| | Issue #20.44 :: 10/31/2007 - 11/06/2007 | Electric and Eclectic
Tracy Silverman
Richland District Two Auditorium: Saturday, Nov. 3 (7 p.m.)
| BY DAN COOK
| For violinist Tracy Silverman, the decision to pursue something other than a traditional classical career came while he was preparing to do just that.
Studying at Julliard at the time, Silverman was engrossed in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, one of the best known works in the violin repertoire. And therein lies the problem.
“At Julliard, I had this pivotal moment,” Silverman recalls. “I was practicing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto and looking at the Schwann catalog of classical recordings. I looked up the Tchaikovsky, and there were five full pages of recordings of this piece by all the top violinists in the world — Nathan Milstein, David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern, etc. And I suddenly said, ‘Who would want to buy my version when you have all these versions out there?’”
“That was kind of a turning point for me,” Silverman says. “I started pursuing songwriting and rock. I really wanted to speak to a younger audience and do something related to my generation.”
That’s a sentiment that might well be shared by some of the musicians he’ll be performing with on Saturday. Silverman is coming to Richland Northeast High School’s Palmetto Center for the Arts at the invitation of Jose Carrion, director of the school’s orchestra program. In addition to playing some solo pieces, Silverman will perform several works with the student group Northeast Current, an electric string ensemble. He will also perform in a trio consisting of himself with Carrion on bass and USC jazz professor Bert Ligon on piano.
In Saturday’s concert and in general, one dominant factor stands out in Silverman’s career — incredible musical diversity and flexibility. Branching out from his classical background, Silverman learned how to play rock guitar lines on the violin; absorbed ethnic folk music, jazz, Brazilian music and “whatever interested me,” he says.
As a result, he has earned a reputation as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin” (BBC), and his range of genres and collaborators is astounding, even compared to other “crossover” artists. Among his many credits: a four-year stint in the groundbreaking jazz string group the Turtle Island String Quartet; a concerto written specifically for him by Pulitzer-winning composer John Adams; and collaborations with everyone from minimalist mastermind Terry Riley to major orchestras and the rock band Guster.
Today, Silverman’s main projects are his rock band, Eclectica (featuring Grammy-winning percussionist Roy Wooten); the Terry Riley Trio; The Gyan Riley Trio featuring Zakir Hussain; The Great Big Piano Trio with Philip Aaberg and Eugene Friesen; and Brazil-based Quarteto Sao Paulo.
“I do a lot of different stuff,” Silverman says nonchalantly, speaking over the phone as he drives from his Nashville home to a gig in Chicago. “That way I keep from having to have a day job.”
Despite his focus on a nontraditional instrument — in addition to being electric, his violin has six strings instead of the usual four — Silverman embraces his classical upbringing, performing regularly with major orchestras.
“I love that I came up with classical, and I [also] wanted to do my own thing,” he says.
He also keeps in touch with his classical roots by picking up the acoustic violin now and then, too — albeit a specially made acoustic six string. For one of his upcoming recordings with the Great Big Piano Trio, for example, he’s playing acoustic violin and viola on “freely interpreted” works by Bach.
“We are taking the themes and taking them to different places stylistically,” he says. “All reinvented, very freely interpreted, sort of in a Brazilian style, some of it very funky.”
That free-flowing approach is a hallmark of Silverman’s career, which he says is more about building a bridge with popular music than trying to be a classical star.
“That was a little more appealing as a 20-year-old,” he says. “It’s hard to deal with the disparity between the classical world and what all your friends are listening to.” | |
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