We caught up with the brilliant and insightful James Piorkowski a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

James, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. First, are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work?

The answer is “yes” and I am still amazed by that to this day. Recently, I was telling a friend that the last non-music job that I had was in 1976, when I was 20 years old. I drove a tow-truck. This blows my mind, because in all of the subsequent years I have been doing what I love, and loving what I do, and getting paid for it. I would say that’s “living the dream.”

Please walk us through your journey and how you made it happen.

Here’s the backstory—my oldest brother is a professional musician, and when I was five years old, he started teaching me music on the accordion. I played my first recital at age six. At age eight, I heard the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and noticed that there was no accordion in the band, but the guitars sure caught my attention. So, my brother gave me a guitar and I began lessons. I learned many styles of music, but eventually heard the classical guitar being played and it seduced me. During college I realized that I wanted to create and play music and teach classical guitar for a living. I also knew that I wasn’t the most naturally gifted musician on the planet, but if I could work as hard or harder than my peers, then just maybe this desired career path could gain traction. As a result, it did, and I eventually performed professionally in North and South America, Europe, Russia, and in the Caribbean.

I wanted to create original music and so I also studied composition in college. At first, I was a musician who composed, but it took me years of writing to eventually consider myself “a composer” and that has become an integral and satisfying part of my career, as now many of my works have been recorded and also published in the US and in France.

Early on, I came to understand that no matter what job I had, my work was being observed and assessed. As a case in point, I was teaching guitar to adults in a continuing education program, and my students showed up more for a social gathering than for serious learning. I did my best in that role as their teacher, while learning to be patient and to be as effective as possible. My supervisor noticed, and ended up recommending me for another job that eventually led to my 41-year career as a SUNY Distinguished Professor at the Fredonia School of Music. The lesson that I learned was to always do my best work, regardless of the perceived status of the gig.

James, 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?

Yes, of course. In a nutshell, I am a musician and I do music. Be it performing, composing, arranging, making recordings, or teaching—these multiple facets of being a musician make it forever fascinating. Also, they are symbiotic, so I try to get better in each component in order to continue to grow as a musician. I have learned to aim high and seek excellence. 

In my college teaching, typically I interact with a classical guitar major for all four years of their enrollment. Each week, we will have one-on-one lessons, two to three hours of ensemble rehearsal, and recital seminar class, where they perform for each other and offer critical feedback. On top of that, I serve as their academic advisor. So, all in all, the potential impact that I have in their lives is significant, and gaining their trust is essential. I will ask a student to play in a way that they never did before and to think differently about what can make their music more expressive, but to do that, they need to trust me. I deeply value their trust and consider it sacred. Sometimes as a result of that relationship, our interaction may go well beyond music, as a student may have personal struggles and are in need of a confidant. At the very least, I am available to listen.

The transformation and growth of a student in that span of four years is something special. To help a student develop their skills and transform into someone that they didn’t or couldn’t see themselves becoming is very rewarding to me.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

As a musician, I look at what’s possible and I work toward making that possibility come to fruition. An example of that comes from being a member of the Buffalo Guitar Quartet, which I was for eighteen years. The BGQ greatly enlarged the repertoire for four guitars, toured internationally, and recorded four wonderful albums, including the first album of all-original music for four classical guitars. We were pioneers in that field. In the 1970s, there were literally only a handful of active guitar quartets on the planet, and now it has become a standard and wide-spread ensemble format, included in high school and college programs around the world. At SUNY Fredonia, we have had student quartets and ensembles for four decades now, and my student quartets have performed at a very high level on tours in Europe, South America, and in the U.S. My alums tell me that those experiences were some of the highlights of their musical careers. All of that was born from ideas, which evolved into possibilities, and finally into realized outcomes. Looking back, I am still amazed by it all.

In composing, what starts as an idea—it could be a motif of a few notes or chords—could turn into a possibility. After experimenting with the character and direction of the music, and for me—much rewriting—that possibility can become a musical composition. When I am in composing mode, each morning I am eager to visit what I wrote yesterday, as if I were finding a gift under the Christmas tree. Let’s see what I have today. Is it worth keeping and reworking, or do I toss it away? In doing this, I am critically honest with myself. Is this music satisfying, and something that I will enjoy playing or hearing ten years from now? And if it’s not, what needs to be done to make it better? My philosophy is—in the end—if it’s not going to be great, why bother?

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Ten years ago, our younger son, Ben, ended his life. The pain that I experienced was so strong and relentless that I thought that it would be easier for me to die, but I realized that would only inflict further agony upon my wife and beyond, so I said no to that. 

I had anxiety attacks and nightmares about my perceived failure to save my son. It was a torturous time. Then one day on a walk in my neighborhood, these eight words came to me— “This is the only now that I have.” I think that those eight words were somehow a gift from Ben, as we had previously talked about “living in the dash”, that space between your birth date and your death date. Choosing—and it is a choice—to embrace and cherish “the now” was a lifesaver for me. I allowed myself to delight in the company of my granddaughters, to cherish the outpouring of amazing love and support from family and friends, and to savor the making of music once again. Those eight words became my reset button, as their truth would help assuage my angst. I even gave myself permission to smile once again.

Love and music—they became the two trusty legs that would help me move forward, one step at a time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jamespiorkowski.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100039128603873
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHmPjMmPeHfRtJdfHFiiQxw

Image Credits
All photos: Roger Coda (SUNY Fredonia Marketing & Communications) except sunny photos with railroad tracks and in front of brick wall: Rupinder Jatana