ArtStorming the City Different: Catherine Sikora

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Catherine Sikora doesn't just play the saxophone – she uncovers ancient musical truths that have always existed in the ether, waiting to be discovered. 

Music for ArtStorming the City Different was written and performed by John Cruikshank.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ever wonder what makes really creative people
tick?
Where do their ideas come from?
What keeps them energized?
What kinds of things get intheir way?
Is their life really as muchfun as it looks from the outside
?
Hello, I'm your host, liliPierpont, and this is
ArtStorming, a podcast about hownew ideas come to life and
become paintings, sculptures,plays or poems, performances or

(00:25):
collections.
Each episode I'll chat with aguest from the arts community
and explore how the mostcreative among us stare down a
blank canvas or reach into thevoid and create something new.
Today, I'll be artstorming withCatherine Sikora.
Now, how I met Catherine isanother magic moment in the

(00:46):
unfolding of artstorming.
At the beginning of this year, Iput a post on our local
community foundation bulletinboard in search of someone to
help me with my nonprofitArtBridge and also with this
podcast.
Within a very short period oftime, I started getting
inquiries and setting upmeetings.
The quality of the people thatI met through this process was
truly astonishing.

(01:06):
I honestly wish I could haveincorporated all of their
talents.
Anyway, my next guest,catherine, was one of those
applicants.
As we were getting to know eachother over coffee, she
impressed me more and more, andthat was before we even got to
the part about her musicalcareer.
She was poised, sophisticated,worldly and way overqualified
for what I had in mind.

(01:27):
But then she started to tell meabout her life as a musician
and the light bulb went off inmy head.
She wasn't going to be myassistant, but she sure as hell
was going to be a podcast guest.
I knew that she was about toembark on a music tour and we
vowed to keep in touch.
I told her flat out that asmuch as I would benefit from her
marvelous skills, she wasdestined for bigger things, but
still I was serious aboutgetting her on the show.

(01:49):
As you'll hear in our chat afterour initial meeting, life
unfolded in some unexpected waysfor Catherine, but we finally
got caught up, and here's ourconversation.
Parenthetically, that searchfor an assistant led me to
finding two of the most superband wonderful team members I
could ever have hoped for.
I cannot imagine my ArtBridge,art-storming life without

(02:11):
Lindsay and Mia, my two stars.
They each deserve a podcastepisode too, but for now here is
Catherine, all right, so I amsitting in my living room with
Catherine Sikora, and I'll givethe backup of how we met in the
intro when I do that, but Ithink it's great that we're

(02:33):
finally together.
We met back in I guess Januarywas when I was conducting those
interviews yes, and so it's beena busy few months.
We're now June, so that's sixmonths since I met you.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yes, it feels like a couple of weeks to me.
Yeah, it's been a crazy time soit feels very compressed.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, yeah.
So say a little bit about whatyou've been up to since January,
because I know you went on tour.
I should start by saying thatyou're a musician.
Yes, and I'll let you describewhat type of musician.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Thank you.
I'm an improvising saxophonist.
What I do is essentially freeimprovisation and I work with a
number of different musicians,in addition to having a really
very highly developed solopractice.
It's free playing.
It's not exactly jazz, eventhough people tend to hear

(03:24):
saxophone and think jazz.
That's not what I consider itto be.
And in January when we met, Iwas planning a tour in April
with a really amazing musician,pedal steel guitarist named
Susan Alcorn, and I think it wasa week after we met that she
suddenly passed away, so thatfor me that's the start of the

(03:47):
year.
It was a huge shock and a hugeblow, personally as well as
professionally, because she wasa friend and I had to figure
things out.
I had to obviously rebook thetour with someone else because
our tour was already in place.
We were about to book flight tothat that week.
We were emailing about bookingher flights.

(04:08):
So this year sort of feels likekind of a bit of a gut punch
really um as it does anyway toeveryone, I think.
But yeah, we've got the macroversion of exactly that punch
and then what you went throughpersonally but, that's, I mean,
really speaks to your metal as amusician.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
The show must go on.
And how on earth did you?
You had, you probably had yoursets all figured out.
And well, it's all rapport.
Or is it because it's more freeform?

Speaker 2 (04:41):
we had definitely a rapport and I was so excited to
play with her and she was comingout here to the Southwest it
was shows in New Mexico andArizona so luckily, my husband,
who's also a musician, was goingto be around and was able to
jump in, take over the shows andthe people who were putting on

(05:01):
the shows were happy with that.
So that was wonderful.
But what we did was verydifferent.
You can't, when it's improvisedand when it's a real dialogue
between creative artists, youcan't replicate one situation
with another.
So we paid tribute to Susan andshe was very much present in
our minds.
We listened to her music as wedrove across the desert and we

(05:25):
yeah, we- what an emotionalexperience.
It was.
It was incredibly difficult.
I'm still dealing with the factthat she's gone and that
there's no more music to be madewith her.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, sort of that phantom arm experience that you
know where, you just sort ofexpect them to be there and you
have to remind yourself thatthey're not.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, yeah, very much , because it was so sudden and
so shocking.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
And you had played together, obviously before.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yes, we had played together before and we had made
a record which was released lastyear, so this was a part of
promoting that recording andthere was.
I was hopeful to develop thatand do a lot more touring in
support of that recording, andthen it all disappeared
overnight, which was reallydevastating.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Oh man.
So how do you bounce back fromsomething like that?
I mean, obviously you werereally lucky to have somebody
that you were very intimate withthat could step in and do a
show with you.
So there was.
There wasn't that much of arecount, I mean obviously a big
recalibration, but but at leastthere was somebody that you felt

(06:36):
like he had your back right.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Very much.
Yes, that was really fortunate,and had had Eric, my husband,
not been available, I don'treally know what I would have
done.
Luckily, I didn't have to thinkabout that and the people who
booked the shows were amazing.
The morning I got the newsabout Susan, I was completely in
shock and the first thing wasthat I let them know.

(06:59):
So they didn't find out onsocial media.
So I let them know and I said Idon't, this is all I can do is
tell you this right now.
And they all said just takeyour time, don't.
There was no pressure from them, which was really nice.
But now, as you said, there'sthis whole branch of work that I

(07:20):
had with her.
We had a cd, we had anotherrecording, we have another
recording that was made but isnot out, and so there's this
whole path that I envisioned ofcreating music with her into the
future.
That is just gone.
So I'm trying to figure outwhat that looks like, because

(07:41):
that, you know, one normally hasa number of different projects
and you're trying to cultivateall of them and and nurture them
, and then one I've never hadthis happen where one is
suddenly gone and I'm I'mactually kind of taking time to
really try to process that andtry to figure out where I really

(08:03):
want to go um from.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, Well it's actually, I mean, it's perfect
for our purposes because, youknow, part of the whole reason
that we're doing this project isto sort of put the creative
process that a creative goesthrough kind of out front
instead of kind of themysterious place that it usually
abides, you know, and so it'sinteresting to watch a creative

(08:29):
person struggle with thecreative process.
So I'm curious, what kinds ofthings have you thought about?
Going back to being solo, orwhat does that look like for you
, or what are the types ofthings that you're thinking
about?

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, the solo work is ongoing and is always there.
I don't even know if I'm readyto answer that question.
I'm trying to really dive intomy own daily practice, which is
always the thing that's youranchor.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
That's the work.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
That's how I process everything, and commitment to
the instrument and to that timespent every day is the core of
my work, as opposed toperformances.
Performances are wonderful, butthe day-to-day showing up every
day is the real work.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
I think that gets lost on people who are not
actively engaged in the creativeprocess on a daily basis.
They see the result of all thepractice and all the work and
all the thought that goes intosomething.
But you just articulatedbeautifully that it's really the
day-to-day that you consideryour work and then the
performance is sort of I don'tknow, it's like you sharing it

(09:41):
with us or something.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
It's really interesting.
It's a mix of sharing it andit's also definitely a part of
the work and interestingly forme at least and for some other
musicians I've spoken to aboutit when I perform I get really
clear guidance on where I'mgoing to go next in my practice.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
From the internal process or because of audience
feedback.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
From the internal process and from what comes out
in the music, because what I dois improvisational, so it can be
aspects of the music that Iwant to dive into.
Something comes up, new thingstend to pop up in performance,
which I find very sort ofmystical and magical that you do
all of this prep work, all ofthis being ready on the

(10:31):
instrument, physically beingmentally prepared on the
instrument, emotionally alignedwith it and with the sound, and
what is going to happen, whichis always sort of an open
question.
But then in performance newthings pop up.
I tend to make discoveries, soit feels like real research, and

(10:52):
then I take it back to thepractice lab and sort of work
out that, oh, this thinghappened.
Now I can dive into it, butthere's something about
performance that seems to bringthese new things.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
And what do you think it is about?
Is it having that third force,the audience, the listening
component that brings that magicup, do you?

Speaker 2 (11:13):
think I think it could be, because I think of
performance as a collaborativeprocess, because I think of
listening as a creative process,of listening as a creative
process.
So when people are listeningreally attentively and really
involved with what's happening,to me that's a creative exchange
.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
So you feel the energy coming from them in their
active listening or somehow.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
It gets translated or transmuted somehow.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Right and I think it's energetic.
I think there's something aboutbeing in a room with people and
focused on this one thing.
That's also energy work, likeqigong or yoga, or where there's
something really special aboutbeing in a room where everyone
is involved with and payingattention to this one thing and

(12:01):
not necessarily talking about it.
Something else happens yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Something alchemical actually happens.
But it's interesting becausethe performing arts are so
different from the static artsin that sense.
As you know, a painter orsculptor is doing all that work
and all that magic happens inthe studio, and oftentimes
they're not even there to seeother people interacting with
their work.
So it's a really rareexperience for you to have that

(12:28):
component folded into work andthen bringing it back into your
studio, as you said.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Fascinating it is.
It's very fascinating and Ithink that the COVID pandemic,
with the lockdowns and all ofthat, really heightened it for
me and heightened my awarenessand understanding of it, because
all of a sudden, liveperformance was not a thing for
a while.
So that was taken away and itwas.
You know, I did a lot ofthinking and writing and

(12:55):
practicing.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Did you feel like you were in a vacuum?

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Somewhat, but not entirely, because the practice
is always there.
But I think when I returned topractice, I had a new awareness
of things that happened, and thefirst live performance that I
did after the lockdowns was inMay 2021.
And it was this series ofone-to-one concerts that was

(13:22):
done in New York at the Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
It was.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
BAM and Silk Road Wow .
So actually the setting was noteven BAM, it was at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard.
So Silk Road and BAM gottogether and they put together I
think it was two weekends ofsolo, one-to-one concerts.
So they put a musician in allof these spaces all over the
Brooklyn Navy Yard, which isenormous.

(13:46):
There are all of these bigrooms so they could safely have
a person, a listener and aperformer Right.
So I was.
I arrived to this day ofperformance, was put in this big
room, sort of a warehouse typespace in the Navy Yard, and
every 10 minutes a differentperson was brought in.

(14:07):
I would give a 10 minute, oneto one performance, and then
they were taken out, surfaceswere sanitized and I had a
little break and then the nextperson came in and that was a
six hour day of 10 minute microconcerts.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Whoa, how did you sustain the energy for that?

Speaker 2 (14:26):
It was.
It was challenging, but it wasthere.
I guess there were enoughbreaks.
It wasn't ever a long period ofplaying, but it was definitely
a challenge.
But it was absolutely magicalfor that to be my first and were
you able to get feedback fromthe your individual audiences.
Well, we weren't allowed tospeak, and so the way it worked

(14:47):
is they came in, they wereinstructed not to speak, I was
instructed not to speak and theywould sit down and then I'd
play for 10 minutes and then atthe end I was allowed to write a
little note on a postcard.
They provided us with postcardsand let them know who I was and
you know where they could findmy music and the name of the
piece I played for them and Iwould hand it.

(15:09):
So some people emailedafterwards, which was really
beautiful, and there are peopleI'm still in touch with who were
at that Great idea.
It's amazing, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
And so did you get to chat with the other musicians
afterward to see what theirexperience was like.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Not really we all finished.
I think we were all so friedafter playing for six hours that
we all kind of said goodbye anddissipated.
And also the campus is sospread out that my location was
actually a 10-minute walk fromthe central check-in desk.
So I think we all a lot of usleft at different times, yeah,

(15:47):
just sort of dispersed yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
And has that ever been repeated?
Or was that specificallybecause of COVID that that
somebody thought of that?
Well?

Speaker 2 (15:55):
it's one-to-one concerts is actually a German
nonprofit.
Who started it?
And I'm I think it was becauseof COVID, but I'm not entirely
certain, and I think it wasbecause of COVID, but I'm not
entirely certain, but theystarted it in Stuttgart Airport,
I believe, and they had membersof the orchestra there in these
different rooms in the airportgiving individual concerts to
one person at a time, which isjust the most beautiful thing I

(16:19):
can imagine doing in an airport.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
And people from all over the world in the Stuttgart
Airport, right?
So I mean not only the concertreceivers, but I imagine the
musicians as well.
So an international kind ofevent.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, so now they do that at different times and you
can contact them, and it wasdefinitely done in collaboration
with them.
So BAM and Silk Road did itwith them as a presentation of
this concept, which I absolutelylove, and I think that really,
for me, triggered a lot ofunderstanding, because I hadn't

(16:53):
performed in front of peoplesince it was.
My last performance was March2020.
Right, right at the beginningof March, and even then,
audience members were canceling.
You know, things were startingto go, so I was hypersensitive
to the change, sure, and it wasjust phenomenal as an experience

(17:15):
to live through.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Well, can you imagine , was that something that you
got compensated to do, or wasthis like a free concert, or how
did that work?

Speaker 2 (17:25):
It was they compensated to do, or was this
like a free concert, or how didthat work?
It was they compensated themusicians.
There was a structure in placewhere everything all the
musicians were paid, but theconcerts were free.
So people could just sign upbut they never knew who they
were going to hear.
You just got a slot and thenyou got brought to some musician
somewhere, but they did.
I think they took donations formaybe some other cause, I don't

(17:50):
remember now.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Well, it's just such a great idea because, you know,
typically musicians need a venue, and finding a venue and
getting people to come to thatvenue I mean that's the big
difference between, again, theperforming arts and, you know,
the more static arts is that youcan have a gallery space and
the person doesn't have toactually be there.
But for performers you need avenue and it's not always easy

(18:14):
to collect an orchestra or youknow, whatever I mean, I'm sure,
how do you find gigs for yoursolo stuff?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
That tends to be through networks of people that
I know or people that I'm intouch with remotely.
You know, there's quite anestablished solo improvised
music scene.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
And what size are the venues?
For that I mean a typical venuelike a concert hall for
something or something moreintimate, usually more intimate,
so salon, series types ofthings.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Right, or I mean New York City is the perfect example
, where there are art galleriesand there are basement venues or
record stores, all thesedifferent kinds of places that
will provide space for that kindof event.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Well, certainly, speaking of galleries Santa Fe
with 300 or something I mean I'mwondering why we don't see more
music in our gallery spaces.
This is something to explore.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, Actually, my husband and I played it in a
gallery recently as a part of aseries.
It was a concert that shouldhave been with Susan.
We played at Entropy Galleryand they offer their space to
concerts, I believe, fairlyregularly, which is really nice.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Wow, do you like performing solo?
Tell me the difference betweena solo performance and
interacting with anothermusician.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
For me, the solo thing is it's very much between
me and the audience.
It's really a dialogue, in myhead at least, where I'm trying
to communicate whatever it isthat I communicate that I can't
do verbally on my saxophone withthe audience, and it feels very

(20:07):
connected in that way to theaudience, whereas when I add in
other musicians, there's alsocommunication there, but it's
much more focused on the othermusician or musicians and it's
it's more like a dinner partyinstead of a one-on-one.
Right, I guess.
So yeah, and it depends,because sometimes there's
predetermined material, othertimes there isn't, when it's all

(20:31):
improvised, then there's acertain aspect to it that's very
internal, because I'm workingso hard to listen and respond to
the other musician or musicianswith absolute honesty, because
that's part of my philosophy isthat I try to only play what I
really hear, instead of havingmanufactured responses that I

(20:55):
have in place that I know thiswill sound good, so I'm just
going to pop it in.
I try to not do that.
I try to really respondhonestly in the moment, with
really improvised responses.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
So can you tell the difference between when you're
listening to another musician,when they're coming from a place
of authenticity, versus justdialing it in?
I think so.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
I think there's a, I mean well.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
I mean, you've become attuned to that Right.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I can certainly hear where there are things
that are sort of worked out inadvance and you hear them
getting plopped in Right.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Like sort of I don't want to say a gimmick, but it
almost feels like you'reapproaching a gimmick or just a
tried and true.
Right, exactly A bridge fromone moment to another, and so do
you approach it with.
Do you have like a story inyour mind?
I mean, how do you prepare fora solo improvisational show?

Speaker 2 (21:57):
I do my daily due diligence on the instrument,
which is about.
Obviously, that's your craft.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
That's the craft.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
But it's also allowing me to get blocks out of
the way.
I think that's the mostimportant thing is that there
aren't impediments to thingsthat may come up that I want to
do, which is, of course, aconstantly evolving thing,
because the further one gets onan instrument, the further one
can go.
So it's this endless, you know,disappearing horizons, sort of

(22:25):
thing.
But I also have this feelingthat has evolved over years,
which is that when I can reallyget out of my own way and it's
not a simple thing to stop themental dialogue, you know,
overthinking whatever your daywas in your head, head to clear
things out of the way, when ithappens and this is true with

(22:49):
musicians as well as on my own Ihave this feeling, when the
music is really coming, that I'man archaeologist.
It's not that I'm building orconstructing this art from
scratch, me creating it.
It's more that I'm uncoveringsomething that has always been
there.
I feel like it's really aprimal, ancient practice that I

(23:12):
think humans have always done,that I'm maybe connecting to,
hopefully connecting to thatthis music is always there.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
That's so.
I love that you're saying that,because you know we often talk
about, you know, the artist sortof becoming a vessel for
something to come through.
But this idea that it's alreadythere and that you're just kind
of it's still a vessel for itto come through.
But I love this idea that thereare shards and things to
discover and you know thatyou're discovering things as you

(23:44):
go.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, that's how it feels, and it feels like there's
a kind of an inevitabilitythere.
And it happens with otherpeople too.
When I develop a closerelationship with an improviser,
there are things that will comeout together and all of a
sudden we'll end on the samenote, look at each other and go
what just happened?
You know, things just reallycoalesce, which feels like being

(24:09):
an archaeologist discovering acity or looking at a flock of
birds or a school of fish thatare just moving together.
I think it feels like a verynatural thing to me.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Well, probably one of the most as, as you said, one
of the most natural and nativeto us.
I mean, song and dance is sortof so innate to us and it's
something that we don't dotogether in this culture yeah,
still very often yeah so howdoes it feel?
um, do it?
I want to kind of this idea ofsomething that is so natural to

(24:46):
us and once upon a time we wouldhave all sung together or
played instruments together.
So how does how does it feel tohave?
Does the audience become?
I mean, it sounded like youwere saying that they were like
almost this active force, sothat they are bringing something
to.
It's not just of voyeurs andthe audience and you right,

(25:07):
you're having a dialogue.
You said yeah, I think so, andit's probably more energetic
than anything else you know,when did you first notice that
there was an energetic componentto music?
Music for you.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
That's a hard question to answer because I
feel like my ideas about it thatI hold now have been sort of
slowly unfolding.
You know, I think there weretimes where I saw glimpses of it
, but it took a a lot of timeand I think part of that is the
work of practice.

(25:45):
Definitely there was a hugeleap in my concept of that In
that time I just spoke about,from COVID and then into this
incredible, unique one-to-oneconcert experience where I
realized that just having oneperson come into a room which
prior to that you know normallywhen one has a concert, if you

(26:09):
just have one person in the room, you're kind of depressed.
That's my audience, right.
You feel like a failure.
But this was the whole point.
And all of a sudden one personin the room changed the energy
completely and then the nextperson brought a whole different
energy.
So it was really magnified inthat day.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
And has it changed the way you communicate with
people in your speaking life?
I mean, we're having aconversation now and there's
obviously an exchange of energyhappening, no doubt about that
but did that particularexperience shift something for
you and how you relate to peoplein normal life, not just in the
musical realm?

Speaker 2 (26:51):
I think it must have it seems like it would.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I mean, you develop this, this, this really
fine-tuned attentiveness to yourone audience person, so it's
active listening on your parttoo it is very much.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
I remember one person .
I had my two saxophones Iprimarily play tenor and soprano
and I had both with me and Iwas kind of deciding, okay, I'll
play this one next, or you know.
I would sort of have that in myhead because that's a physical
process of picking up andputting down and one person came
in and I had one of thesaxophones ready to play and I

(27:33):
looked at that person and it wasthe wrong horn, so I had to
change and that was sointeresting and there's no
dialogue.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
This is just totally based on physicality.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Right, exactly.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
How cool is that?
And how did you decide on a sax?

Speaker 2 (27:48):
I don't know, you don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Oh, as a child, as a child like as an instrument.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, I don't know.
It is the strangest thing.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Because it's not like somebody has like I mean, many
people will have a house andsitting around there's a guitar
or ukulele or maybe even a pianopeople will have a house and
sitting around.
There's a guitar or ukulele ormaybe even a piano.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
But you know you have to be pretty deliberate to
pursue something like a cello ora sax or something like that,
right, yeah, and that's that'swhy I say I don't know, because
I grew up in the southwest ofireland, a very small rural
community, no music at all inschool, and for some reason, at
around the age of maybe 11 or 12, I got this idea in my head

(28:30):
that I wanted to play saxophoneand I can't trace it to seeing
one or hearing one in person,any of that.
So it was weird.
I was playing flute, so I hadearly lessons on flute, purely
because there was someone in thearea that moved there who was a
flute player, and my aunt had aflute.
So it made sense that my sisterand I were able to take flute

(28:53):
lessons from this person.
And then I got this idea aboutthe saxophone that I really
don't have anything to base iton and I didn't have a horn and
I didn't.
There was no school band, therewere no school instruments,
there was no music at all, as Isaid.
So finally, when I was 16, myparents said, okay, she's still

(29:16):
talking about a saxophone.
So they got me a saxophone andthen I had to teach myself
because there was no teacheravailable.
And then I somehow got intocollege.
I went to a conservatory in theUK, so I have a very weird
origin story.
Well, no, it's a fantasticorigin story.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
So you're in this little town in Ireland and how
on earth did you get good enoughthat you got accepted to
conservatory?

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well, I had the flute lessons.
I was lucky.
The teacher was really good andgave me a really good grounding
in Wind instruments, I guess,right, wind instruments, the
fingerings are all a brum system, so they're very similar.
Oh, so that was good.
And then, when I was probablyabout 16, I went to a jazz
festival in the city Someonemust have taken me and I met Red

(30:04):
Holloway, who was a greatAmerican jazz saxophonist.
I went up to him and I said I'mlearning saxophone, what should
I practice?
And he said scales and chords,scales and chords.
And I went home and I learnedall my scales and all 12 keys
and just did all of thesestudies super diligently.
And I think that's what got mein, because I had this, I had

(30:27):
given myself a grounding thanksto the beautiful, concise advice
that he gave me.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Wow.
And so you finished atconservatory in England.
I want the whole story.
It was horrible.
Was it horrible?
You were in London, I was inLeeds.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
In Leeds, the Leeds Conservatory, yeah, and no one
wanted to deal with me, I thinkbecause I was this kind of a
freak.
You know, I hadn't had anybasis in music theory.
All the people I was in schoolwith had been in band.
They had gone through all thesesteps of all these things, kind
of shepherded through musiceducation up to college, which I

(31:06):
didn't have at all and I was.
You know, I was very, veryhardworking at this point I
really knew how to practice andI wanted to get better, but I
didn't have a teacher who wantedto help me with the real
fundamentals.
So it was a real struggle andthere was not much support for

(31:27):
female musicians in that settingeither, which was definitely an
issue.
So I left college and I wasquite traumatized by the whole
experience and I was not happywith how I was playing.
I was already playing out,doing shows and all of that, but
it didn't feel like me.
I didn't know what was wrong,but I knew that it wasn't right,

(31:50):
which I think for artists,that's often how we get guidance
, you know not that Right Adjust, not that adjust yeah because
you never know really whatyou're looking for.
At the beginning, anyway, Ithink.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Well, I want to underscore that, because I think
a lot of that's one of thosemystiques about artists that
people have is that that youknow you're born that way.
You, you know what you're goingto do, you're so emphatic about
it that nothing can stop you,and you never have any doubts
about it, and and that's justyour trajectory.
But you're you're revealingthat that wasn't the case for

(32:26):
you, and yet you persevered.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, well, I still loved the instrument like so
much.
So I went looking for a teacher.
I ended up in New York city, um, within a week I I started a
job waiting tables and I therewas another saxophonist working
there.
He said he and I were talkingand I told him what I was doing

(32:51):
and he said you need to meetthis person.
He's playing this weekend.
So I went to hear thesaxophonist, who was one of the
great educators.
His name is George Garzone.
He's a phenomenal player,phenomenal educator, teaches,
teaches at Berkeley, nec, newSchool, nyu, like all of the
schools.

(33:11):
And I went to hear him and Irealized that's it, that's what
I want to do, which was justamazing.
And I walked up to him and Isaid I want to study with you.
He said sure, and I ended upstopping playing completely for
what became five years andstudied with him once a week,
every week, and I waited tablesat Birdland, the jazz club in

(33:36):
New York, and went to hear musicall the time and just studied
and broke down everything I wasdoing and rebuilt from the
ground up.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
So when you say rebuilt, so you would practice
chords, and what did you say?
Scales, scales and chords.
Yeah, and so was this differentfrom scales and chords, or was
it just different from whatyou'd gotten at conservatory?

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Different from what I got at the conservatory.
So there was a certain amountof musical stuff that I'd worked
out at that point, but the realbreakdown and rebuilding was on
the instrument, which wasabsolutely amazing.
He just opened it all up for mein a way that's really hard to

(34:20):
describe.
But I had been self-taught andthen I was taught by very rigid
thinkers in the conservatorysetting and was still having
issues and blocks, and workingwith this teacher just kind of
removed it all and the thingthat it did that was amazing is
that I started to understandthat you have to be so

(34:43):
completely relaxed and you can'tdo anything without being
completely relaxed with theinstrument and that's really
super hard to get to operatingthis very complicated machine
that's also really physicallytaxing, and to do it with total
relaxation.
So everything is just flowingand that was really what I

(35:04):
learned and that's why we thinkof saxophone players as cool.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
I mean because I mean , if you think about it, that's
what cool is.
You know it's being having allthat technical skill and still
being relaxed, that command,that yeah that's so interesting.
So you don't qualify or youdon't classify what you do as
jazz, even though it'simprovisational.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
So say a little bit more about the distinction
between jazz, although I guess Iunderstand that jazz can be
improvisational, but it's notinherently improvisational.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
How would you describe it?
It contains improvisation, butthere are many different streams
of jazz.
But it, I mean there are manydifferent streams of jazz.
Obviously there's very straightahead, the, I guess the great
American songbook, and the, thejazz repertoire is a real thing
that I have enormous respect forand love for.
Um, and I think of jazz as alanguage, a certain language

(36:04):
that uses a certain vocabulary,and what I I do is a lot, I
guess, more abstract than that.
And for a long time when Istudied I came through jazz and
when I was doing that, the jazzimprovisation, the working with
chords and everything was reallyvaluable.

(36:24):
Understanding harmony deeply isextraordinarily valuable and I
do it with my students.
But playing that way for mefelt like cosplay.
It felt like I wasn't me, I wasputting on this other character
.
That wasn't true and it's notsomething I was hearing.
It was a very manufactured,pre-existing vocabulary that I

(36:46):
had to learn to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Well, that is how a lot of people sort of initially
get engaged with music.
I mean, it's not through aself-expression, because you
have to be able to have masterywith an instrument before you
can get to that level.
And so a lot of people sort ofget enjoy, but kind of I don
don't want to get say stuffbecause that feels, you know,
derogatory.
But but they get, they findcomfort in the known and playing

(37:13):
other people's music over andover and over again.
So you're doing somethingcompletely different from that.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Right, yes, but I have enormous respect for that
and there are people who do thatand who improvise within the
jazz structure and for them it'sa completely authentic
expression of them and theirmusical imagination and I love
that.
I think it's beautiful.
It just wasn't available to me,it's not authentic to me.

(37:39):
So I've come to think of myselfas a folk musician, even though
if people hear my music they'llsay, well, that's not really
folk music, but it's justbecause, and so it's not
immediate to you, exactly itfeels like this thing.
That's just this is how I playand hopefully it continues

(37:59):
evolving forever, but it doesn'tfit into the jazz heading.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
So when you've played a piece, obviously you've
produced recordings, which meansthat you have to be able to do
the same thing twice, at leastthe first time you think of it
and then getting it down.
So how does a song, how do youthing a song?
Do you know what I mean by that?

(38:28):
I mean, it's just like how doyou, how do you distinguish an
experience that you're havingwith your saxophone and then it
becomes a piece?

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Um, I mean do you remember what you did?

Speaker 1 (38:41):
when you, when you've been playing free form, that's
what you're sort of saying.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
You got the information from the experience
and then you take it back to thelab, so to speak, be like these
little sort of kernels ofmelody and structure that are
things that fit together in acertain way that then I think of
in my mind as this piece.
So it's not necessarily in asong form, it might be or it

(39:20):
might not be, or it can bethematic elements that I develop
then in a different way eachtime I play them, or there might
be similar areas that I explore, a certain place that I start
in, a place that I end.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
I wish I'd asked you to bring your sax and you could
like show me a phrase, becauseyou know I'm fascinated by this.
The idea of this, I mean it'salmost like a painter painting
with one color and, you know,diluting it or or using it very
opaquely and changing the canvason which it's it's applied, or
something.
I mean that's the best analogyI can come up with in my mind.

(39:54):
But when you said single note,I mean not a single note, but a
single instrument right and onenote at a time.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
I can't, I'm not the pianist, I I can't play ten
notes oh right, they're not suchnice chords, right.
Exactly.
Oh, wow, yeah, so it's always aline Right.
I sometimes think of it wasPaul Klee, wasn't it, who said
to take a line for a walk.
Oh, and so I think that'sbeautiful as applied to a
musician, that every day youthink about taking your line for

(40:25):
a walk and see where you go,you know.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
And that's even more astounding to me because you've
got how many different soundswith that line can you make?
I mean, is that the sort of thegame Is figuring out how to
make that one line get wider ornarrower?

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I mean there's so much because there's also so
much that can be done with thesaxophone in terms of timbre and
just tone itself, changing thecolor within the tone.
But then there's also the factthat you know, in music really
there are 12 tones in an octave.
There's also the fact that youknow, in music really there are

(41:09):
12 tones in an octave.
And then when you think abouteven only Western music,
everything you know in Westernmusic is done melodically, just
with those 12 tones andharmonically.
And that always blows my mindand reminds me that there are
really infinite combinationsavailable to us to explore,
infinite combinations availableto us to explore, right, and so
you just gave me anotherquestion which is do you tap

(41:40):
into music other than Westernmusic?
I do.
I listen a lot to lots ofdifferent kinds of music and I
use microtones in my playing.
So that's you know how.
On the piano you have the 12tones, the white keys and the
black keys, so in between thoseeach adjacent key is a half step
apart, but you can go a quarterstep on other instruments.
You can't do it on pianowithout a tuner, but you can

(42:03):
play microtones, so a note canbe like a quarter flat or a
quarter sharp, and that bringsin a whole lot of more available
color to the lines.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
And so other cultures of music have more use of that.
Yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yes, in Arabic music especially, there's a lot of use
of microtones.
There are scales that have 24tones in them, so you have
quarter tones instead of halfsteps.
And then there are instrumentswhere notes are a lot less sort

(42:44):
of rigidly defined, that thestep between each note is not as
specific, so the notes can bebent or manipulated.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
And how do you make a notation of that when you're
wanting to reproduce or getsomebody?
Has anybody else ever playedyour music, and how do you
notate it so that they soundlike you?

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Well, that's tricky.
I mean, there are quarter flatsand quarter sharps.
You can write that.
You can also write in verbalinstructions little lines saying
like bend this down a littlebit, bend this up.
Sometimes different fingeringsare used to produce multifonics
or different effects in thenotes, and in that case it's

(43:28):
very common to just write in thefingering for the performer if
they're also playing the sameinstrument as me.
Tends to be quite a few verbaldirections, though, but the best
way to work with a musician andto achieve something that I'm
thinking of specifically is towork in person and practice
together.
You know, rehearse.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Wow, it's such a different type of collaboration
than a typical setup.
Wow, and how did you get toSanta Fe?

Speaker 2 (44:02):
That was kind of semi-accidental.
So we were my husband and Iwere living on the East Coast
and we were in New Jersey rightat the time that the Omicron
wave of COVID hit.
So once again, all of our showswere canceled and there was
nothing on the horizon and weneeded to move.
So we were looking for a newplace.

(44:23):
And it was winter, maybeNovember, it was really dark and
wet.
And I saw on an artist housinglisting thing there was a house
in the East Mountains for rentand it was furnished and
everything.
So we said let's just go therefor a while.
We knew this area.
My father actually, before I wasborn, worked at the lab in Los

(44:47):
Alamos.
He's a physicist, so I had beenhere several times and, uh, so
we came here for the winter andjust put our stuff in storage,
drove out, um, and, and then weended up staying more than 18
months because we really likedit.
But we always had it in ourheads that we were going back.

(45:07):
We hadn't mentally moved.
I certainly hadn't.
I felt like I had to be back inNew York and our things were
back there.
So we went back for six or eightmonths a year ago Year and a
half ago really, and then a yearago decided to come back here

(45:28):
With your stuff, with our stuff,with everything we committed to
it.
So we really missed it.
We missed the space and thelight and we had this whole
conversation because my husband,eric, is also a musician and
artist.
The conversation was well, arewe going to take the constant
activity of New York or spaceand time that we can have

(45:52):
available to us out in NewMexico, which I know we are far
from being the first artists tohave that conversation, it's
probably the big one that peoplehave before moving here.
And we went with space and Time, which is just wonderful.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah, especially with your particular type of music
which really needs to occupyspace and time.
Yes, I would imagine.
Yeah, I mean away from thecacophony of New York.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, well, it's really nice.
Also, I have a separate space,a little casita, where I can
practice more or less any time,so it's it's not, like you know,
trying to play into a closetfull of coats to muffle the
sound right, which I've donelots of, so you're not
disturbing people and so thetrade off is that you don't have
a thousand venues like you doin New York, where you just so.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
How do you work the gigs?

Speaker 2 (46:45):
now.
So I'm definitely performingless because I can't do as many.
Oh you know, just pick up thisgig here, that one there.
It's really kind of interestinghow coming here coincided
almost or very closely with thenlosing my collaborator, and it
feels like sort of yet againanother tabula rasa in my

(47:07):
existence where I'm dealing witha lot of new questions and
thinking a lot about practice.
I've been writing aboutpractice for several years and I
write practice prompts on myblog and thoughts and things
that come up either in myteaching or in conversation with
people or in my practice thatthat I'm trying to work out and

(47:30):
I share these things.
Um, and I've got a teachingpractice that comes from that,
and now what I'm working on iscoming up with systems of
teaching classical trainedmusicians to improvise, because
it's more and more so helpingthem unlearn all that rigidity
that you had to right.

(47:50):
well, hopefully not unlearnanything, but add, add in,
because in reality and this iscoming again from a question I
got from a musician who wasclassically trained and all of a
sudden they have this piece inorchestra where they have to
improvise a solo, which ishorrifying, because that's a
whole other training, that's awhole other pursuit of technique

(48:17):
, of knowledge of everything, inorder to improvise.
It's not a simple thing.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
I want to hear more about that.
I mean the difference betweenlike what it's, like a whole
different set of muscles andmindset and everything.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Yeah, yes.
And and also knowledge andunderstanding of of musical
structure, harmonic structure,how to construct things, because
the difference between readingmaterial and playing it with you
know the extraordinaryexpression and accuracy and
repeatability that classicalmusicians do it with.

(48:54):
That they'll play it inrehearsal and then play it in
performance exactly as it issupposed to be in the mind of
the composer, and that's beentheir whole pursuit.
The training and your techniqueis developed so that you can
execute what is of the composer,and that's been their whole
pursuit.
The training and your techniqueis developed so that you can
execute what is on the page.
And all of a sudden there isnothing on the page.
So how do you deal with that?

(49:15):
How do you create something?
And you know, coming throughjazz, we're always dealing with
that.
We always learn the harmony,learn the function of the chords
, learn the possible chordsubstitutions, learn the variety
of expression that is possiblewithin this chord structure and
then also learn how to adaptwhat we know to the musicians

(49:38):
we're playing with and to whatthey do with those chords.
So you hear someone dosomething and then you realize,
oh, I can go here with it.
Or you hear someone dosomething else and you realize
that you can't go to that otherplace.
So there's this whole exchange.
That's happening even instructured improvisation, but
the classical musician may nothave any of that training, and

(50:01):
that's just incredibly dauntingBecause really, really, when you
think about it, if one is beingasked to improvise a certain
number of measures in a piece,what is really being asked is
compose your own part here right, it's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
it's like the difference.
What I'm thinking of is likeit'd be one thing to risk to
learn a poem in a foreignlanguage French or Italian and
to be excellent and your accentis perfect and your cadence is
perfect, but then it's verydifferent than trying to have a
conversation with somebody inFrench.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Right, that's a perfect analogy for it.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Whoa yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
So it really you do have to have a fluency in music
theory of chords and they havethe training of how to improvise
over a chord structure.
They will all come up withsomething different.
So I'm really fascinated by theidea of okay, we have this
classically trained musician,we're working to help them to
make this improvised part for apiece.
Who are they when theyimprovise?

(51:25):
You know what's their voice,because that's really what the
composer is asking.
They're saying I want theclarinet player to play a solo
here.
So what do you?
What?
What happens?

Speaker 1 (51:40):
It just gives me hives thinking about it.
I'm thinking about, you know,being in school.
I mean, I know this is such astupid analogy, but you know
when the teacher, every once ina while it was a rare occasion
when they asked me what Ithought about the book.
You know it'd be one thing to betalking about, whatever the
subject was, that we had studiedand we knew what facts we were

(52:00):
responsible for for the test.
We were responsible for for thetest.
But when the teacher would digdeep and say, well, what do you
think about this deer in theheadlights?
You know, I mean, it took adifferent type of you know
mindset.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Right, so right, so you're teaching people how to do
that yeah, I'm, I'm trying, I'mdoing, yeah, and I, when I
teach, I don't see it as mereally teaching someone in that
sense of like this is what we'relearning and this is how it is.
I see it as a collaborationwhere I am there as a very

(52:32):
friendly, helpful coach toremove whatever is impeding them
getting to who they are,because I can never know who
they are when they improvise,and I want to.
I'd love to see people unfoldin that way, but I want to give
them permission to make themfeel safe, to explore the
feeling of relaxation, to know,to give them confidence, to give

(52:56):
them enough of a basis insomething for you know, at the
beginning it has to be inspecific examples.
We say we'll work with thisparticular place where you need
to improvise, and how are wegoing to do that?
So we'll work, I'll give themstrategies, I'll give them all
of these things that then it'stheir job to take and assimilate

(53:17):
and come up with what they doWell, it's so interesting.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
You just used the word work and strategy, and then
we think of playing, aninstrument, and so it's really
like this dichotomy between workand what you're teaching is
play.
It sounds like.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Right it is.
And I think work and strategycan exist within playing as well
, and more in a sense of when wesee children and they say, oh
hey, let's try this.
And that's the spirit that Iwant to encourage is that,
instead of looking for the oneright answer because there isn't
one, there are infinite rightanswers and infinite answers

(53:57):
that maybe we don't want, sothey're less right, but that
idea of uncovering things andthen looking at them and instead
of feeling like, oh, I'm bad, Idid this wrong, we say, okay,
that's that result.
That's not what I want here,what else can I try?

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Well, it really sort of requires a deeper dig.
It seems like and do you findthat more mature musicians are
better at this?
Or like, I would think, sort ofmid-career or older musicians
who are trying to break out ofstatus quo, or young children

(54:38):
who haven't yet learned statusquo?
But it would be hard for thatmiddle ground where they're kind
of still struggling to get itright and still be them.
That's got to be the hardestdichotomy.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Yes, I think so.
I remember teaching a youngchild I think she was nine and
she wanted to learn saxophone.
This was years ago in New York,and I was trying to teach her
how to just make a sound in away that wasn't forcing it and
that was relaxed.
I wanted her to start fromscratch with that and we worked
and worked and were playing longtones and finally she got it.

(55:13):
She stopped and she looked atme and she said I get it.
It's like ice skating you justglide and you just let it go.
And that was such a beautifulmoment where she felt the
embodiment of that feeling of oh, this is where it is.
And I know that once you feelit in your body, then that's

(55:36):
where the real learning happensand that's where you're really
starting to internalize it.
So you don't have to constantlythink with your conscious brain
about every little thing you'redoing on the instrument,
because there's a lot happeningand you want to embody all of
that, to absorb it all.
So it's like an extension ofthe body and you can let your

(55:58):
imagination run free.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
And I would imagine that the principle of this could
be applied to any instrument,including voice as an instrument
, I mean, because isn't that?
I mean?
It seems to me like that you'rejust trying to help people be
their authentic selves as amusician, in whatever media.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Exactly, and I work with musicians on all
instruments, so it alltranslates, you know so it all
translates.
You know, so do you think thismight be the new direction that
life is forcing you to go, Ithink, one of them.
I think that obviously I'mstill, you know, working a lot

(56:38):
on solo performance and anddifferent collaborations, but
this feels like a big thing thatI want to spend a lot of
attention on.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
So right now I'm, I'm writing about it, and well, I
would think and we don't have aton of time left but I would
think that this would be all themore important now as AI is
emerging and you can you know AI, I'm sure can technically
perform a piece of music youknow impeccably.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
But it's that human element, that authenticity, that
kind of you know, that thingthat makes us human, which is
what you're trying to helppeople cultivate Cultivating
that creative force, life forcethat comes through only humans,
not yes, not computers orwhatever yeah, absolutely and I

(57:30):
think that's going to becomeincreasingly more important yeah
, yeah, I think so, and I thinkpeople are going to crave that
connection more um as we as wego through this crazy world that
we're living in.
Yeah, yeah and I guess.
One last question have youfound that you're impacted by

(57:53):
the cuts in funding?
Has that impacted your worldyet?
For the arts, yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
And how is?

Speaker 1 (58:02):
that manifesting for you personally.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
For me personally, I don't have anything immediately
now that has been impacted.
There are things that wouldhave been on my list of things
to apply for that are no longerin existence, which is huge.
There are people I know whoworked on grants for weeks and

(58:27):
it's all gone.
You know, the grants are gone.
There's not even the hope ofthe possibility of getting it.
It's just gone, which is reallydevastating, and I don't know
how it's going to play out.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
I don't Well, it sounds to me like this new sort
of thread that you're pursuingis so key because, I mean, who
knows what the world is going tolook like anytime soon?
But what isn't going to changeis people's we were talking
about that sort of innate coreneed for music that is just sort

(59:02):
of so primal to us.
And if you can help throughthis program that you're
developing, help individualsjust access that, you know, it
doesn't have to be in a concerthall, it can just be a way for
them to connect to a fundamental, essential part of themselves,
to a fundamental, essential partof themselves that hopefully

(59:25):
that will take us forward.
You know, I don't want to evenimagine a world without the arts
, the way we've known to haveaccess to the arts.
But it makes it a little biteasier to fathom if, instead of
people going to the theater toexperience the arts, they get to
have it, own it back in theirown heart and body again, which

(59:49):
would be, you know, a good thing.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely something that I
really hope to develop, and I'vespoken with some of my students
locally about having maybe aonce a week or something
practice session where we justall come together to just do
some very meditative practice.

(01:00:14):
And one thing that I have kindof dreamed about is having a
space where I am, aninstallation, where I practice
every day in that space and it'sopen to the public.
It could be a gallery orsomething I think we can find
that for you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Let's talk about that further,because I think there are a lot
of initiatives happening,including the one that I'm
involved in with thiscollaboration lab that we're
doing in conjunction with CCAand bringing all these art
leaders together to talk about,like, new ways forward, so that
you know, empty spaces or spaceswith artwork are populated with

(01:00:55):
musicians who need to practicespaces.
I mean it's, it's a marriagemade in heaven, really.
So we'll, we'll explore thatfurther.
Well, let's leave it there.
It's a perfect conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Thank you so much for coming.
Well, thanks for joining ustoday.
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(01:01:30):
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