We recently connected with Gero Koerner and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Gero thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
Yes, I am very happy! Sometimes I wonder if there would be another job which could make me happy. Then I realize that I already have the most challenging job with a lot of freedom and space for creativity and demanding a wide bandwidth of skills. Next to my handcraft skills as a pianist I can be very creative while improvising, composing or arranging my own music or music programs. I can develop my own projects and from this moment on I am not only an artist with high demands in his handcraft, I am also a media entrepreneur. I need to develop my own brand, develop a style or corporate design, write press infos, take press pictures, have to develop a marketing and sales strategy and so on…I need to do everything what every entrepreneur needs to do and build a team around me for the things I can’t do myself. I am organized very effectively and have different challenges every day. I didn’t find any more flexible, interesting or more challenging job for me.
Gero, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I define myself mainly as a music cosmopolitan pianist who is not sticking to any specific style of music. Moreover I develop my own bands and projects and work also as composer, arranger and music producer. The more responsibility I take over in a project the more comfortable I feel. I see things as a whole and my personal challenge is to find out and define the core message of an artistic project. This defines all other decisions like the right team, artistic and organizational structure, work flow etc. I started as a teenager to play music in professional bands of different styles from classical over jazz to rock music. I found out that these scenes are working very different in every way which was very challenging for me in the beginning. I studied music (piano) at a university and also got lessons from a former classical piano teacher from the Moscow music conservatory but the most skills I learned self-tought or just by doing. Usually I try out things and my first attempt is mostly the wrong one. Meanwhile I am very grateful for this because this failure gives me the opportunity to reflect about about it and learn how to do it better. This one first failure helps me to anticipate problems in the future and prevents me from doing mistakes in the future. Now I prefer this learning method to all other because I feel it is much more real and helpful to make your own experience and pay the price for your mistakes. I am not scared of mistakes anymore. I see them as a challenge not to do them a second time. If I once found out how to do things the right way I can guarantee a successful procedure. That’s why I am a convinced self-learner.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
In my point of view the best soil for a creative arts scene is freedom and a liberal way of live. Art should be free and it will find it’s way. Freedom is meant as a freedom of regulations. The more regulations there are for promoters of events the more difficult it will be to realize an artistic vision. Nowadays a lot ideas cannot be realized because of unnecessary strict government regulations (especially in Germany where I live). I am not a friend of too much subsidies. They are always connected to specific kind of structures or political or social programs and define already a more or less clear direction what art should do or not. Governments and NGOs take a lot of subtile influence on arts in this way to influence the social live in their interests. This means art and artists are getting instrumentalized by these players. Maybe it they don’t have bad motives by doing it but it is a dangerous development because artist become dependent. It is not a problem for art if there are some financial or organizational difficulties or challenges. A good and strong vision will find its way to realize. Freedom is also the freedom of mind and speech. In western countries this becomes more and more a problem also for artists. In Germany also artists who are not agreeing with the governmental mainstream opinion face a massive cancel culture. This extends not only about political topics. It is already enough to have different ideas of social live or private interests. Successful artists can’t be critical anymore or they are out. This is a very dangerous development.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Yes, I see my function as a music artist to give the listeners some emotional stabilization. Music deals with emotions. My artistic aim is to express emotions through music with the maximal precision and most details. The listener gets a very clear emotional message and can use this to reload emotionally or just relax while listening. My aim is to touch the audience emotionally. It doesn’t matter in which environment or setting. I am not vain in choosing my venues or spots to play. I feel very responsible for the emotional message of music I play or I am involved in. I try to spread positive hopeful and constructive emotions. Sometimes it can get also irritating or disturbing (to clean up or destroy some strong emotional influences) but the motivation behind my music should be always positive, constructive or healing. For me music is one aspect of spirituality which is unfortunately pretty neglected in our western culture.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gerokoerner.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gero.koerner.music/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gerokoerner
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gerokoernermusic
Image Credits
The credit names for each image are in the image title behind the @.