Johnny Gandelsman

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The views and opinions expressed by speakers and presenters in connection with Art Restart are their own, and not an endorsement by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the UNC School of the Arts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Johnny Gandelsman is not only one of the world’s finest violinists, as comfortable playing contemporary works as he is interpreting pieces from the Western classical canon; he is also an inveterate musical innovator. A longtime member of Silkroad Ensemble and a co-founder of string quartet Brooklyn Rider, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this past year, Johnny has long championed the dissolution of genre boundaries to celebrate music’s unique power to bridge cultural divides. Over the years he has collaborated with and played the works of musicians from the Middle East to Appalachia, along the way stretching his own skills to adapt his instrument to a host of musical traditions.

Johnny has also been a driving force in the commissioning of new works for the concert stage, founding his own label, In a Circle Records, to produce and release new compositions. In the doldrums of the COVID lockdown, when musicians saw a year’s worth of scheduled work vanish, he hatched a plan. He set out to find dozens of arts institutions and music presenters to partner with him to commission 22 composers from all over the country to create new works for the solo violin. 

Four years later, the project has now resulted in an album titled “This Is America: an Anthology 2020-2021,” a three-CD set with a 40-page booklet produced by In a Circle Records. Pitchfork raves, “ 'This Is America' stirs feelings about our country that are almost hard to recognize: pride, hope, and the simple relief of consensus reality.” Since the album’s release, Johnny himself has been playing sections of the album all over the country in marathon performances at many of the institutions who partnered with him on the project. 

In this interview, Johnny describes how he shifted from being a young talent focused on a traditional soloist’s career to becoming an adventurer, challenging classical music’s conventions to prove that experimentation and community are as essential to music as technique.

Pier Carlo Talenti: As you were studying your instrument, how did you make sure you cultivated your desire for discovery and experimentation at the same time as you were honing your technique?

Johnny Gandelsman: [He chuckles.] Well, it’s a good question. I think for some, you can do either or. You can either focus on being as good as possible on the violin, or you can be curious and try a bunch of things and see where that leads. 

When I was in school, I wouldn’t say that I was encouraged to experiment. The environment was a pretty conservative environment. It was like, “This is what classical music is, and this is how you do it, and this is how you do it at the very high level.” Anything else was maybe frivolous to some degree. I think it wasn’t until I … . Well, there were a few things that happened. One was that during my time at school, my friends at school started a chamber orchestra, a do-it-yourself chamber orchestra called Wild Ginger Philharmonic. That was my first experience of true experimentation and joyous music-making in community and in general what was a music community. Wild Ginger introduced me to that.

Pier Carlo: You had not felt that, just being at school among musicians?

Johnny: Right. A lot of playing the violin and then trying to get as good on it as you can is you spend a lot of time on your own in your practice room or at home. You’re practicing many hours a day, and you’re probably practicing works that put the violin at the forefront of the solo role. Playing in the chamber orchestra really opened my mind and my ears and my heart to what it was like to make music with others. It was a life-changing moment really, and from the time that I started playing in Wild Ginger, the path that I was on was exploded, maybe to the dismay of my teachers and to my parents who had different ideas of what I would be doing. 

Pier Carlo: Because their idea was you would be a principal violinist in a major orchestra? Was that the idea?

Johnny: No, it was more like they wanted me to be a concertizing soloist.

Pier Carlo: Oh, all right.

Johnny: Yeah, you don’t really set your goals anywhere but at the very top, so there’s a lot of built-in disappointment there. [He laughs.]

Pier Carlo: So then with Wild Ginger, how did that outlook change?

Johnny: Well, first of all, I realized that there is so much to music that I did not know or did not consider. I learned how to interpret a score; I also learned that I had the freedom to interpret the score and not just follow what has been done either by my peers or the generation before. And then the idea of community and doing things in community and learning from people and how much more joyous that process was than the one I was familiar was before, which was to be just practicing on your own. 

Also, another thing that Wild Ginger did was — I don’t even know how intentional it was; it was just things that we wanted to do — we broke down the barriers between performers and audiences. We talked to the audiences between pieces. We would walk out into the audience and play music by memory. Sometimes we would, in an intermission of a concert, teach the audience an aria and then play it with everybody together.

Pier Carlo: Oh, wow.

Johnny: Just that feeling of community and what that felt like was so strong. It was like in “The Matrix,” if you take the blue pill or the red pill. Once you take that pill, you really can’t go back. I think most of the things I’ve done since then have at their source those experiences, which lasted for about four years.

Pier Carlo: It seems like you really made your own opportunities rather than waiting for others to make them for you, including co-founding Brooklyn Rider. How did you go about continuing to create your ideal musical and artistic community?

Johnny: Well, I think this point that you’re bringing up is actually a very important one, which is that when I was in school and I think generations before that as well, there was this maybe unspoken rule that you try to do your best and if you’re really, really good, something will happen and your path will be clear. Also the options were very limited. If you were exceptional, you would end up being a soloist, and if you were less than exceptional — and this is what I meant by built-in disappointment — then you chose the path of chamber music or playing in an orchestra. And then of course there’s teaching, but that was it for classical musicians. 

The thing about Wild Ginger was that the guy who started it, David Goodman — there were two originally, Jason Gamer and David Goodman, and David is the one who took it further a little bit — Dave did everything. He got the players; he picked the repertoire. He booked the concert halls; he booked a place for us to go away to for a week and rehearse. He got insurance; he found a chef that would make meals for the people who were there; he booked the buses.

Pier Carlo: Was he also a student while he was doing this?

Johnny: He was. He was a percussion major at my school.

Pier Carlo: Wow.

Johnny: And then also advertising. You do what you can to bring people to the concerts. When you get to the venue, you set up all the chairs, you set up all the stands, you make sure that people have food to eat. It basically showed me that if you really want to do something, and you believe in it, then you do everything that needs to be done to make it work. That was just such a different world than the one that I knew before. 

When I finished school, I went to school in Philadelphia, and then I moved to New York. I basically stopped playing for about four years, with an occasional exception. Wild Ginger would meet about four times a year, and those were the weeks that I really, really looked forward to. I occasionally played some chamber music with my friends, and somewhere in the middle there, I was also invited to sub for my friend Colin Jacobsen in Silkroad Ensemble, where he was already the violinist. That opened another door, which we can talk about later. But for the most part, for those four years, I wasn’t gigging. I wasn’t taking gigs in New York. I wasn’t looking for that at all because that was just a very different atmosphere, one that I couldn’t find myself being a part of. Instead, I was working in a wine shop on the Upper West Side. Then I started playing with Silkroad in 2002.

Pier Carlo: It must have terrified your former teachers and your parents. A professional musician doesn’t just take a four-year pause, right?

Johnny: Yes.

Pier Carlo: Why was that so crucial to you? What were you doing artistically during that time? 

Johnny: I wasn’t doing much artistically, except that I was trying to figure out who I am as a person. Since I was five years old, I was always around classical musicians, who are wonderful people, of course, but it was a very narrow experience of life. I loved working at the wine shop because I got to do normal things that people did to make a living. I was part-time, but I was working all the time. I got to work with other people at the wine shop who also were musicians or actors or dancers.

Pier Carlo: And it never hurts to be a wine connoisseur, honestly, so also that.

Johnny: Yeah, ask my liver about that [chuckles]. And then there were just regular people, the owner of the shop and other people who were working there. That was their livelihood. I don’t know, I just learned a lot in that place. I also learned about New York City by delivering wine all over the city and then taking the subway back. I really fell in love with the place. 

But yeah, my former teachers, I’m not sure what they knew. We didn’t really keep in touch that much, but my parents were terrified. Eventually that changed, but it took a while for that to change.

Pier Carlo: You probably wouldn’t be where you are now if you hadn’t. It’s just interesting to consider, especially if a young musician is on a very narrow track, that it is sometimes OK to hit the pause button and take stock and allow yourself room to imagine or dream, right?

Johnny: Right, and just figure out things that are truly exciting or interesting. I don’t know if I can recommend what I did to anybody, but I can just say that I can’t imagine doing it any other way. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t do all the things that preceded it, including all the stupid things that I did.

Pier Carlo: Oh, I’d ask about those, but I’m discreet.

Johnny: [Laughing] Yeah, it’s OK.

Pier Carlo: Tell me about how you discovered and cultivated your passion for contemporary and cross-cultural music.

Johnny: In 2002, I was invited to sub for my friend Colin Jacobsen, who at the time was in his second or third year as a member of Silkroad Ensemble, which is an organization that was started by Yo-Yo Ma in the year 2000. The idea was to bring musicians from along the ancient trading route and basically see what happens. In fact, the very first album of the group was called “When Strangers Meet.” I think that’s actually a very apt name for how it started in the beginning. This group of musicians included some of the world’s greatest tradition-bearers from different parts of the world, and they were all coming together, sharing their traditions and then participating in other traditions as well. That was another life-changing experience. I played in the group for about 18 years. 

I can’t really quantify how much I’ve learned while being a member of the group, musically speaking. Also, the community aspect was so strong. The people came together as strangers, but in the end we had a very strong band vibe, and that was incredible. We went all over the world, we played in different venues, different situations.

I’m not sure if it’s known about the group, but the organization actually commissioned a ton of new music, commissioned and premiered a lot of new music. That was a big part of the group’s mission. Through that process, I had a chance to work with living composers who are also performers. I love that process. Figuring out how to learn and interpret a score that was finished a few days ago is really exciting. It’s like being in a lab and just turning things this way and that way and seeing, is this the right way? Is this the right way? And then you have the composer that you can talk to and draw from.

Figuring out how to learn and interpret a score that was finished a few days ago is really exciting. It’s like being in a lab and just turning things this way and that way and seeing, is this the right way?

Pier Carlo: Yeah, the composer’s not dead. That’s a big difference.

Johnny: That’s a big difference. Another thing that you quickly realize when you work with composers who are alive, who are bringing you their music, is that regardless of how much information they put into the score about what they’re going for, there’s no way to notate exactly what they mean, their thoughts exactly or their feelings exactly. Visual notation falls short of being able to capture exactly what the composer wants, and I think the composer is looking for the performers to bridge that gap, to try and figure out what the composer means and then also bring their own mind and soul and interpretation to the piece. 

When you look at a score like that, it’s very different than looking at a score, say, from Beethoven and thinking, “Well, he wrote everything he meant, and this is how it goes.” It’s fixed. It’s almost like a museum piece, a rigid set of instructions. By not doing that, by looking at a score as a living, breathing element, it just changes. It has changed how I also approach music by composers who are no longer alive.

Pier Carlo: Since we’re talking about contemporary composers, we’ve got to talk about “This Is America.” You commissioned 28 artists over four years, is that right?

Johnny: That’s right.

Pier Carlo: You titled the compendium “This Is America,” which of course makes people like me ask you, “What do you think it says about America?” I’m not going to go that route because I think you can just listen to the album and make up your own mind about what it says about America. What I’d rather ask you is what’s been your biggest surprise from this project, and how has it differed maybe from what you thought it might be when you gave out the first commission in 2020?

Johnny: Well, I could just say that when I started, I really didn’t know what it was going to end up being. I started by reaching out to presenters around the country and saying, “Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. Would you support a $5,000 commission for a composer to write a new work?”

Pier Carlo: And this was during the pandemic, right?

Johnny: My first emails went out in the summer of 2020. I think it was a particularly strange time for the performing-arts field because all the live shows were canceled. Performing-arts organizations were trying to stay connected to their audiences through creating digital content. I think it was actually a moment of opportunity. Because things were canceled, there was some money in performing-arts organizations’ budgets to try something different.

And then there was the year itself, with the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and the fires in California and the election that was happening. I think a lot of people in our field were trying to figure out what their responsibility was and what they could do to address the things that were happening. 

I started by asking about two or three composers, and then I got some presenters on board. And then I just kept pushing the envelope as much as I could, and I ended up with 22 works commissioned. But I didn’t know the form. I didn’t know really anything about what it was going to be like.

Pier Carlo: How many institutions did you have to work with for those initial 22 commissions?

Johnny: How many came on board or how many I got in touch with? That’s very different.

Pier Carlo: How many came on board? Actually, what was the ratio?

Johnny: The ratio was probably somewhere in the one-in-five range.

Pier Carlo: Wow.

Johnny: Yeah, I think I had 20 presenting organizations — 

Pier Carlo: So you made about 100 asks. Wow.

Johnny: Yeah. And there were a couple of individual donors that supported the project as well. But I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just pushing the envelope and asking, “OK, we got these people on board. I have another composer on the list; I wonder if I can find a presenter to commission them.” I just kept pushing it and ended up with 22, and now it’s 28. 

Once I gathered the scores and the pieces is when I realized that the form that it could take.

Pier Carlo: Were there any requirements, any criteria or restrictions in the commissioning?

Johnny: I asked two things from the composers. I suggested the length of the piece, which was somewhere between five and 10 minutes, and then I just asked them to think about the time that we were experiencing. Some people wrote five-minute pieces, and some people chose to write 25-minute pieces. In the case of people who wrote longer pieces, I think it speaks to generosity on their part because their fee was the same, whether it was five minutes or 25 minutes, but also to the fact that they had a lot to say at the time.

I was thinking about the album and recording it and then sequencing it. When you sequence something, you inadvertently give preference to something by opening or closing the album with it, or side B starts with something really important. Well, in this case, I really didn’t want to do that, and honestly, with 24 pieces on the album, the possibilities for sequence were way too many to consider. Then I thought, “Well, I’m just going to sequence it in the alphabetical order of the composer, of their last name.” It was really funny how excellently that fit into the overall shape of the album. It’s an almost four-hours-long album with three CDs, and somehow, it just worked out. 

Then when that happened, I was thinking, “Well, this feels like a music anthology, specifically an anthology of that time, 2020, 2021, which is when people were writing it.” That’s where we ended up; it was not premeditated in any way.

Pier Carlo: It’s such a vague question, but what have you learned, whether artistically or thematically, from this compendium of new music?

Johnny: Well, one thing is that there’s just an incredible abundance of creativity in this country. 

Pier Carlo: Because you also worked with several composers who were new collaborators for you, right?

Johnny: Yeah, some of the composers I commissioned were old friends, but many of them were new people I haven’t met before, so it was the first time working with them. If you’re in the world of classical music, and if you follow it closely, you may think that the world of contemporary classical music is not very big, based on the programming choices of big organizations, based on the names that get played a lot and then nobody else. I guess that one takeaway is just that there’s so much creativity out there, and so all you have to do is ask or listen, and it’s right there. I knew it before, but this really showed it to me very clearly, which inspires me to continue this type of work going forward. 

Another takeaway is that — this is a very personal thing — I realized that I’m not immune to the very human emotion of fear and in particular fear of the unknown. I think it relates very much to our current state of the world in general. There’s so much fearmongering out there. It’s the fear of the other. It’s the fear of a stranger who will come and take your job or kill you or rob you or whatever and change your culture, dilute your culture. There are so many ways that people talk about it, and I think it’s easy to fall into that very obvious trap. 

I thought that before this project, but then I encountered some of the pieces that came back to me that were really challenging to me to understand or were foreign in terms of what was being asked of me. My first reaction was a rejection of it. I rejected the music; I judged it. When I realized I was doing that, it terrified me because I didn't think I was that person. But that’s what happened, and I was very lucky that the composers — 

Pier Carlo: Were you able to tell them that you were fearful?

Johnny: Yeah. I wasn’t expressing my judgment of the work, but I was expressing that I was incredibly uncomfortable, that I didn’t know how I could do this. “I don’t know how to interpret it, or I don’t know how to execute it technically.” But it was great because the composers very kindly showed me the way. Different pieces needed different things, and through that, I learned that the fear of falling short of excellence or fear of being misunderstood or fear of falling flat on your face and everybody laughing, all those things, they’re very real, but in the case of this project, all I had to do was to ask some questions and then a path forward would present itself.

Recently I’ve been wondering if the flip side of fear is curiosity. If you just change the perspective from, “I don’t know this, and it’s scary; it must be terrible,” to “I don’t know this. I don’t know anything about this. What do I need to do to learn a little bit about it? What are the things that make it work? Why is the composer really interested in it? What are they trying to go for?” and then find a way for me to relate to that, then there’s a path forward.

It’s been about four years that I’ve been spending time with these works, and I feel very parental about them. I love them like my little kids. I want to take care of them, and part of that is playing them and playing them again and learning more about them and then sharing them with audiences. I’m hoping that other violinists will want to play these works and other musicians will want to commission these composers, that other presenting organizations will choose to present the music by these composers on their programs. In the ideal world there’s a variety of ripples that are going out into the world from this type of work.

Pier Carlo: You’ve worked with 28 composers, starting during probably the most vulnerable time in their career, the pandemic, and you also worked with several institutions at that time. I want to ask you about what you’ve learned about the health of the classical-music ecosystem in America right now. How are your composers faring post-pandemic, and how has it been, working with these institutions that are still struggling to get audiences back in the door?

Johnny: This is a very large topic, and I can’t speak for my composers. They’re not my composers. They’re individuals out there doing a variety of things, many of which I’m not aware of because people are just living their lives. 

I will say that one thing that this project also made clear to me is that we are all much more connected to each other than we think we are. What I mean by we is musicians, composers, presenting organizations, foundations maybe, and audiences. We are all much more interconnected than we think we are. We really need each other, and if one group from that equation is not doing well, then that will have ripple effects to everybody else.

I was incredibly moved by presenters who wanted to support this project. In particular, the very small ones, the ones with tiny budgets for whom $5,000 was a substantial amount of money but they thought it was important for them, for their communities, for the composers to support the creation of new work. I’m eternally grateful to them, to all of the presenters and the individuals who supported it. In a way, it’s like we built a little world over the course of 2020, 2021. Everyone, all the composers and all the presenters and all the audiences that have come to listen to the music, we’ve built our own little community, our own little world. And I love that, because we’ll always have that.

Pier Carlo: You said that one thing you realize is that there’s this connection, this web that we may not be aware of. How could it be emphasized more so we’re all more aware of it?

Johnny: I don’t know if this is controversial or not, but I think often musicians are told not to talk to presenters directly, and the presenters are told not to talk directly to the artists. There’s a manager, and the role of the manager is to have these conversations. But I would venture to say that this project proved the exact opposite is true. Presenters, whether small or large, actually love talking directly to artists because you can be sure that you’re immediately talking about ideas, and you’re not being sold on a roster full of artists.

Of course, managers play an important role, and there are great ones out there as well, but I guess what I’m saying is we all need each other. We need to have conversations across these groups of people and then try to avoid gatekeeping.