Sixth anniversary - exploring improvisation with violinist Ariana Kim

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, where I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

This episode celebrates Harmonious World's sixth anniversary with award-winning violinist Ariana Kim, who has a brilliant album out. uncommon thread: Exploring improvisation from Mozart to Macedonia came out just a few days after our conversation. Ariana’s work takes us from Western classical music and Americana, including world premiere recordings of compositions by Shane Shanahan. 

Thanks to Ariana for allowing me to play extracts from uncommon thread alongside our conversation.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

Hilary 0:32

So, welcome to this very special edition of Harmonious World celebrating the sixth anniversary. My name is Hilary Seabrook. Award-winning violinist Ariana Kim has an absolutely brilliant album out. It's called Uncommon Thread Exploring Improvisation from Mozart to Macedonia. Comes out in a few days after I'm recording this. It'll be out now when you're listening. So the album juxtaposes Mozart's sonata in B-flat major, Beethoven's sonata in E flat major, and then original works by Kim herself and percussionist composer Shane Shanahan. As well as traditional music from around the globe. This is a really, really interesting and it's a lovely album. And it's it's lovely to hear improvisation on the violin. What you're listening to now is Ariana Kim's improvisation on Bahudari. It's a Carnatic Raga from South India. The album then leaps into the 21st century with Kim on steel-stringed violin and Shanahan on percussion. So I've got lots to talk to Ariana about. Hi, thank you for meeting with me. It's so exciting to chat with you. Yeah, well, it's really exciting to chat. This album is incredible. Thank you. Yeah, uncommon thread. That's right. And I've only recently really got into listening to violinists improvising. And it is a very special thing. I don't I think I think it's because I was trained as a classical musician. And so I'm used to hearing the violin. And then to hear it in a very different way is absolutely wonderful.

Ariana Kim 2:46

Well, thank you. I I appreciate that. I I also was trained classically, and though I spent my summers doing a lot of folk music in Bluegrass and Americana, which has many roots in improvisation, I was still the majority of my training, the majority of my musical upbringing was, you know, you observe the score as doctrine, and um, you know, you even think about, okay, did he mean was that a dash or was it a dot or was it a carrot? You know, when when you're looking at manuscripts and things. Um, and then as I became more curious about it, I started to throw, you know, recognize actually Mozart and Beethoven were the greatest improvisers, you know, in the beginning. And what they eventually put down on paper was once improvised. So how do we think about that in the context of improvisation, but with the integrity and the intention and the education of having toiled in those crafts and in those languages so that when you take an embellishment or you take a cadenza in one of those one of those pieces, it's in keeping with the tradition. Um, and likewise with the world music that I've been exploring, which sort of each has their own flavor.

Hilary 3:58

Yeah. So let's start at the beginning. First of all, what made you decide to do this album where you look at Mozart and Beethoven and then you go into India and you go around Europe and you go all over the world? Yeah. So what made what was the spark that got this album going?

Ariana Kim 4:22

It was a little bit multifaceted, in fact. At that time, this this album is many years in the making now. I started to explore this space about 10 years ago. Um, and it was originally sparked by my work with actually both Shane and Roger, um, my two collaborators, Roger Mosley, who's a phenomenal forte pianist, musicologist, scholar, um, and then Shane, who is a brilliant percussionist, one of the founding members of the Silk Road Ensemble. And both of them had such thoughtfulness and integrity with how they approached music. And at the time I had been sort of exploring different world music via composers that I was working with, uh, with my quartet, with the knights, which is another ensemble I play with here in New York, um, and some other sort of independent projects that I had been working on. And Shane and I crossed paths during that chapter, and we played a piece together that had a lot of improvisation sort of built into it. And so he would play a lick and chuck it to me, and I would play a lick and chuck it to the bassist and so on and so forth. And that sort of wetted my appetite for what's possible, particularly in a live setting. Um, and so I started playing around more with um exploring music in uh in different traditions from India, different traditions from Macedonia, Bulgaria. And then on the flip side, Roger had said, you know, what would you think about exploring these historical keyboards? We have a beautiful historical keyboard center at Cornell, and we have sort of um go, you know, going back to the earliest harpsichords to Moog synthesizers, we have kind of the whole span of uh of historical keyboards, and we thought, how fun would it be to explore Mozart and Beethoven on the pianos that were on, or at least on replicas of pianos that were used during that time? Um, and then began our sort of relationship with Malcolm Bilson, who's a brilliant forte pianist and an improviser in his own right. Um, and then we said, okay, let's pick a couple of pieces and just start playing. So it started sort of as a sight reading, let's have fun activity. And then uh we decided to put together a concert, and I asked Shane if he had any pieces that would work for violin and percussion. And then came Audacity, oil field fires, and Kanda Joge, and then birthed this sort of unexpected program of looking at what happens when you immerse yourself. At that point, it was called immersion, and what happens if you immerse yourself in these different styles and different types of music, but within the context uh of improvisation and thinking about improvisation. Um, so yeah, it sort of came from many different angles, but inspired by um exploration, free freedom, creativity, um, spontaneity.

Hilary 7:18

It's a wonderful collection of pieces that you know, we can't even get in having a conversation like this, I can't even get close to talking about you know that spread, but it's quite amazing. The um I went to Beethoven's home in uh Austria, and it was amazing to see you know where he lived and and worked, and it's clear that he spent a lot of time just uh playing the piano and then deciding you know, he would go for a lot of walks. He you know, this this part of Vienna he lived in was out on the the sort of outskirts, right? He would go for lots of walks in the countryside and you know come back and then just play something that had occurred to him during that and and that improvisation is not what we normally think of for Beethoven and Mozart, but that's how they started.

Ariana Kim 8:08

Exactly. And that's one of the notes I made in the in when I was writing the liner notes. One of the things I said, you know, everything's improvised until it's written down. And that, you know, uh with the Mozart in particular, that piece wasn't finished at the premiere. Mozart was behind schedule, and so from our understanding, he had written out the violin part but hadn't finished the piano part. So at the premiere, uh at which apparently the emperor was, um, he just opened up what looked like a score, but it ended up being just blank sheets of paper on the inside. And the emperor caught wind of it because I guess he was to the side of the stage enough that he could, he, he caught a glimpse of what was actually happening. And Mozart was actually caught red-handed, but no one would have known, no one was the wiser because he was such a brilliant improviser and he had such a clear idea of the structure and what was happening harmonically that even if what ended up being written down eventually wasn't what happened at the premiere, the the structure, the architecture, the intention, the the energy of of all of the sort of sections and movements came through.

Hilary 9:19

So yeah, and when you think that when they were writing, there was no recording, there was no way to record it. Nobody knew, nobody knows what happened. And and so to then, you know, going away and kind of going, oh yes, well, I'm gonna write it down, he can't possibly, I mean, he what probably came very close, but can't possibly have written exactly what he played at that point. So so again there was another stage of improvisation. Exactly. How was it?

Ariana Kim 9:47

Exactly. And so that was our land, our launch pad for that piece specifically, because we thought, well, he didn't even write it down until later. So what might it be like if he took that same phrase but put it in triplets? Or what if he took those eighth notes and made them quarters? What if instead of a scale he did an arpeggio? What if instead of a dotted rhythm it it was a straight rhythm? So that's that was sort of our launch pad, but always trying to get to be uh approaching it with integrity to think about his language and his voice.

Hilary 10:17

Yeah. Am I right? I read somewhere, I think, in the liner notes that you had to tune your violin down because of the the way the pianos were in those days.

Ariana Kim 10:31

That's right. So we tuned these particular forte pianos, which are from around this time period, the late 1700s, early 1800s, um, they're sort of happiest around 425 or 430, which is 10 or 15 cents lower than where we typically play today. Um, and then I also wound my my violin with wound gut strings. And so you have this sort of tambral interchange that's different from a steel string violin with a Steinway. Um, the wound gut strings, they're not 100% gut, they're gut on the core, but then in the core, but then they have a slight uh winding of sometimes aluminum, sometimes gold, sometimes steel, so that it has a little more structure. Um gut strings are very, very hard to keep in tune. So that was one of the uh one of the inspirations. But the wound gut still gives you sort of that warmer quality and it matches the wood of the forte piano better. You don't have that giant steel frame of the Steinway. Um, so by tuning down and by putting wound gut strings on the violin, it gave us also a different sense of improvisation in like a tambrel from a tambrel perspective. So we were thinking about like how do we how do we use this? There's less tension on the violin with the gut and with the lower tuning. So, like, what does it mean for us to embrace that? Does it give us more time at the spermata? Does it give us more space to expand and take a risk in this moment? Um, and then to to allow those two instruments to really kind of talk to each other, um, it really seemed to fit the timbre of the piano to allow it to kind of resonate at 4 30. We were we were tuned to 4 30 for the record. Um, and then the violin just sort of settled into it with the piano, and it's it it came out to be a really nice pairing.

Hilary 12:24

Yeah. And I mean, obviously, I I don't think many people have got the time to sort of compare it, to compare your recording with with somebody else's. Now, and I think in some ways that's not what we do. We just listen to them for the for the for their own sake. But there's certainly something very interesting about that resonance between the two instruments.

Ariana Kim 12:46

I agree, I agree. We're doing a um an album release party here on Tuesday when the album drops, and um we're we'll we'll be playing a lot of the album live, we'll be playing sort of selections from each section of the record, um, and we'll be we'll be bringing in a forte piano and tuning everything down. So it'll be curious to see how there'll be a lot of musicians in the audience, and many of them who are playing, you know, modern instruments um and and modern tuning. So it'll be interesting to see how how people feel in that space. Yeah.

Hilary 13:16

Yeah, because I can imagine that I mean I'm not fortunate enough to have perfect pitch, but I can imagine that people that do have perfect pitch, that's quite disconcerting, I should imagine.

Ariana Kim 13:26

You know, it is really hard. I I I I do have it, but it in in many ways it can be a curse because it is difficult, especially if I have to play at 415, because 415 is a true half-step low compared to what we're used to at a 440A. So, what happens to me when I have to play at 415? I see one thing with my eyes, and then I hear one, I hear a different thing that's coming out of the instrument. And so my hand subconsciously does things that's unintentionally trying to correct what I see to be what's coming out of the instrument. So in that way, it is difficult. And when I play at 430, I I do have to sort of bring myself down over a few days. Like I'm I'll tune down today and bring my violin down for the Tuesday concert because it does take time to just sort of 430 can still resonate. I'm I've done it enough that it can still resonate as an A for me, but it just everything sort of feels like it's doing this. And I don't know if people are probably going to be listening to this and not watching it, but it sort of feels like your whole body just sort of shimmies down a few inches. Um, which is a good, it's a great tool, it's a great exercise. And you in that way too, you have to kind of give yourself over to the resonance and the sonority of the forte piano because it kind of invites you in to be sitting a little bit lower in the pitch.

Hilary 14:41

So yeah. So for those people who are listening to this who aren't musicians, it's like when you hear a song that you are familiar with a particular artist singing, and then you go and see somebody else singing and they can't get it in that pitch, they have to have it slightly lower. It's like that, isn't it? Where you know there's something different and you can't quite work out what it is.

Ariana Kim 15:04

Right. So when something it might be transposed in a pop concert, or or even when back in the back in the olden days when we had records and the the and it was spinning maybe slightly slower, so it's still the same song, still the same recording, but it maybe is a half step lower than one is used to, and it the revolutions aren't aren't slow enough that it feels wrong, but you can tell, oh, something's not quite the same. Yeah, yeah.

Hilary 15:29

But isn't that a wonderful thing about music that it can't that those subtle changes in the physics make all the difference? And sometimes that can be a really positive thing, as I think it is in this case. Exactly. Really interesting. So let's talk about so we we move on to the 21st century. What I'd like to do at this point is I'd like to pay play an extract from Oilfield Fires by Shane Shanahan. Right. Did he how much of what you play is composed by him and how much of it is completely improvised?

Ariana Kim 18:04

So we have what what he and a lot of uh sort of jazz and or percussionists call a chart, where you have generally a melody and sort of a few sections after that that kind of show you here's the material that we're gonna work with. And then from there we'll sort of decide a roadmap of okay, let's repeat the first section two times, let's repeat the B section once, let's repeat the last section four times. And sometimes that's even notated in the in his score. Um, but then each one of us takes sort of liberties and improvisations where um he'll he'll continue with a groove and then I take a melodic improvisation, or I play a groove and he plays a percussive improvisation. So sometimes there are sort of longer extended, almost jazz-style um cadenzas. Um, and then there'll be more opportunities kind of within the chart, within the structure, within the this the tune or the melody to add embellishments, to add double stops, to add um ornaments kind of within the style of the piece. So not to not too unlike the the sort of general idea of how you might do it in a classical piece. Um, but of course, then the language is different.

Hilary 19:17

So yeah, yeah. Um he's a he's a wonderful um he's a wonderful composer, isn't he?

Ariana Kim 19:25

He's a wonderful everything. He's a wonderful composer, musician, uh human, uh citizen. He's just uh yeah, he's a delight kind of across the board.

Hilary 19:35

So Yeah. So how long have you been working with him?

Ariana Kim 19:39

It's been now probably 12 or 13 years. I think we met um yeah, probably 12 or 13 years ago, and then we started putting this project together and working together uh in various contexts uh about 10 years ago, I think.

Hilary 19:53

Right. And so you said you've got um an album launch coming up next week, because that's the when the album when the yeah, when the album comes out. That's right. Yeah, so uh are you doing bits from both both sides, if you like, of the uh of the album?

Ariana Kim 20:09

Yeah, so we're gonna do, we've done already some preview performances. We did one at Cornell, uh, we did one um in Minneapolis, which is my hometown. Um, and then we'll this will be sort of our final one in New York City when the album officially launches uh on Tuesday. And it'll be at the at this point yet to be finalized, but I think this is how we're gonna structure it. It'll be an interspersing. So on the album, it's sort of an A side, B side, so that you sort of live in the world of late uh uh uh of late 18th-century violin sonatas, and then you switch gears almost entirely, and you live in the world of um of improvised folk music, uh, Indian music, Macedonian, Bulgarian, and Shane's compositions. Um, but it's also quite curious. We did it this way in Minneapolis, where you do a movement of Mozart and then a Karnatagraga, and then a movement of Beethoven and oilfield fires, and then uh another movement of Mozart and the Bulgarian folk folk dance. So I think that's how we'll structure it, and so people will get kind of a tasting menu of the whole record.

Hilary 21:14

Yeah, because you can't play the whole thing. And and also, you know, they can sit at home and watch that and listen to the whole thing, can't they? That's right, that's right. Yeah. Fantastic. So this has taken you 10 years. What what's next?

Ariana Kim 21:27

It's a good question. I've been um I've been I've been exploring a number of thoughts. I've I've had the chance, as you probably saw, and the inspiration behind Bahudari, which is the Karnataka raga, uh, to go live half a year in India and study deeply the Karnatak style. Um, I've been thinking similarly about maybe uh an excursion to Scandinavia, um, primarily Norway, to dive into the Hardanger fiddle, um which I'm really curious about and would love to do. I also have dreams of doing another excursion uh down to Argentina. Argentina and explore the tango world and learn how to be a better tango fiddler. So hopefully, sort of folk traditions in different uh in different parts of the world as a as a sort of sabbatical project, and that may be that may take shape in an in a forthcoming album. And then currently I'm doing a sort of a long series of solo recital tours where I'm uh putting together Bach patchwork quilts that I sort of lovingly call them patchwork quilts, where it's 100% Bach when I'm improvising, sort of sewing different movements together. Um some new works by uh colleagues and friends of mine, uh George Meyer and Justin Montgomery. Um, and then there is some uh Chen Yi and John Harbison, sort of sewing these, uh bringing different worlds of the solo violin together in uh in recital tours. And um yeah, I'll be playing the Mendelssohn D minor concerto uh in about a month, which is the other Mendelssohn concerto uh with the Milan Chamber Orchestra in Italy. Um I've got a festival there, um, and then uh some chamber music projects later in the summer, and we'll sort of see what happens from there.

Hilary 23:14

Yeah, fantastic. Hearing about your your Bach work, I've recently got into um there's a British pianist called Neil Cowley, who's got a trio, and he's just brought an album out called Built on Bach, where they take all of the Bach of and then they improvise around it. So sometimes you've got no idea what inspired it, but it's it's just great jazz, and then other times it'll be like, Whoa, that's a bit of Bach just came right at you. So it's it's really fascinating. There's so much, isn't there, that Bach um it's not it's not dead music, you know.

Ariana Kim 23:56

Not at all. It's so I mean there's there's sometimes I I hear a harmony that Bach chose, and I think, whoa, what it feels just as fresh as yesterday.

Hilary 24:06

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ariana Kim 24:08

Fantastic.

Hilary 24:09

Oh, listen, it's been such a pleasure talking to you, Ariana. Thanks.

Ariana Kim 24:12

Likewise, thank you so much.

Hilary 24:35

And what you're listening to now is Migrating Home, which she actually composed. She's obviously a very busy, very much in demand violinist around the world. So if you get a chance to see her, then please do. I'll put all the links in the show notes so that you can check out where she's going to be. If you're in New York, you should definitely get to some of the gigs around the release of Uncommon Thread. Thank you for joining me once more for Harmonious World.