Blurring Musical Boundaries

    While rifling through the Strings January 2011 issue, I came across an intriguing article.  Today’s burgeoning, fool-proof classical music is sustained in its ability to cross-over genre-defining boundaries.  Titled “Unconventional Wisdom,” the author, Jeremy Kurtz, celebrated the fact that modern string players no longer need to embrace ideas of endless, rote preparation of orchestral excerpts in finding an acceptable paying gig.  Instead, fully equipped with electricity, James Page, Robert Plant, Bill Munroe and His Bluegrass Boys, associates Mozart, Stravinsky, and Bach, classical musicians can really bring it with the concept of well-roundedness (not just preparedness) as vital organs in their repertoire.
    Kurtz interviewed three bassists: Louis Levitt of the Sybarite5, Peter Seymour of Project Trio, and Paul Kowert of the Punch Brothers -- three ensembles that encompass the idea of crossing-over genre barriers.  Because chamber music repertoire yields a barren amount of quintet literature including a bass part, these three bassists solved the issue and concocted, along with the other musicians in their ensembles, a formula: engage modern audiences and claim sanctuary for the desperate chamber musician bassist. 

    According to Louis Levitt of Sybarite5, after preparing a program for one performance that included Dvorak and Led Zeppelin’s “Babe, I’m Going to Leave You,” audience members, intent on hearing standard chamber music repertoire, were impressed with Sybarite5’s Led Zeppelin arrangement.  The secret behind this phenomenon? Listing on the program “James Page and Robert Plant” as the piece’s composers instead of “Led Zeppelin.”  Audience members were asking Levitt,  “James Page and Robert Plant -- how come I’ve never heard of them? Where can I hear more of their music?  Do you have any recordings?” 
    At the essence of any notable piece of music -- whether it be classical, jazz, funk, rock, or pop -- remains a constant message: its relation and message to the audience.  Levitt himself says, “If you take the music seriously and present it in a serious way, the audience takes it seriously.”  So, with his advice, I believe that today’s classical music lovers can succumb to the idea of accepting strictly American-cultivated music which is being added to the austere “European” artform of Western Classical Music. American rock musicians (or even jazz, blues, and country artists who invented rock with their influences) can present “serious” music because truly they communicate so well with audiences today.  So, does it matter the medium used to connect listeners to what any performer is trying to say? I believe the answer is no.  After all, like modern art which is devoid of strict mediums, music too can communicate incredible messages.                             

Take Punch Brother's Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 for instance,

Or Project Trio's version of a Bach Bourée à la Jethro Tull.