Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carrie Vecchione. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Carrie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I have been working with my husband, bassist Rolf Erdahl to create our own OboeBass! genre. We are the world’s only Creating our own OboeBass! genre. We are the world’s only professional oboe/bass duo. This grew out of our being a married couple looking for things to play as a duo, learning very little had been written for the combination, and discovering it was a solid, versatile, pleasing pairing. The creation of our genre led us down many very varied pathways – commissioning, recording, performing, teaching, arranging, collaborating, and presenting. Each of these activities generated many meaningful and rewarding projects. It’s gratifying to see the impact our small, portable ensemble has in bringing our music to people where they are, from rural settings to inner cities, from to traditional and novel concert venues, and to schools and senior residences. We started with pieces written for us from talented composer friends and have gone on to receive nationally-recognized commissions, including Valerie Coleman’s “American Vein” composed for us through a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, and Mary Ellen Child’s “There is a Humming,” a climate change piece commissioned for us through the Harvard Fromm Foundation. So far we have expanded the genre from three pre-existing pieces to over 40 OboeBass!, works, and released six recordings of original music for oboe/bass duo. Our educational programs grew from a presentation connecting books and music at the Red Balloon Children’s Bookshop to creating graded curricula for elementary ages and music learning series for senior residences. We believe music is for everyone and we see its effects.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We started along traditional career tracks as performers and teachers. We played in orchestras, both earned doctorates in performance, and taught at universities. Circumstances nudged us down our alternate freelance chamber music path, Necessity taught us to be our own grant writers, press agents, entrepreneurs, presenters, curriculum writers, and recording engineers and producers.
Our experience and flexibility allow us to be comfortable presenting in many settings from an elementary school residence, to advocating for music and education at senior residences to performing on stages small and large. Physical product outgrowths from our activities include recordings, videos, a set of instrument cutouts for demonstration, and a children’s book.
We perform engaging, new music composed for us. We mix our classical training with jazz, dance, folk, and literary influences in music that captures listeners’ sense of wonder. From re-enacting a barn raising to sharing an artist’s whimsical vision of resurrection and afterlife, OboeBass! creates experiences audiences have described as “inventive, cheeky, informative, and delightful.”
Our educational programs are uniquely different from any others and are some of our strongest offerings – each program is 60 minutes focusing on one theme and packed with information including performance, lecture, recordings, PowerPoint, theater, etc. We have received numerous grants to present our series of 4 to 12 programs at many senior residences . We find the return visits and our emphasis on life-long learning (through our college-level content) generates enthusiastic reviews from our audiences and activity directors. Our programs also build community – many activity directors relate how their residents are often talking about the programs and sharing information with those who couldn’t make it between performances. We believe we provide excitement, optimism, information, and inspiration to older adults. Studies have shown actively-engaged seniors have more positive outlooks, actually require fewer meds, and maintain healthier physical baselines. We have also seen the almost miraculous awakenings of people in memory care units whose eyes light up when words and music connect, often resurrecting memories, speech, and stories. It is humbling, exciting, and inspiring to see and share these sorts of outcomes.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Our mission is to serve and promote the Idea that music is for everybody and the Power of Music connects us all. It’s for young and old, from newbies to connoisseurs. Music is something we humans are hardwired for that all too often becomes inaccessible due to cutbacks, deprioritization, economic realities, “business models,” and exclusive attitudes. Mozart wrote to the human condition. So did and do composers under-represented by gender or ethnicity. We chose music we love that we feel will make a meaningful, entertaining, relevant, and engaging connection with our audiences.
For all our audiences, education needs to be clear and simple, but never “dumbed down” or condescending. Our senior audiences often express gratitude that we “made them think,” underscoring our conviction that there is no age limit for learning. In our school Mozart program we have kids act out major roles in a condensed version of “The Magic Flute.” After a recent presentation for third graders, a teacher told us she overheard kids playing opera on recess in the playground. Our “The Spirit Sings” program about African American music history and legacy has won the response of “Hey, they look like me!” and reinforced the idea that music comes from many sources and speaks to us all.
It’s all about making connections. So much in our daily lives disconnects us from the messages and moods that music has to offer us. Music is one of the most powerful unifying forces there is and we like to spread it around!
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Nobody is a “non-creative;” they just have to be reconnected to their creative nature and potential. People who don’t make a living as a “creative” sometimes fail to see the human need for making, experiencing, and sharing creative works. They often see artistic endeavors and products as something extra and supplementary to daily life, rather that the supreme expressions of human understanding, speaking to universal truths and needs about the human condition.
Many people don’t understand music is a full-time professional commitment. Performers are often asked what their “real job” is. All performers spend exponentially more time in practice and preparation than they do on the performance stage. Independent artists like ourselves also have to do all their own self-promotion, contact and get booked by concert and educational venues, write grants to support their activities and commission new works, do press releases, do the graphics and copy for their programs and publicity, and be active participants in their local artistic scene in mutual support of other artists. Our roles and schedules change every day; on one day we will individually practice and together rehearse many hours (sometimes at midnight!) for a specific concert, and the next day we might teach a few lessons, then pack the car with props to present a program about The Classical and Jazzy Nutcracker, and then attend a concert in the evening. We, like most musicians, have to wear many hats every day as we pursue our career and profession. We are our own bosses which has its challenges and rewards. We choose the music we perform and the projects we take on. We are not on salary and usually are paid by each job we do. We have to provide for our own health insurance, and have to stay on top of our changing finances throughout the year.
Creativity, furthermore, flourishes in community. Some of our most rewarding projects are in collaboration with other artists. We founded and organize a series of chamber music Coffee Concerts at the Lakeville Area Arts Center. We are continually amazed at the depth of the musical talent pool in the Twin Cities area, and we created this series to give ita platform and to connect artists with community members. Our duo often collaborates with musicians of different styles and instrumentations, and it has helped us grow as artists. Audience members meet the artists and walls are broken down between artists and the public to the benefit of all.
Collaboration fosters creativity. Some of our favorite projects have been the result of brainstorming collaborations with artist friends that would never come about in a more structured job setting. Our friend, the visual artist Cy DeCosse had a 90th birthday retrospective exhibition. We got the idea to contact 6 composers to choose favorite DeCosse artworks to interpret through their compositions. The result was the fascinating “The Many Faces of Cy DeCosse” that we performed at the exhibition opening and continue to perform as a multi-media work.
Contact Info:
- Website: oboebass.com
- Instagram: @oboebassduo
- Facebook: facebook.com/oboebass
- Twitter: @oboebassduo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rolferd
- Other: https://vimeo.com/oboebass