We recently connected with Emily Pecoraro and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I am extremely happy with what I get to do for a living. My work is in constant fluctuation between varied creative pursuits and more steady commercial work, and I think that’s really fun.

My main “day job” is playing in Broadway pit orchestras – I play all of the the saxophones, clarinets, and flutes. It’s funny to think of it this way, but I consider that my “9 to 5”, even though it’s really more like “7 to 11”. That’s the most consistent work that I do. Right now I’m a chair holder in the pit orchestra for “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” at the Music Box Theatre here in New York City. But prior to this show, I was subbing for many years in many different Broadway shows across town, and I played a few Off-Broadway shows too. That’s really the way this side of the Broadway industry operates, lots of subbing and getting to know people, and giving yourself an opportunity to be heard by other folks in the community. For the last 4 seasons I’ve also been a chair holder in the orchestra for the Christmas Spectacular featuring the Radio City Rockettes, which is the only audition-based gig in town, and it’s a blind audition.

I’m lucky to say that my creative life is just as itinerant: I freelance in and around the Jazz, Experimental, and World music scenes here in New York, I do a fair amount of studio recording work, and I am active in the brass band scene here in town. I founded and was the Artistic Director for many years of a “forwrard-thinking” Experimental chamber music concert series called The Variousound Sessions, whose performances highlighted the cross-over between the giant sound worlds of “Jazz” and “Classical”, both of which at this point in music history are expansive and deeply pluralistic, themselves. With this project I had monthly residencies at two different music venues in Brooklyn over the course of 5 years, when we were shut down by the Pandemic. Since things reopened I haven’t revived the Series yet, and I’m honestly not sure if or how I will, but who knows!

I’m happily busy doing a lot of different things, all of which are interesting and inspiring to me. And New York is such an amazing city because there are so many different musical communities to easily be a part of, all of which require different sides of me as a creative musician and as a working musician. The work I do in Broadway shows is of course creative, but at its core is really more about executing a job in an artful, but primarily accurate, way. The show needs to be the same show performed the same way 8 times a week, and my job is to be able to nail the parts the same way every time, despite any number of variables that might make it difficult to do that. Being a human being, for example! I joke, but the reality is that it’s a honed skill to be able to be so consistent, and I think of it as requiring a sonically athletic mindset to do so. The more creative gigs I play of course also require the same capacity to replicate performances, but certainly in improvised settings, it’s really about being able to tune into the rest of the band and participate in the creation of something new.

I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a “regular” job (musicians often jokingly refer to folks in more traditional lines of work as “civilians”). In a lot of ways, though, you could just argue that my job is to be a small business, and the name of my business is Emily Pecoraro. I have to be a good boss, I have to be a good employee, a good colleague, and so on. In order for me to succeed, I have to function as an entrepreneur, and keep the business organized in both the short and long term. I am often planning gigs months out, trying to anticipate a slow gig-less winter or a show closing suddenly. I also teach quite a bit, and believe it or not I also work as a professional florist, but that’s a story for another day. Planning consistency can be difficult, and downright impossible sometimes. But honestly, the idea that I get to play many different instruments in many different styles of music with many different people fills me with such joy. Participating in gigs that are so diverse from one another gives me a chance to experience different but related realms of my own artistry, and each of those things gives a lot of context for the others. And while that all means that I’m always planning and strategizing, and often means that I have something like 18 tax documents to contend with every year, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I wear a lot of hats as a musician. Depending on the context, I even introduce myself differently. Sometimes I am a saxophone player, sometimes I am a clarinet player, sometimes I am a flute player, and often I am what a lot of people in the music industry call a “doubler”, meaning I play all of the saxophones, clarinets, and flutes in some combination, depending on the gig. That description is usually applied in a Broadway context. In most jazz or improvised settings, I would introduce myself as a saxophone player. The full list of instruments that I play are piccolo, flute, alto flute, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, A clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, and sometimes baritone saxophone. A typical Broadway show, for example, will call for about 5 or so from this list, sometimes more sometimes less. Sometimes I get lucky and I just need to bring one horn to a gig, which is a much easier commute on the subway! I am definitely a musical chameleon, though sometimes it just feels like a good old-fashioned identity crisis.

I have always loved a lot of different types of music, and I am lucky to say that I get to participate in so many of those varied musical loves. I love and have studied Afrobeat music, Ethiojazz, Free improvised music, Balkan brass music, Dixieland, hip-hop, funk, and so many other styles in addition to more traditional studies of classical music and jazz music. I play often in the Ed Palermo Big Band, which is a jazz band here in the city playing primarily the music of Frank Zappa. I’ve played with the great bhangra band Red Baraat, Shubh Saran, The NYChillharmonic, Aberdeen the Band, and I also play lead alto for The Temptations and The Four Tops, who are still touring if you can believe it. To me, this much variation in my participation in the music industry is a super power. Everything benefits from pluralism. Everything benefits from the combination of disparate elements. It’s why we love jazz in the first place, and things like sushi burritos or cronuts. Being able to bring together all my many musical interests gives me a richer color palette to draw from as a creative, and also gives me a unique set of tools to bring to any project that I get to be a part of. I feel uniquely like myself as an artist and I’m consistently excited and grateful to be able to do what I do.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

What’s funny is that the most impactful resource that I wish I had applied earlier in my career is one that I did actually know about. My undergraduate studies were in music education, where I learned all about educational psychology, and specifically Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. This theory suggests that there are many different ways in which people process information, rather than defining intelligence as one general ability. This is of course helpful in leading students in their learning journeys, but why wouldn’t we also apply it to ourselves? Learning how I learn, in combination with an emotional intelligence journey, was the best thing for me to more comfortably and efficiently make progress in my own learning. It’s helped me communicate with myself better, and I always say that you can’t communicate with anyone else if you can’t communicate with yourself first.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

It’s important to me that we work together well, or at least aim to take care of each other as best as we can. Life as a freelancer is hard, so whatever we can do to make it a little easier for each other is absolutely crucial. It’s a competitive industry, of course, and I want to succeed. But I also want you to succeed. And there is space for all of us, whether it seems that way or not.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.empecmusic.com
• Instagram: @empecmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmilyPecoraro/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUEcX1Rjb9x2WcwG4v12Sdjg

Image Credits
Drew Bordeaux Photography