can you tell me about both of you, your first encounter with classical music, if you remember it in your youth, and kind of what sparked the love of that genre?
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Well, I'll I'll go first.
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I mean, my mother really was through my mother, Kate McGarigal, who her herself, she wasn't an amazing musician as well.
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Um, she sadly is no longer with us, but she would play, she's a she was a really good pianist.
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Um, not classically, well, she was classically trained a little bit from the nuns um in Quebec, but uh but she but she played, she could play anything by ear, incredibly distinctive piano player, good jam, and all of that stuff.
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But she also loved the Goldberg variations.
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So she every morning she would play those.
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Um not all of them.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Not the some some of the she some of them she couldn't play, but uh, but a lot of them she she played, and um, and so I was kind of woken up every morning by by the Goldberg variations, which was was great.
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So that was I think probably the first piece, which is interesting because you're supposed to be put to sleep by it to by them.
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Right.
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But I was but I was woken up by them.
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So beautiful.
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Wow.
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I was gonna say a lot of the gold all of the Goldberg variations.
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Yeah, no, not all.
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Um yeah, Chris, what about what about you?
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Yeah, for me, similarly, very early on.
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My mother um is a classical singer specializing in early Baroque and Renaissance choir music, and as far as I can remember, there was always the music in our household, musicians coming to our house for rehearsals with historic instruments, and me and my sister, we started playing classical music on recorders age four or five or so.
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I mean, in that sense, the love it's a little bit ambivalent.
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So the love and also hatred of classical music starts at the same time.
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Well, I wasn't forced into that uh slot.
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So right, but I mean it's clearly found its way into your lives so intimately, and that brings me to sort of the again, the heart of this conversation, which is what Wainwright does while which is a project that you're working on.
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How did this come together and how did the two of you find each other?
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Well, we have these c this couple um who are very close friends of ours, um, uh Dale and Don Franzen.
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Well, Don is an attorney in the classical music world, actually.
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He he he represents um the Cito Domingo and a bunch of other you know big artists.
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But then Dale, well, who was an opera singer originally, she uh she then moved into more administrative uh stuff, and she actually and uh now she's a huge Broadway producer.
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She produced Hades Town, so she's so she's she's doing great, but she she had uh told my husband and I about Chris, put us together, and and uh and and yeah, so that that's how it came out from my end.
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Don Franzen, who Rufus just mentioned, um, is on the board of directors of my Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
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And he's also was sitting on the board of the LA Opera.
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So he's very, even though he's a lawyer, he's very knowledgeable about music and has ideas about programming.
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In the first year when we started um doing programming for the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, he came to me and said, How about a project with Rufus Rainwright?
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And I thought that sounds fantastic.
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So and then he put us in touch.
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You mentioned the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, and I want to talk a little bit about that as well.
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So it's it's almost like a hybrid instrument, it's like a 17-piece big band plus a 20-piece string section, which really creates such a unique sound.
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So Chris, how did that particular sound world?
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I suppose since it's it's sort of so unique, shape the arrangements for the album.
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And then Rufus, how do you adjust your vocal approach to singing against that very specific sound versus a chamber ensemble or a double piano?
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Yeah, so uh as you said, it's a very unique instrumentation, at least in the in the US, with this instrumentation, this hybrid, so it's not a simful symphony orchestra, but it's more than just a jazz big band.
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This hybrid instrumentation is the only one of this kind's this orchestra, the Pacific Jazz Orchestra is.
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When this project with Rufus came along and we talked about Kurt Weill, I immediately knew this is gonna work perfectly with such an instrumentation because Weil, as you know, wrote for pit orchestras for musicals, his music was a lot for that for the for these works written for a pit orchestra, which is sort of like the Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
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We're a little bigger than a pit orchestra, but it has a lot of similarities to a musical pit orchestra, and so that's why that instantly felt great to adapt this music for the Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
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Well, you I wanted to say you you have like more of a Ziegfield Foley's pit orchestra.
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I mean, okay, now we're not pit orchestra's gotten really small.
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Um I mean I'm referring to pit orchestras from decades ago, which yeah, but I think there was a time when there were huge pit orchestras, like in Ziegfield Foley, it's like in the golden era, Broadway or whatever, but uh but but no, but I don't think Kurt Weil they were much smaller orchestras anyways.
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That was kind of the point, right?
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They were sort of rough.
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Well, look, I I've sung Gerval songs for many, many years.
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I got into him when I was, you know, 13, 12, 13.
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So I know the material really well.
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I'd also had the the opportunity of doing a residency at the Carlisle Hotel, and I did all the songs, all the Kurt Val songs that are on the album.
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Um so that is a sort of a transplant of that set list.
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The songs were much in grand.
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The other thing that's interesting is that there was so little rehearsal and kind of preparation.
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I mean, we did, I got a chance to meet with Chris and look over the arrangements here and there, but I but I really let him do what he wanted to do, and it essentially, and I was working on another musical, on a musical called Opening Night in London, and I basically flew in.
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We had one rehearsal and then we did the show and recorded it, and then I left the next day, I think, because I had another rehearsal in London.
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So so there was a sort of how can I say this?
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I think that was part of the approach in the sense that we it wasn't too thought out on my end.
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Um, and I just wanted to kind of hit the ground and see what happened live.
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I mean, I've looked I've sung with orchestrals for a long time, so I know how to do that.
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And I do think for Kurt Weil's music specifically, you want a kind of rock and roll quality to the performance and to the aesthetic because it is more you know street music.
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So I think if it had been too rehearsed or too kind of slick, um it would have lost something.
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And I think in a sense, it was all like a lucky accident that we actually did choose Kurt Weil as a theme for the show.
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When Lot Franzen originally approached me, he said, just a project with Rufus Rainwright, and we hadn't thought about what the material could be.
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And I think maybe Rufus' songs, and I would reimagine them with orchestra, but then Rufus made actually the suggestion how about we doing Kurt Wilde?
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Because I just did this thing at the Carlisle, which meant Rufus just had all these songs fresh in his memory, just learned, which meant I would just write the arrangements around around Rufus's performance, how he did it at the Carlisle.
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So that way Rufus could come in for the rehearsal.
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He was at least familiar with the structure, not the instrument, but the roadmap and the structures was set up, and the songs were ingrained into his recent memory anyway.
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So and off we went.
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Wow, yeah.
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I have I have many follow-up questions at everything.
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I guess you know, I'll start with Rufus.
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So your compositional work, it's like I said, moved through operatic, theatrical, and you obviously have your own incredible catalog, and you've also lived with Viol's music for a very long time.
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When you inhabit Viles' songs, you know, you're an interpreter rather than a tutor.
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What part kind of shows up first to that interpretation?
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What happens when the kind of composer side of you and the interpreter side of you maybe disagree?
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Well, look, I mean, composer-wise, I'm just envious because I love is both both this combination of lyricism and also grit.
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You know, he's got this very soft and hard thing happening at the same time, which is very seamless, the way he does that.
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And um, so I'm jealous, probably, as a composer.
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Performance-wise, I mean, for me, the thing that always attracted me to his music was, of course, you know, the era, Weimar Republic, and and the whole that brief period where there was this kind of freedom and sexual liberation and you know, a big gay movement and trance movement.
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You know, there was just it was just this wild time of of freedom.
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Um, and so the music really is just pulsating with this, you know, modernism and and this and this exciting kind of I have to say very sexual energy as well.
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That's what kind of drew me to it.
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And it's also very theatrical.
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And I'm, you know, I I'm known to cause a scene here and there.
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I also want to ask about your arranging, Chris.
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Several questions about that.
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So arranging Vile means you really get into his harmonic and orchestral thinking like at a very granular level, right?
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For you, what did that closeness to him reveal to you about if anything, about how vial maybe actually worked?
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You know, something that maybe you couldn't have heard.
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A general listener can't just hear from listening.
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I was fortunate enough to have access to some of his manuscripts when I was working on it.
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And what was interesting to see is that in his earlier work, especially Berlin and a little bit of Paris as well, but especially this time in Berlin, he was doing a lot of the orchestrations himself.
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So which means he actually formed not only the melody and the chords that go with it, but a lot of the texture and the feel of the song was uh was done by Weill himself with his orchestration.
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And for these songs, I stuck pretty closely to them.
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In this later period, when he then went to New York and and did a lot of Broadway writing, he focused a little bit more on just writing the meat of the song and had other orchestrates orchestrators flesh it out.
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And that's where I also took a little bit more my own liberties and did some more of my own arranging ideas to these songs.
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We talked previously.
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I know you used IMSLP before, I know you told me we're a subscriber.
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Thank you.
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So I'm just curious, like let's say a vial score, one of the ones you're working on, kind of existed in multiple public domain editions, different keys, different orchestrations.
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Would you ever maybe consider blending them or making your own performing addition, kind of to reflect how you hear the song?
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And maybe is there a song on this album where essentially that blended kind of various styles, various, you know, aspects of Kurt Weil's writing into something that is more adjacent to your voice?
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Yeah, I I think so.
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I feel, for example, September song is where something that I kind of put a little bit more my thumbprint on it than another's.
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Yeah.
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What do you think, Rufus?
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Well, I mean, what I like about this project and and with working with Chris, and I think it's a nice, it's a great kind of triumvirant in a lot of ways, is that there's Kirkweil and Germany and stuff like that.
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And then there's New York, you know, Broadway kind of thing.
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But then, of course, Chris works a lot in Hollywood.
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And I live in Hollywood.
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Obviously, he's done a lot of work with you know the Academy Awards, and there's this sort of a kind of glamour to his arrangements that is um incredibly very robust and and and big and confident.
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And I think what that kind of mix is really nice with the Kurtville material because it sort of gives it this sort of cushion, which which the music is is very the angular nature of it, kind of is is beautifully framed.
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So I think it gives a little of a Hollywood touch to it, which which is um not actually something one often thinks about with Kurtville.
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I mean, I though I know he did spend some time in in LA, but it makes it a little more cinematic, which I think that that's sort of that gives it a this interesting color of this album.
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Very much get that from listening to the album.
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It's almost like maybe like almost big band kind of glamour, just very theatrical style Kurt Weil wrote for the stage, but it takes it to the next level.
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Yeah, Berthold Brecht would have hated it.
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Yeah.
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I was going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That was my mind.
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Bert Weil would have loved it, probably, but Berthold Brecht would have hated it.
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That's so funny.
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You know, the catalog spans these like two almost irreconcilable worlds.
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Like on one hand, the the Brecht collaborations, it's like this dark politically charged, tabaret.
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And then you have this American Broadway songwriter who wrote Stars, One Touch of Venus, and I think you navigate it that line so well.
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And I'm just curious, when working on this project, was there ever a point where you were leaning more towards one or the other?
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I mean, you kind of just applied a little bit that you were leaning more towards like less of the Brecht collaboration.
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But how did you reconcile those worlds?
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Chris, you should answer this, obviously.
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But I do feel that the Brecht, that the German stuff, the Berlin stuff, we were, we were pretty, I was relieved because I did feel like we were very respectful of the German side.
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Because I didn't want to jazz that up so much.
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Exactly.
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But but then when we got to the other things, it became more more of a we went more out there.
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The title of the album, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, from One Touch of Venus, of that musical.
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What drew you to that phrase in particular as the album title?
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Well, that's a song that I I had heard it first when I heard the the Teresa Stratus Kurtville album years ago that she put out.
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And I was just always fascinated by the song.
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Well, first of all, it's a blast to sing.
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There's a lot of you know, nooks and crannies that one discovers in their voice when singing that song.
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And you have to be pretty activated and and and and confident and sort of seductive in your demeanor.
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So it's just you have to slip, you have to you have to perform that song.
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But I think in a funny way, like the title, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, is sort of the opposite of that.
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It invokes more of a kind of loneliness and a sense of solitude.
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So it's this weird juxtaposition of both being, you know, really ready to go and also feeling completely alienated, which is kind of the way I am a lot of time.
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Rufus, according to you, you know, when you do these interviews, you do you almost feel like a stalker.
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You read all these like articles about all these people.
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You said you wore out the grooves of Teresa Stratus's while album in your early 20s.
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That's like a very specific kind of devotion, you know, returning to the same recordings until they're physically exhausted.
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I've done that myself.
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What were you listening for?
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Like, what did you hear there that you couldn't stop the book?
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I really do feel like there was something about that era too.
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I discovered Kerval, it was, you know, probably 80, well, 91, 90, so the beginning of the 90s.
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And there was a kind of dark.
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I grew up in Montreal, up in Canada, and there was a kind of um decrepit bohemian style, you know, that that I was growing up in.
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And the world was a little bit more broken down.
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I mean, it's still broken down, but it didn't, I felt like it related a lot to that, to that aesthetic.
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So I just forgot the question.
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I was I just was thinking about the 90s and got lost.
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No, I gleefully.
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I was gonna say really, but unfortunately I I can't relate.
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First of all, I love that description of because that was another one of my questions, is what captured you so early on into Vile, but it was talking about the Stratus's album.
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What kept you coming back to that?
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Well, I mean, it was Stratus and it was also Laudelenia.
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It was it was, you know, any kind of diva of sorts.
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And uh I don't know, I just would like listen to those records and get naked and put on a string of pearls and stare at myself in the mirror, you know, stuff like that you do when you're 19.
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And probably on drugs.
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There was a lot of drugs in an interesting way.
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I I think you have to bring drugs into it in the sense that the decadence of the period that that was like the early 90s was like that.
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There was a lot of heroin, there was a lot of drinking, and and sort of so that music very much it spoke to also that that that decadence, which I experienced a lot as a very young person.
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You talk about that decadence and that like specific era, you know, capturing a a time.
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The musical landscape today is obviously very different.
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It's developed in a way that you know we haven't predicted.
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How do you feel like your work on this project?
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How does it fit into kind of the current musical landscape?
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And have you thought of the current musical landscape when working on this project?
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:46.720
Or is it more so kind of staying true to this decadence that you're talking about?
00:19:46.799 --> 00:19:50.160
Or do you think that it can be applied to today?
00:19:50.880 --> 00:20:00.880
To the current musical landscape, I never worry about that because I don't really program for the Pacific Jazz Orchestra or concerts to follow a certain trend or anything.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:10.240
I just pick concerts that interest me as an artist that that I find fascinating and I would like to sink my teeth into and working on it.
00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:13.920
And with that kind of hoping other people would feel the same way.
00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:17.680
And in this case, enough people did because we had a sold-out show.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:27.920
And so that's how I kind of I mean I think you can't you you also of course have to tie in the similarities from of that era, of the era we're in now.
00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:34.880
Sorry, with with you know Weimar Germany, you know, politically, we're it's a similar situation.
00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:42.880
Uh we are we are on the precipice of of possibly being in a full-fledged fascist world as they were back then.
00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:59.920
And uh and this so I do I do actually personally believe I I'm a little more airy-fairy about it, but these songs, they're definitely coming back to the fore because they they're a warning, and then there's a certain pain in them and a certain sense of dread that is, you know, that we can certainly relate to today.
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:06.880
But I feel like the music that's something that music just does, like it's not something you execute, you know, or you it just sort of happens.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:15.680
And so I feel like they they they just chose to come back for a very good reason because we're in a similar spot as we were back in the 30s.
00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:20.400
Yeah, history repeats itself as a result, it always comes back.
00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:26.240
Mark Twain famously said, uh, history never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:35.200
So we talk about there's a lot of emotional complexity and we talk about warnings in the songs.
00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:41.440
On paper, Biles melodies are almost deceptively simple, in my opinion.
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:49.599
You know, as someone, both of you who are so uh kind of intimately tied to the music, read the score so deeply.
00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:58.240
What do you see in a Bile melody that you think maybe a less trained musician or singer might might miss?
00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:59.519
I think the simplicity.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:08.880
Is striking, but what m many people that don't have that much knowledge about writing music is that simple melodies are really hard to write.
00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:15.119
That's where part of the genius of Kurtwile lies is finding a great simple melody.
00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:25.759
They're simple, but they're still quirky at times and take unexpected turns without being overly complicated or too complex.
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:28.079
That's that's that to me is wild.
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:30.240
A simple but quirky, quirky melody.
00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:33.519
And I think also you have to sing every note correctly.
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:38.079
Even though they might not be simple, you can't really futz with it too much, which is actually interesting.
00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:40.400
You can't really riff on a Kurt Vial song.
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:45.920
But yes, it is simple, but you have to hit every note exactly as written I find when you sing them.
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:58.720
Telling Mozart, you know, I had a piano teacher who said, you know, Mozart melodies are so simple, but if you get a note wrong, it's like you're wearing a white dress and someone spills like tackling sauce all over it.
00:22:59.119 --> 00:23:01.200
I think it's a no, it's a bit like that.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:01.519
Yeah.
00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:03.680
Maybe not, maybe not quite like that.
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:07.119
Well, maybe just a T.
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:19.039
For while became the while that the world knows, you know, three penny opera, cabaret, everything that is, you know, the world and your album.
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:27.839
He wrote a violin concerto, he wrote a string quartet, a lot of serious, you know, classical concert music in the tradition of Busoni, Federico Busoni, who he's studied.
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:34.319
Some of us, funnily enough, only knew him as a classical composer, believe it or not.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:44.319
So do either of you hear traces of that earlier classical Weill in the songs on this album and maybe the voice leading, the way he builds ten.
00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.119
Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here.
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:50.640
I don't think Weil was a great classical composer.
00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:53.920
I I'm willing to say that.
00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:56.400
I mean, I I've heard certain things and they're interesting.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:02.160
I only know this also because I had uh a few classical pieces that were in the sim in the same evening.
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:10.640
I think I did something where they had played some of my overtures and and they had also like I think they were playing Kurt Weil's first symphony or something.
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.839
And it wasn't that great to me.
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:16.799
Compared to his other things, you know, compared to his songs.
00:24:17.039 --> 00:24:18.559
Personally, I think he had all the training.
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:33.200
I think he probably had all the appreciation and and he had all the tools, but he was at heart, he was like a songwriter and a and a formidable song songwriter, a theatrical songwriter, which is different from just like you know, someone who just writes songs.
00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:39.279
I'm not trying to deb debase him, but but a great classical composer, I don't think was really his forte.
00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:41.680
Speak your truth.
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:43.839
Speak your truth.
00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:48.720
It's not that it was bad, it just doesn't particularly, you know, move me very much.
00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:50.559
A lot of stuff that work personally.
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:51.599
Beauty of art.
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:54.240
Do you have uh anything to add to that?
00:24:54.559 --> 00:25:00.480
I have to admit, and I have to confess that I do know that he did write some classical music.
00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.519
I've hardly listened to any of it, I have to admit.
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:05.440
So I I'm not that familiar with it.
00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:06.640
Yeah, it's okay.
00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:10.079
It's not it's not it's not Mac the knife, you know.
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:13.519
I agree with that.
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:16.799
We're not hearing for Lyle's violin concerto everything.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:26.160
So it's hard for me to tell if there are traces of his classic composition style in his songwriting or Broadway, or even in this orchestration work for his earlier stuff?
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:27.039
I don't really know.
00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:28.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:30.880
Well, I have a question for you, Chris.
00:25:31.119 --> 00:25:36.480
Lyle's original orchestrations are themselves remarkable.
00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:37.920
Yeah, amazing.
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:40.160
Just unbelievable.
00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:42.480
He knew exactly what he was doing as an orchestra.
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:52.079
So when you write new arrangements of his songs, how much of his original orchestration do you kind of keep in conversation with?
00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:57.599
And how much do you feel licensed to depart a little from it?
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.680
It depends on the song and in what period he's written the songs, as I mentioned earlier.
00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:13.759
In his Berlin era, where he did a lot of the his own orchestrations, that's where I stayed closer and true to his original orchestration, just fleshed it out a bit.
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:31.519
And some of the songs from his later period, I took more artistic license and and did my own thing with my own orchestration and my own ideas for counterpoints and maybe different intro that I would come up by myself to a song, but more to his later songs.
00:26:31.599 --> 00:26:34.799
So for the early ones, I stayed closer to his orchestrations.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:49.359
When you sit down to arrange for a singer-songwriter like Rufus, I mean you've arranged you know, Paul McCartney to Aretha Franklin, CSO, uh the Academy Awards, you've arranged for so many.
00:26:49.519 --> 00:27:00.640
So when you arrange for someone as unique and amazing as Rufus, you have a very defined musical voice and you also have a deep classical foundation.
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:08.559
Chris, how does your process change, if at all, compared to arranging for other kinds of vocalists or ensembles?
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:16.000
Well, the most important thing for me is when I'm writing an arrangement for a singer, is the vocal timbre of each singer.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:25.200
Because that kind of defines what textures I'm gonna use in the orchestra to complement that or embed that or play against it, or whatever I want to do with these textures.
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:32.000
With Rufus, I has such a distinct voice and I knew how to how to write for it.
00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:45.839
I mean it's always like individual to I think one thing I I imagine with my voice too is that and only think about this a little bit, because I I of course I'm mostly in the pop world, so I listen to a lot of other musicians and other singers.
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:50.400
I do feel like there's a thing where it's not that they're bad singers at all, actually.
00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:58.559
Most of them are very good singers, but there's a kind of style of singing where the orchestra how can I say this?
00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:06.079
Where the where the voice, and I'm not giving gonna give any examples, but but where the voice is doing one thing and then the orchestra can do something else.
00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:12.880
I think my style of singing demands that the orchestra and I kind of play ball a little bit.
00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:13.279
Yeah.
00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:25.920
Um, you know, I think I've always had that kind of like I'm not afraid to have a lot of different, you know, the dynamics, and and and I and I like big intervals and and and I like to belt and then I like to go very, very quietly.
00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:28.799
And that is very unusual in the pop world.
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:34.240
You know, in the pop world, it's just it's more like just you're singing on a kind of straight line, and I don't sing that way.
00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:36.160
Uh for better or for worse.
00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:45.839
I think with orchestrators, I'm I'm hoping and I'm assuming that they kind of feel like they can Yeah, we can kind of have a little bit more of a of a of an intertwining thing.
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:46.400
Yeah.
00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:56.480
But I've learned your style of singing quite quickly, I think, and and knew how not to step on the singer and kind of play against each other and and with the with a voice.
00:28:56.559 --> 00:29:00.799
I mean, for example, Rufus, you're not you're not a singer that is backphrasing a lot.
00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:02.160
No, no, no, no.
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:06.400
So your timing is really good, which makes it easy for me as well.
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:08.240
I love that.
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:15.279
You talk about the dynamic range in your in your voice and how you play ball with the orchestra.
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:16.960
Where does that where does that come from?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:19.119
Well, that's from that's from my love of opera.
00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:23.279
Around the time same time that I discovered Kerval, I I got into opera.
00:29:23.519 --> 00:29:27.039
And I've been a massive opera fanatic, as I still am.
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:31.599
And so, you know, for me, going to the opera is like going to a baseball game, you know.
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:34.880
They're gonna hit the note, are they gonna make me cry here, you know?
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:42.000
So I enjoy that sort of athletic uh interchange between a singer and orchestra, and so that's that's from the opera.
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:58.799
And that also plays well when with the orchestra, as for me as the conductor as well, since I did also conduct the concert and the album, which is great for Rufus to conduct because I can follow him, I know where he's going at times when I have to react to him.
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:02.720
So that way, Rufus is really easy to conduct for, at least for me.
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:23.680
Yeah, and I also think that a lot of times when you sing with an orchestra, you really have to dissect the arrangement in your head um while you're listening to it in the sense like really try to sing with the second oboes, you know, like it's like a weird kind of you can't look at it as a whole, you have to look at it as like a as a as a multi-tiered thing, which I could which I do because I listen to so much opera.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:29.200
So you are part of the orchestra, that's kind of like the playing a concerto for any instrument.
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:33.680
Chris, you mentioned you you studied conducting and you are a conductor.
00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:49.039
Is there for you similarity when conducting Rufus in this project to let's say conducting, you know, a violin concerto, uh a cello concerto, piano concerto, any concerto for another instrument?
00:30:49.119 --> 00:30:59.039
And maybe Rufus and Chris, if your voice could be akin to another instrument specifically for this album, what what would it be?
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:05.440
For me, there's not a big difference in conducting a con instrumental concerto with a soloist or a singer.
00:31:05.519 --> 00:31:15.519
As long as the instrumental soloist has is skillful, then he has the same skills that a good vocal performer has as well, that is easy to follow.
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:18.480
And where and we speak the same language and react to each other.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:23.119
That's the same with a vocal soloist as well as an instrumental soloist for a concerto.
00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:28.640
And if it's doesn't work out that well, then it's bad in either scenario.
00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:38.000
You know, I wanted to ask a couple more questions about the lineage that Bile has had over the years with various interpreters.
00:31:38.079 --> 00:31:46.000
You know, you mentioned Teresa Stradas, you also have Marianne Faithful, you have Ute Lemper, you have Lot Elena.
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:55.519
How do you decide which interpretive lineage to honor and maybe what to deliberately depart from?
00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:09.359
It's funny you mentioned that because I mean, in terms I think in terms of the traditional, you know, singing his material, I do try to differentiate from that or create my own version and really encompass the songs alone.
00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:11.920
And and I'll be influenced by people.
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:19.519
What's great actually is that you know, having discovered Laudeland first, it gave me a lot of room because she wasn't like the greatest singer in the world.
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:28.480
Amazed, interesting, fascinating singer, incredible voice, but not a like she wasn't like an acrobatic Judy Garland type singer.
00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:33.039
So so it kind of gave so it gave me a lot of leeway to kind of sing them how I wanted to sing them.
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:34.640
So I tried to really make them myself.
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:41.359
That being said, Bobby Darren version of Mac the Knife, I followed that note for note.
00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:44.960
I really owe him, I'm imitating Bobby Darren.
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:46.960
That's not necessarily me singing that.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:57.279
I mean, I'm I I I could do that, but I think his version of Mac the Knife is so iconic and so kind of in a lot of ways insurmountable, uh, at least in the pop world.
00:32:57.440 --> 00:32:59.759
And there's a lot of people who had hits with that song.
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:08.319
Uh, but his one is so it's like the Elvis version, you know, that that that you kind of I think you have to kind of follow him when it gets into that jazzy feel.
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:10.160
You have anything to add to that?
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:16.160
Well, I think I think to Rufus' credit, I think he still was managed to put his own stamp on it.
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:16.480
Yeah.
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:24.319
Oh especially since we Rufus and I made the decision to kind of blend various styles with Mac the knife.
00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:27.519
We're starting in out more true to the three pack version.
00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:36.160
Rufus actually sings in German in the first verse, and then we kind of transition slowly into the jazz rap pack version with Darren feel to it.
00:33:36.240 --> 00:33:40.240
And but I think with that, Rufus kind of put his own stamp on it.
00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:42.559
Yeah, but I went through Bobby Darren to do it.
00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:42.799
Yes.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:44.000
Yeah, I went through him.
00:33:44.319 --> 00:33:59.920
If a listener experiencing this project for the first time and you wanted to encapsulate it in one word for them, or interpretive stamp the way you approached it, what is that word that kind of encapsulates this project for you?
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:03.039
I would say gloomy.
00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:09.039
Gloomy, gloomy fun, gloomy fun.
00:34:09.360 --> 00:34:10.400
Gloomy fun.
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:11.519
Yeah.
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:14.400
That's just like one word, gloomy fun.
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:15.280
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:17.599
It's like a German, it's a German word, gloomy fun.
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:18.079
Yeah.
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:21.599
What would you say?
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:26.400
I have one word that describes the feeling.
00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:29.039
Or you can make a new word.
00:34:29.280 --> 00:34:29.599
Yeah.
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:30.559
Gloomy fun.
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:31.840
Gloomy fun.
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:35.760
Well, I mean, I would think swagger is the wrong word for it.
00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:36.079
Right.
00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:37.360
It's not really well.
00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:39.119
Swagger, I'll go with swagger.
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:40.400
The corky swagger.
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:40.960
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:41.440
Quirky.
00:34:42.559 --> 00:34:43.679
Quirky swagger.
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:45.440
That sounds like some person.
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:48.880
Hi, this is Quirky Swagger here.
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:51.519
Corky Swagger sings.
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.320
Kurt Weil.
00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:55.519
That'll be my new pendant.
00:34:57.760 --> 00:34:58.960
He's my next guest, actually.
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:01.119
Kurt Weil were alive today.
00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:06.400
What genre do you would think he would be working in?
00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:07.679
You think first.
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:09.039
What do you think, Chris?
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:13.679
I think he would still be writing probably opera.
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:15.599
I think he would write opera.
00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:20.239
I think he would be writing songs for me.
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:22.800
Of course.
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:26.000
He'd be like, this guy, Rufus, is amazing.
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:28.639
I gotta write some more songs.
00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:30.159
Obviously.
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:31.440
No, I don't know.
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:31.760
I don't know.
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:35.039
Maybe be I don't think he'd be a DJ or anything, but maybe.
00:35:35.360 --> 00:35:35.519
No.
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:42.079
But I think I I said opera because opera has opened up to a lot of new voices recently.
00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:44.480
And contemporary opera, that is.
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:47.760
And I think he would have found a spot there.
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:51.519
More than I think more than contemporary Broadway.
00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:53.119
Oh yeah, definitely.
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:54.639
Last question.
00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:56.639
And your answer can't be vile.
00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:02.400
If you could have dinner with any composer, living or dead, who would it be?
00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:03.599
And you can't say vile.
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:10.960
Um for me, I mean, I I'm a I'm a big opera person, and I and I spend so much time thinking about him.
00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:17.760
And I seem to be the only one who adore him as much as I do, but I I really like Geo Separity.
00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:21.760
And I want to see if he's as mean as he seems to be.
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:32.000
Verdi famously said, Verdi famously said um he loves he likes to hang out with business people because uh he likes to talk about the art and music.
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:35.519
He doesn't like to hang out with musicians because all they talk about is money.
00:36:35.760 --> 00:36:36.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:41.519
For one thing, he was also very handsome, he was very good looking.
00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:47.039
And uh and he also did this thing where I mean, I think they were celebrating him in his hometown.
00:36:47.199 --> 00:36:54.719
They built an opera house for him and they celebrated, and they they had the big opening night, and he was in the town, and instead of going to that, he went to a spa.
00:36:57.199 --> 00:36:58.880
He's just had a lot of balls.
00:36:59.039 --> 00:37:01.840
I I think I would like to have dinner with you, Hansebastien Bach.
00:37:02.079 --> 00:37:06.639
Not a lot alone about his personality and what he was like, and yes, he was married two times.
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:10.960
He had like a gazillion children, and but what was it?
00:37:11.039 --> 00:37:11.679
What was he like?
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:20.639
He seemed like he could be a little bit of a little bit of a hard ass, but I think he did like stab someone on a bridge for bothering him.
00:37:21.199 --> 00:37:27.199
Yeah, but yeah, you I mean I I love both of those answers.
00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:28.880
I'd have the better food though.
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:29.440
That's true.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:31.599
Probably you wouldn't have the better food answer.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:32.320
I don't know.
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:35.519
Yeah, 1600s, life east Germany.
00:37:35.679 --> 00:37:36.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:36.719 --> 00:37:40.000
Well, thank you so much, both of you.
00:37:40.079 --> 00:37:41.199
This was so much fun.
00:37:41.519 --> 00:37:42.559
Oh, great, thank you.
00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:43.519
Yeah, that was.
00:37:43.599 --> 00:37:44.400
Thanks for having us.
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:52.320
I learned so much, our audiences are gonna learn so much, and we're all gonna delve into your curb vibe.
00:37:52.719 --> 00:37:54.239
Great, thank you so much.
00:37:56.719 --> 00:38:02.079
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00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:13.759
Hi, you're listening to Practice Room Breaks, IMSLP's interview series, where we have conversations with some of classical music's most brilliant and creative artists today.
00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.399
I'm your host, Natalie Nadvetsky.
00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:20.800
If you like what you hear, don't forget to follow and subscribe to the podcast.
00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:32.240
Enjoy! Today on the show, we're doing something a little different with our very first classically adjacent episode.
00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:41.759
We are joined by celebrated singer-songwriter and opera composer Rufus Wainwright, alongside Grammy-nominated arranger and conductor Chris Walden.
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They're here to talk about their brand new collaborative album, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, recorded with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, an incredible project reimagining the music of Kurt Weil, bringing the worlds of 1930s Weimar Cabaret and Golden Age Broadway together.
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And I like big intervals and I like to belt and then I like to go very, very quietly.
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And that is very unusual in the pop world.
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You know, in the pop world, it's just it's more like just you're singing on a kind of straight line, and I don't sing that way.
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Thank you so much for joining us on IMSLT, um, our first uh classically adjacent segment.
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Uh very honored to have you here.
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Well, thank you.
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Thank you for having us.
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So Rufus, yes.
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You've built a career that moves very fluidly between pop songwriting, opera, and the classical canon.
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I mean, you wrote two opera, you wrote a requiem.
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And Chris, you you grew up with a mother who specialized in Renaissance and Baroque music.
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You went to conservatory, you spent decades arranging for orchestra and jazz ensembles.
00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:22.080
Before we get into kind of the heart of the interview, which is your while project and album, can you tell me about both of you, your first encounter with classical music, if you remember it in your youth, and kind of what sparked the love of that genre?
00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:23.680
Well, I'll I'll go first.
00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:30.639
I mean, my mother really was through my mother, Kate McGarigal, who her herself, she wasn't an amazing musician as well.
00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:37.919
Um, she sadly is no longer with us, but she would play, she's a she was a really good pianist.
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Um, not classically, well, she was classically trained a little bit from the nuns um in Quebec, but uh but she but she played, she could play anything by ear, incredibly distinctive piano player, good jam, and all of that stuff.
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But she also loved the Goldberg variations.
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So she every morning she would play those.
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Um not all of them.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:10.800
Not the some some of the she some of them she couldn't play, but uh, but a lot of them she she played, and um, and so I was kind of woken up every morning by by the Goldberg variations, which was was great.
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:16.400
So that was I think probably the first piece, which is interesting because you're supposed to be put to sleep by it to by them.
00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:17.039
Right.
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But I was but I was woken up by them.
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So beautiful.
00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:20.879
Wow.
00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.759
I was gonna say a lot of the gold all of the Goldberg variations.
00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:24.719
Yeah, no, not all.
00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:28.400
Um yeah, Chris, what about what about you?
00:03:28.719 --> 00:03:31.120
Yeah, for me, similarly, very early on.
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My mother um is a classical singer specializing in early Baroque and Renaissance choir music, and as far as I can remember, there was always the music in our household, musicians coming to our house for rehearsals with historic instruments, and me and my sister, we started playing classical music on recorders age four or five or so.
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:54.000
I mean, in that sense, the love it's a little bit ambivalent.
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So the love and also hatred of classical music starts at the same time.
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Well, I wasn't forced into that uh slot.
00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:21.439
So right, but I mean it's clearly found its way into your lives so intimately, and that brings me to sort of the again, the heart of this conversation, which is what Wainwright does while which is a project that you're working on.
00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:27.680
How did this come together and how did the two of you find each other?
00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:36.560
Well, we have these c this couple um who are very close friends of ours, um, uh Dale and Don Franzen.
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Well, Don is an attorney in the classical music world, actually.
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He he he represents um the Cito Domingo and a bunch of other you know big artists.
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But then Dale, well, who was an opera singer originally, she uh she then moved into more administrative uh stuff, and she actually and uh now she's a huge Broadway producer.
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She produced Hades Town, so she's so she's she's doing great, but she she had uh told my husband and I about Chris, put us together, and and uh and and yeah, so that that's how it came out from my end.
00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:15.360
Don Franzen, who Rufus just mentioned, um, is on the board of directors of my Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:18.240
And he's also was sitting on the board of the LA Opera.
00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:23.839
So he's very, even though he's a lawyer, he's very knowledgeable about music and has ideas about programming.
00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:31.600
In the first year when we started um doing programming for the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, he came to me and said, How about a project with Rufus Rainwright?
00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:33.279
And I thought that sounds fantastic.
00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:34.720
So and then he put us in touch.
00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:39.600
You mentioned the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, and I want to talk a little bit about that as well.
00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:50.000
So it's it's almost like a hybrid instrument, it's like a 17-piece big band plus a 20-piece string section, which really creates such a unique sound.
00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:54.800
So Chris, how did that particular sound world?
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I suppose since it's it's sort of so unique, shape the arrangements for the album.
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And then Rufus, how do you adjust your vocal approach to singing against that very specific sound versus a chamber ensemble or a double piano?
00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:23.120
Yeah, so uh as you said, it's a very unique instrumentation, at least in the in the US, with this instrumentation, this hybrid, so it's not a simful symphony orchestra, but it's more than just a jazz big band.
00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:29.279
This hybrid instrumentation is the only one of this kind's this orchestra, the Pacific Jazz Orchestra is.
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When this project with Rufus came along and we talked about Kurt Weill, I immediately knew this is gonna work perfectly with such an instrumentation because Weil, as you know, wrote for pit orchestras for musicals, his music was a lot for that for the for these works written for a pit orchestra, which is sort of like the Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
00:06:49.839 --> 00:07:00.480
We're a little bigger than a pit orchestra, but it has a lot of similarities to a musical pit orchestra, and so that's why that instantly felt great to adapt this music for the Pacific Jazz Orchestra.
00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:05.600
Well, you I wanted to say you you have like more of a Ziegfield Foley's pit orchestra.
00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.759
I mean, okay, now we're not pit orchestra's gotten really small.
00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:25.680
Um I mean I'm referring to pit orchestras from decades ago, which yeah, but I think there was a time when there were huge pit orchestras, like in Ziegfield Foley, it's like in the golden era, Broadway or whatever, but uh but but no, but I don't think Kurt Weil they were much smaller orchestras anyways.
00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:26.959
That was kind of the point, right?
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They were sort of rough.
00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:33.199
Well, look, I I've sung Gerval songs for many, many years.
00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:36.560
I got into him when I was, you know, 13, 12, 13.
00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:38.160
So I know the material really well.
00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:46.639
I'd also had the the opportunity of doing a residency at the Carlisle Hotel, and I did all the songs, all the Kurt Val songs that are on the album.
00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:49.680
Um so that is a sort of a transplant of that set list.
00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:51.279
The songs were much in grand.
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:56.480
The other thing that's interesting is that there was so little rehearsal and kind of preparation.
00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:11.199
I mean, we did, I got a chance to meet with Chris and look over the arrangements here and there, but I but I really let him do what he wanted to do, and it essentially, and I was working on another musical, on a musical called Opening Night in London, and I basically flew in.
00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:18.560
We had one rehearsal and then we did the show and recorded it, and then I left the next day, I think, because I had another rehearsal in London.
00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:20.879
So so there was a sort of how can I say this?
00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:26.079
I think that was part of the approach in the sense that we it wasn't too thought out on my end.
00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:30.560
Um, and I just wanted to kind of hit the ground and see what happened live.
00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:33.600
I mean, I've looked I've sung with orchestrals for a long time, so I know how to do that.
00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:42.879
And I do think for Kurt Weil's music specifically, you want a kind of rock and roll quality to the performance and to the aesthetic because it is more you know street music.
00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:47.919
So I think if it had been too rehearsed or too kind of slick, um it would have lost something.
00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:54.480
And I think in a sense, it was all like a lucky accident that we actually did choose Kurt Weil as a theme for the show.
00:08:54.559 --> 00:09:02.720
When Lot Franzen originally approached me, he said, just a project with Rufus Rainwright, and we hadn't thought about what the material could be.
00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:11.200
And I think maybe Rufus' songs, and I would reimagine them with orchestra, but then Rufus made actually the suggestion how about we doing Kurt Wilde?
00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:23.840
Because I just did this thing at the Carlisle, which meant Rufus just had all these songs fresh in his memory, just learned, which meant I would just write the arrangements around around Rufus's performance, how he did it at the Carlisle.
00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:26.399
So that way Rufus could come in for the rehearsal.
00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:34.639
He was at least familiar with the structure, not the instrument, but the roadmap and the structures was set up, and the songs were ingrained into his recent memory anyway.
00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:35.919
So and off we went.
00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:36.559
Wow, yeah.
00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:39.679
I have I have many follow-up questions at everything.
00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:43.519
I guess you know, I'll start with Rufus.
00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:58.559
So your compositional work, it's like I said, moved through operatic, theatrical, and you obviously have your own incredible catalog, and you've also lived with Viol's music for a very long time.
00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:04.000
When you inhabit Viles' songs, you know, you're an interpreter rather than a tutor.
00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:08.080
What part kind of shows up first to that interpretation?
00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:13.360
What happens when the kind of composer side of you and the interpreter side of you maybe disagree?
00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:23.360
Well, look, I mean, composer-wise, I'm just envious because I love is both both this combination of lyricism and also grit.
00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:29.679
You know, he's got this very soft and hard thing happening at the same time, which is very seamless, the way he does that.
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And um, so I'm jealous, probably, as a composer.
00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:48.399
Performance-wise, I mean, for me, the thing that always attracted me to his music was, of course, you know, the era, Weimar Republic, and and the whole that brief period where there was this kind of freedom and sexual liberation and you know, a big gay movement and trance movement.
00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.639
You know, there was just it was just this wild time of of freedom.
00:10:52.799 --> 00:11:01.840
Um, and so the music really is just pulsating with this, you know, modernism and and this and this exciting kind of I have to say very sexual energy as well.
00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:03.759
That's what kind of drew me to it.
00:11:03.919 --> 00:11:05.360
And it's also very theatrical.
00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:10.000
And I'm, you know, I I'm known to cause a scene here and there.
00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:15.039
I also want to ask about your arranging, Chris.
00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:16.639
Several questions about that.
00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:25.519
So arranging Vile means you really get into his harmonic and orchestral thinking like at a very granular level, right?
00:11:26.159 --> 00:11:34.559
For you, what did that closeness to him reveal to you about if anything, about how vial maybe actually worked?
00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:38.320
You know, something that maybe you couldn't have heard.
00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:41.360
A general listener can't just hear from listening.
00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:48.080
I was fortunate enough to have access to some of his manuscripts when I was working on it.
00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:59.600
And what was interesting to see is that in his earlier work, especially Berlin and a little bit of Paris as well, but especially this time in Berlin, he was doing a lot of the orchestrations himself.
00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:12.320
So which means he actually formed not only the melody and the chords that go with it, but a lot of the texture and the feel of the song was uh was done by Weill himself with his orchestration.
00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:14.960
And for these songs, I stuck pretty closely to them.
00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:26.159
In this later period, when he then went to New York and and did a lot of Broadway writing, he focused a little bit more on just writing the meat of the song and had other orchestrates orchestrators flesh it out.
00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:34.639
And that's where I also took a little bit more my own liberties and did some more of my own arranging ideas to these songs.
00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:36.080
We talked previously.
00:12:36.159 --> 00:12:39.919
I know you used IMSLP before, I know you told me we're a subscriber.
00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:40.559
Thank you.
00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:51.279
So I'm just curious, like let's say a vial score, one of the ones you're working on, kind of existed in multiple public domain editions, different keys, different orchestrations.
00:12:51.600 --> 00:13:00.480
Would you ever maybe consider blending them or making your own performing addition, kind of to reflect how you hear the song?
00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:15.039
And maybe is there a song on this album where essentially that blended kind of various styles, various, you know, aspects of Kurt Weil's writing into something that is more adjacent to your voice?
00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:16.399
Yeah, I I think so.
00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:23.919
I feel, for example, September song is where something that I kind of put a little bit more my thumbprint on it than another's.
00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:24.159
Yeah.
00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:25.279
What do you think, Rufus?
00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:39.120
Well, I mean, what I like about this project and and with working with Chris, and I think it's a nice, it's a great kind of triumvirant in a lot of ways, is that there's Kirkweil and Germany and stuff like that.
00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:42.480
And then there's New York, you know, Broadway kind of thing.
00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:45.279
But then, of course, Chris works a lot in Hollywood.
00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:46.639
And I live in Hollywood.
00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:59.120
Obviously, he's done a lot of work with you know the Academy Awards, and there's this sort of a kind of glamour to his arrangements that is um incredibly very robust and and and big and confident.
00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:11.919
And I think what that kind of mix is really nice with the Kurtville material because it sort of gives it this sort of cushion, which which the music is is very the angular nature of it, kind of is is beautifully framed.
00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:19.440
So I think it gives a little of a Hollywood touch to it, which which is um not actually something one often thinks about with Kurtville.
00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:28.399
I mean, I though I know he did spend some time in in LA, but it makes it a little more cinematic, which I think that that's sort of that gives it a this interesting color of this album.
00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:31.279
Very much get that from listening to the album.
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:42.720
It's almost like maybe like almost big band kind of glamour, just very theatrical style Kurt Weil wrote for the stage, but it takes it to the next level.
00:14:42.879 --> 00:14:44.879
Yeah, Berthold Brecht would have hated it.
00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:45.440
Yeah.
00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:49.600
I was going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:14:49.919 --> 00:14:52.799
That was my mind.
00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:56.480
Bert Weil would have loved it, probably, but Berthold Brecht would have hated it.
00:14:56.720 --> 00:14:57.759
That's so funny.
00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:02.960
You know, the catalog spans these like two almost irreconcilable worlds.
00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:10.559
Like on one hand, the the Brecht collaborations, it's like this dark politically charged, tabaret.
00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:22.480
And then you have this American Broadway songwriter who wrote Stars, One Touch of Venus, and I think you navigate it that line so well.
00:15:22.799 --> 00:15:31.840
And I'm just curious, when working on this project, was there ever a point where you were leaning more towards one or the other?
00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:37.919
I mean, you kind of just applied a little bit that you were leaning more towards like less of the Brecht collaboration.
00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:41.519
But how did you reconcile those worlds?
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:43.440
Chris, you should answer this, obviously.
00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:54.559
But I do feel that the Brecht, that the German stuff, the Berlin stuff, we were, we were pretty, I was relieved because I did feel like we were very respectful of the German side.
00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:56.879
Because I didn't want to jazz that up so much.
00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:57.519
Exactly.
00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:03.360
But but then when we got to the other things, it became more more of a we went more out there.
00:16:03.679 --> 00:16:10.559
The title of the album, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, from One Touch of Venus, of that musical.
00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:15.919
What drew you to that phrase in particular as the album title?
00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:23.840
Well, that's a song that I I had heard it first when I heard the the Teresa Stratus Kurtville album years ago that she put out.
00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.159
And I was just always fascinated by the song.
00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:28.559
Well, first of all, it's a blast to sing.
00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:34.879
There's a lot of you know, nooks and crannies that one discovers in their voice when singing that song.
00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:41.120
And you have to be pretty activated and and and and confident and sort of seductive in your demeanor.
00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:44.399
So it's just you have to slip, you have to you have to perform that song.
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:49.360
But I think in a funny way, like the title, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, is sort of the opposite of that.
00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.799
It invokes more of a kind of loneliness and a sense of solitude.
00:16:52.960 --> 00:17:02.399
So it's this weird juxtaposition of both being, you know, really ready to go and also feeling completely alienated, which is kind of the way I am a lot of time.
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:08.160
Rufus, according to you, you know, when you do these interviews, you do you almost feel like a stalker.
00:17:08.319 --> 00:17:10.319
You read all these like articles about all these people.
00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:15.599
You said you wore out the grooves of Teresa Stratus's while album in your early 20s.
00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:24.079
That's like a very specific kind of devotion, you know, returning to the same recordings until they're physically exhausted.
00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:25.440
I've done that myself.
00:17:25.759 --> 00:17:27.279
What were you listening for?
00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:30.799
Like, what did you hear there that you couldn't stop the book?
00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:34.559
I really do feel like there was something about that era too.
00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:43.119
I discovered Kerval, it was, you know, probably 80, well, 91, 90, so the beginning of the 90s.
00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:46.400
And there was a kind of dark.
00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:56.000
I grew up in Montreal, up in Canada, and there was a kind of um decrepit bohemian style, you know, that that I was growing up in.
00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:58.319
And the world was a little bit more broken down.
00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:03.359
I mean, it's still broken down, but it didn't, I felt like it related a lot to that, to that aesthetic.
00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:06.160
So I just forgot the question.
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:10.319
I was I just was thinking about the 90s and got lost.
00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:12.160
No, I gleefully.
00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:16.400
I was gonna say really, but unfortunately I I can't relate.
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:26.240
First of all, I love that description of because that was another one of my questions, is what captured you so early on into Vile, but it was talking about the Stratus's album.
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:28.480
What kept you coming back to that?
00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:31.440
Well, I mean, it was Stratus and it was also Laudelenia.
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:34.799
It was it was, you know, any kind of diva of sorts.
00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:47.920
And uh I don't know, I just would like listen to those records and get naked and put on a string of pearls and stare at myself in the mirror, you know, stuff like that you do when you're 19.
00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:52.079
And probably on drugs.
00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:54.240
There was a lot of drugs in an interesting way.
00:18:54.319 --> 00:19:02.000
I I think you have to bring drugs into it in the sense that the decadence of the period that that was like the early 90s was like that.
00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:11.680
There was a lot of heroin, there was a lot of drinking, and and sort of so that music very much it spoke to also that that that decadence, which I experienced a lot as a very young person.
00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:17.519
You talk about that decadence and that like specific era, you know, capturing a a time.
00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:21.200
The musical landscape today is obviously very different.
00:19:21.359 --> 00:19:26.240
It's developed in a way that you know we haven't predicted.
00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:31.119
How do you feel like your work on this project?
00:19:31.279 --> 00:19:35.839
How does it fit into kind of the current musical landscape?
00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:41.440
And have you thought of the current musical landscape when working on this project?
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:46.720
Or is it more so kind of staying true to this decadence that you're talking about?
00:19:46.799 --> 00:19:50.160
Or do you think that it can be applied to today?
00:19:50.880 --> 00:20:00.880
To the current musical landscape, I never worry about that because I don't really program for the Pacific Jazz Orchestra or concerts to follow a certain trend or anything.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:10.240
I just pick concerts that interest me as an artist that that I find fascinating and I would like to sink my teeth into and working on it.
00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:13.920
And with that kind of hoping other people would feel the same way.
00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:17.680
And in this case, enough people did because we had a sold-out show.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:27.920
And so that's how I kind of I mean I think you can't you you also of course have to tie in the similarities from of that era, of the era we're in now.
00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:34.880
Sorry, with with you know Weimar Germany, you know, politically, we're it's a similar situation.
00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:42.880
Uh we are we are on the precipice of of possibly being in a full-fledged fascist world as they were back then.
00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:59.920
And uh and this so I do I do actually personally believe I I'm a little more airy-fairy about it, but these songs, they're definitely coming back to the fore because they they're a warning, and then there's a certain pain in them and a certain sense of dread that is, you know, that we can certainly relate to today.
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:06.880
But I feel like the music that's something that music just does, like it's not something you execute, you know, or you it just sort of happens.
00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:15.680
And so I feel like they they they just chose to come back for a very good reason because we're in a similar spot as we were back in the 30s.
00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:20.400
Yeah, history repeats itself as a result, it always comes back.
00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:26.240
Mark Twain famously said, uh, history never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:35.200
So we talk about there's a lot of emotional complexity and we talk about warnings in the songs.
00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:41.440
On paper, Biles melodies are almost deceptively simple, in my opinion.
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:49.599
You know, as someone, both of you who are so uh kind of intimately tied to the music, read the score so deeply.
00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:58.240
What do you see in a Bile melody that you think maybe a less trained musician or singer might might miss?
00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:59.519
I think the simplicity.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:08.880
Is striking, but what m many people that don't have that much knowledge about writing music is that simple melodies are really hard to write.
00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:15.119
That's where part of the genius of Kurtwile lies is finding a great simple melody.
00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:25.759
They're simple, but they're still quirky at times and take unexpected turns without being overly complicated or too complex.
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:28.079
That's that's that to me is wild.
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:30.240
A simple but quirky, quirky melody.
00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:33.519
And I think also you have to sing every note correctly.
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:38.079
Even though they might not be simple, you can't really futz with it too much, which is actually interesting.
00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:40.400
You can't really riff on a Kurt Vial song.
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:45.920
But yes, it is simple, but you have to hit every note exactly as written I find when you sing them.
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:58.720
Telling Mozart, you know, I had a piano teacher who said, you know, Mozart melodies are so simple, but if you get a note wrong, it's like you're wearing a white dress and someone spills like tackling sauce all over it.
00:22:59.119 --> 00:23:01.200
I think it's a no, it's a bit like that.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:01.519
Yeah.
00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:03.680
Maybe not, maybe not quite like that.
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:07.119
Well, maybe just a T.
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:19.039
For while became the while that the world knows, you know, three penny opera, cabaret, everything that is, you know, the world and your album.
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:27.839
He wrote a violin concerto, he wrote a string quartet, a lot of serious, you know, classical concert music in the tradition of Busoni, Federico Busoni, who he's studied.
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:34.319
Some of us, funnily enough, only knew him as a classical composer, believe it or not.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:44.319
So do either of you hear traces of that earlier classical Weill in the songs on this album and maybe the voice leading, the way he builds ten.
00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:47.119
Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here.
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:50.640
I don't think Weil was a great classical composer.
00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:53.920
I I'm willing to say that.
00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:56.400
I mean, I I've heard certain things and they're interesting.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:02.160
I only know this also because I had uh a few classical pieces that were in the sim in the same evening.
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:10.640
I think I did something where they had played some of my overtures and and they had also like I think they were playing Kurt Weil's first symphony or something.
00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.839
And it wasn't that great to me.
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:16.799
Compared to his other things, you know, compared to his songs.
00:24:17.039 --> 00:24:18.559
Personally, I think he had all the training.
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:33.200
I think he probably had all the appreciation and and he had all the tools, but he was at heart, he was like a songwriter and a and a formidable song songwriter, a theatrical songwriter, which is different from just like you know, someone who just writes songs.
00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:39.279
I'm not trying to deb debase him, but but a great classical composer, I don't think was really his forte.
00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:41.680
Speak your truth.
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:43.839
Speak your truth.
00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:48.720
It's not that it was bad, it just doesn't particularly, you know, move me very much.
00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:50.559
A lot of stuff that work personally.
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:51.599
Beauty of art.
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:54.240
Do you have uh anything to add to that?
00:24:54.559 --> 00:25:00.480
I have to admit, and I have to confess that I do know that he did write some classical music.
00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.519
I've hardly listened to any of it, I have to admit.
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:05.440
So I I'm not that familiar with it.
00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:06.640
Yeah, it's okay.
00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:10.079
It's not it's not it's not Mac the knife, you know.
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:13.519
I agree with that.
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:16.799
We're not hearing for Lyle's violin concerto everything.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:26.160
So it's hard for me to tell if there are traces of his classic composition style in his songwriting or Broadway, or even in this orchestration work for his earlier stuff?
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:27.039
I don't really know.
00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:28.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:30.880
Well, I have a question for you, Chris.
00:25:31.119 --> 00:25:36.480
Lyle's original orchestrations are themselves remarkable.
00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:37.920
Yeah, amazing.
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:40.160
Just unbelievable.
00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:42.480
He knew exactly what he was doing as an orchestra.
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:52.079
So when you write new arrangements of his songs, how much of his original orchestration do you kind of keep in conversation with?
00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:57.599
And how much do you feel licensed to depart a little from it?
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.680
It depends on the song and in what period he's written the songs, as I mentioned earlier.
00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:13.759
In his Berlin era, where he did a lot of the his own orchestrations, that's where I stayed closer and true to his original orchestration, just fleshed it out a bit.
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:31.519
And some of the songs from his later period, I took more artistic license and and did my own thing with my own orchestration and my own ideas for counterpoints and maybe different intro that I would come up by myself to a song, but more to his later songs.
00:26:31.599 --> 00:26:34.799
So for the early ones, I stayed closer to his orchestrations.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:49.359
When you sit down to arrange for a singer-songwriter like Rufus, I mean you've arranged you know, Paul McCartney to Aretha Franklin, CSO, uh the Academy Awards, you've arranged for so many.
00:26:49.519 --> 00:27:00.640
So when you arrange for someone as unique and amazing as Rufus, you have a very defined musical voice and you also have a deep classical foundation.
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:08.559
Chris, how does your process change, if at all, compared to arranging for other kinds of vocalists or ensembles?
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:16.000
Well, the most important thing for me is when I'm writing an arrangement for a singer, is the vocal timbre of each singer.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:25.200
Because that kind of defines what textures I'm gonna use in the orchestra to complement that or embed that or play against it, or whatever I want to do with these textures.
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:32.000
With Rufus, I has such a distinct voice and I knew how to how to write for it.
00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:45.839
I mean it's always like individual to I think one thing I I imagine with my voice too is that and only think about this a little bit, because I I of course I'm mostly in the pop world, so I listen to a lot of other musicians and other singers.
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:50.400
I do feel like there's a thing where it's not that they're bad singers at all, actually.
00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:58.559
Most of them are very good singers, but there's a kind of style of singing where the orchestra how can I say this?
00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:06.079
Where the where the voice, and I'm not giving gonna give any examples, but but where the voice is doing one thing and then the orchestra can do something else.
00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:12.880
I think my style of singing demands that the orchestra and I kind of play ball a little bit.
00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:13.279
Yeah.
00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:25.920
Um, you know, I think I've always had that kind of like I'm not afraid to have a lot of different, you know, the dynamics, and and and I and I like big intervals and and and I like to belt and then I like to go very, very quietly.
00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:28.799
And that is very unusual in the pop world.
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:34.240
You know, in the pop world, it's just it's more like just you're singing on a kind of straight line, and I don't sing that way.
00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:36.160
Uh for better or for worse.
00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:45.839
I think with orchestrators, I'm I'm hoping and I'm assuming that they kind of feel like they can Yeah, we can kind of have a little bit more of a of a of an intertwining thing.
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:46.400
Yeah.
00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:56.480
But I've learned your style of singing quite quickly, I think, and and knew how not to step on the singer and kind of play against each other and and with the with a voice.
00:28:56.559 --> 00:29:00.799
I mean, for example, Rufus, you're not you're not a singer that is backphrasing a lot.
00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:02.160
No, no, no, no.
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:06.400
So your timing is really good, which makes it easy for me as well.
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:08.240
I love that.
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:15.279
You talk about the dynamic range in your in your voice and how you play ball with the orchestra.
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:16.960
Where does that where does that come from?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:19.119
Well, that's from that's from my love of opera.
00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:23.279
Around the time same time that I discovered Kerval, I I got into opera.
00:29:23.519 --> 00:29:27.039
And I've been a massive opera fanatic, as I still am.
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:31.599
And so, you know, for me, going to the opera is like going to a baseball game, you know.
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:34.880
They're gonna hit the note, are they gonna make me cry here, you know?
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:42.000
So I enjoy that sort of athletic uh interchange between a singer and orchestra, and so that's that's from the opera.
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:58.799
And that also plays well when with the orchestra, as for me as the conductor as well, since I did also conduct the concert and the album, which is great for Rufus to conduct because I can follow him, I know where he's going at times when I have to react to him.
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:02.720
So that way, Rufus is really easy to conduct for, at least for me.
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:23.680
Yeah, and I also think that a lot of times when you sing with an orchestra, you really have to dissect the arrangement in your head um while you're listening to it in the sense like really try to sing with the second oboes, you know, like it's like a weird kind of you can't look at it as a whole, you have to look at it as like a as a as a multi-tiered thing, which I could which I do because I listen to so much opera.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:29.200
So you are part of the orchestra, that's kind of like the playing a concerto for any instrument.
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:33.680
Chris, you mentioned you you studied conducting and you are a conductor.
00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:49.039
Is there for you similarity when conducting Rufus in this project to let's say conducting, you know, a violin concerto, uh a cello concerto, piano concerto, any concerto for another instrument?
00:30:49.119 --> 00:30:59.039
And maybe Rufus and Chris, if your voice could be akin to another instrument specifically for this album, what what would it be?
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:05.440
For me, there's not a big difference in conducting a con instrumental concerto with a soloist or a singer.
00:31:05.519 --> 00:31:15.519
As long as the instrumental soloist has is skillful, then he has the same skills that a good vocal performer has as well, that is easy to follow.
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:18.480
And where and we speak the same language and react to each other.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:23.119
That's the same with a vocal soloist as well as an instrumental soloist for a concerto.
00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:28.640
And if it's doesn't work out that well, then it's bad in either scenario.
00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:38.000
You know, I wanted to ask a couple more questions about the lineage that Bile has had over the years with various interpreters.
00:31:38.079 --> 00:31:46.000
You know, you mentioned Teresa Stradas, you also have Marianne Faithful, you have Ute Lemper, you have Lot Elena.
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:55.519
How do you decide which interpretive lineage to honor and maybe what to deliberately depart from?
00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:09.359
It's funny you mentioned that because I mean, in terms I think in terms of the traditional, you know, singing his material, I do try to differentiate from that or create my own version and really encompass the songs alone.
00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:11.920
And and I'll be influenced by people.
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:19.519
What's great actually is that you know, having discovered Laudeland first, it gave me a lot of room because she wasn't like the greatest singer in the world.
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:28.480
Amazed, interesting, fascinating singer, incredible voice, but not a like she wasn't like an acrobatic Judy Garland type singer.
00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:33.039
So so it kind of gave so it gave me a lot of leeway to kind of sing them how I wanted to sing them.
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:34.640
So I tried to really make them myself.
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:41.359
That being said, Bobby Darren version of Mac the Knife, I followed that note for note.
00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:44.960
I really owe him, I'm imitating Bobby Darren.
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:46.960
That's not necessarily me singing that.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:57.279
I mean, I'm I I I could do that, but I think his version of Mac the Knife is so iconic and so kind of in a lot of ways insurmountable, uh, at least in the pop world.
00:32:57.440 --> 00:32:59.759
And there's a lot of people who had hits with that song.
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:08.319
Uh, but his one is so it's like the Elvis version, you know, that that that you kind of I think you have to kind of follow him when it gets into that jazzy feel.
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:10.160
You have anything to add to that?
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:16.160
Well, I think I think to Rufus' credit, I think he still was managed to put his own stamp on it.
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:16.480
Yeah.
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:24.319
Oh especially since we Rufus and I made the decision to kind of blend various styles with Mac the knife.
00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:27.519
We're starting in out more true to the three pack version.
00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:36.160
Rufus actually sings in German in the first verse, and then we kind of transition slowly into the jazz rap pack version with Darren feel to it.
00:33:36.240 --> 00:33:40.240
And but I think with that, Rufus kind of put his own stamp on it.
00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:42.559
Yeah, but I went through Bobby Darren to do it.
00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:42.799
Yes.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:44.000
Yeah, I went through him.
00:33:44.319 --> 00:33:59.920
If a listener experiencing this project for the first time and you wanted to encapsulate it in one word for them, or interpretive stamp the way you approached it, what is that word that kind of encapsulates this project for you?
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:03.039
I would say gloomy.
00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:09.039
Gloomy, gloomy fun, gloomy fun.
00:34:09.360 --> 00:34:10.400
Gloomy fun.
00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:11.519
Yeah.
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:14.400
That's just like one word, gloomy fun.
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:15.280
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:17.599
It's like a German, it's a German word, gloomy fun.
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:18.079
Yeah.
00:34:20.639 --> 00:34:21.599
What would you say?
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:26.400
I have one word that describes the feeling.
00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:29.039
Or you can make a new word.
00:34:29.280 --> 00:34:29.599
Yeah.
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:30.559
Gloomy fun.
00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:31.840
Gloomy fun.
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:35.760
Well, I mean, I would think swagger is the wrong word for it.
00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:36.079
Right.
00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:37.360
It's not really well.
00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:39.119
Swagger, I'll go with swagger.
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:40.400
The corky swagger.
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:40.960
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:41.440
Quirky.
00:34:42.559 --> 00:34:43.679
Quirky swagger.
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:45.440
That sounds like some person.
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:48.880
Hi, this is Quirky Swagger here.
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:51.519
Corky Swagger sings.
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.320
Kurt Weil.
00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:55.519
That'll be my new pendant.
00:34:57.760 --> 00:34:58.960
He's my next guest, actually.
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:01.119
Kurt Weil were alive today.
00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:06.400
What genre do you would think he would be working in?
00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:07.679
You think first.
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:09.039
What do you think, Chris?
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:13.679
I think he would still be writing probably opera.
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:15.599
I think he would write opera.
00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:20.239
I think he would be writing songs for me.
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:22.800
Of course.
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:26.000
He'd be like, this guy, Rufus, is amazing.
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:28.639
I gotta write some more songs.
00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:30.159
Obviously.
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:31.440
No, I don't know.
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:31.760
I don't know.
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:35.039
Maybe be I don't think he'd be a DJ or anything, but maybe.
00:35:35.360 --> 00:35:35.519
No.
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:42.079
But I think I I said opera because opera has opened up to a lot of new voices recently.
00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:44.480
And contemporary opera, that is.
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:47.760
And I think he would have found a spot there.
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:51.519
More than I think more than contemporary Broadway.
00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:53.119
Oh yeah, definitely.
00:35:53.599 --> 00:35:54.639
Last question.
00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:56.639
And your answer can't be vile.
00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:02.400
If you could have dinner with any composer, living or dead, who would it be?
00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:03.599
And you can't say vile.
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:10.960
Um for me, I mean, I I'm a I'm a big opera person, and I and I spend so much time thinking about him.
00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:17.760
And I seem to be the only one who adore him as much as I do, but I I really like Geo Separity.
00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:21.760
And I want to see if he's as mean as he seems to be.
00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:32.000
Verdi famously said, Verdi famously said um he loves he likes to hang out with business people because uh he likes to talk about the art and music.
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:35.519
He doesn't like to hang out with musicians because all they talk about is money.
00:36:35.760 --> 00:36:36.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:41.519
For one thing, he was also very handsome, he was very good looking.
00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:47.039
And uh and he also did this thing where I mean, I think they were celebrating him in his hometown.
00:36:47.199 --> 00:36:54.719
They built an opera house for him and they celebrated, and they they had the big opening night, and he was in the town, and instead of going to that, he went to a spa.
00:36:57.199 --> 00:36:58.880
He's just had a lot of balls.
00:36:59.039 --> 00:37:01.840
I I think I would like to have dinner with you, Hansebastien Bach.
00:37:02.079 --> 00:37:06.639
Not a lot alone about his personality and what he was like, and yes, he was married two times.
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:10.960
He had like a gazillion children, and but what was it?
00:37:11.039 --> 00:37:11.679
What was he like?
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:20.639
He seemed like he could be a little bit of a little bit of a hard ass, but I think he did like stab someone on a bridge for bothering him.
00:37:21.199 --> 00:37:27.199
Yeah, but yeah, you I mean I I love both of those answers.
00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:28.880
I'd have the better food though.
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:29.440
That's true.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:31.599
Probably you wouldn't have the better food answer.
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:32.320
I don't know.
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:35.519
Yeah, 1600s, life east Germany.
00:37:35.679 --> 00:37:36.400
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:36.719 --> 00:37:40.000
Well, thank you so much, both of you.
00:37:40.079 --> 00:37:41.199
This was so much fun.
00:37:41.519 --> 00:37:42.559
Oh, great, thank you.
00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:43.519
Yeah, that was.
00:37:43.599 --> 00:37:44.400
Thanks for having us.
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:52.320
I learned so much, our audiences are gonna learn so much, and we're all gonna delve into your curb vibe.
00:37:52.719 --> 00:37:54.239
Great, thank you so much.
00:37:56.719 --> 00:38:02.079
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