Andrew Bird takes eclectic compositions to symphony stages

Transcript

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William Brangham: From playing classical and jazz standards on his violin to singing folk and rock, Andrew Bird is constantly weaving together different styles and genres.

Special correspondent Mike Cerre caught up with Bird as he performed with the San Francisco Symphony. It’s part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Mike Cerre: A classically trained violinist since he was 4, Andrew Bird has been improvising with his violin and his music ever since.

Andrew Bird, Singer-Songwriter and Violinist: Since the violin is generally one note at a time, I discovered this technology that could allow me to play pizzicato parts and then layer on both parts, and you’re kind of creating this skeleton of a song.

Mike Cerre: Never intending to replace a band or orchestra he couldn’t afford early in his career, his onstage recorded music loops with his violin, singing and whistling became his live performance signature, a one-man orchestra of the imagination.

Andrew Bird: The classical music is part of my roots, the — but also all these other things. And it all just kind of steers in there and comes out as it does.

Mike Cerre: Tell me about over the years your kind of love-hate relationship with symphony orchestras. Why didn’t you want to go that route with your classical musical training?

Andrew Bird: I quickly realized that I wasn’t cut out for it. I was too — I think too — a little too individualistic.

(Cheering)

Mike Cerre: This year, he’s going full circle, playing with major orchestras like the San Francisco Symphony, making his millennial fan base and ever supportive and patient parents very happy.

Andrew Bird: No matter what I was doing, my dad was like, you sure you don’t want to try to go play the Bruch Concerto with the Dubuque Symphony or something like that?

(Music)

Andrew Bird: Come back, Chicago.

Mike Cerre: While growing up in the Chicago area and studying classical violin at Northwestern, he gravitated more to playing pickup sessions at Irish pubs, jazz clubs, and joining a punk ska band.

Andrew Bird: I was just really interested in absorbing, say, gypsy — Hungarian gypsy music or early jazz or Irish music or anything, anything exotic or different.

Mike Cerre: His music culture immersion led to 18 very different albums over the years. His amalgam of different music genres still challenge the digital music algorithms, the Grammys, and even his fan base to categorize.

Man: I would put him in the folk category.

Woman: He’s a very talented multi-instrumentalist, and I leave it at that.

Man: He crosses a lot of boundaries. There’s a little bit of electronic in there.

Woman: Indie folk, indie, yes.

Man: He’s touched on jazz, a lot of that New Orleans sound.

Man: I don’t think it can be categorized, and I think that’s the greatest thing about it. You can’t. Every time, it’s something different.

Andrew Bird: I learned early on that staying in one place too long in a genre, it just becomes a drag if you’re ready to move on and you get stuck in that genre.

Mike Cerre: Some of his improvisations have been inspired by his focus on acoustics and his field recordings in what he calls echolocations, like Utah’s Coyote Gulch Canyon and the aqueducts along the Los Angeles River.

Andrew Bird: So I would make these field recordings and then play the field recording and then start improvising and looping to that in the studio.

Mike Cerre: You have been nominated for an Emmy for your best original song for “The Pitt,” very popular series.

Andrew Bird: They send me the scene, which is this very emotional scene where finally everyone stops and reflects on the passing of their beloved character. That, to me, is like an ideal use of what I have to offer. It’s like taken me a whole lifetime to be able to write that song that took an hour to write.

Mike Cerre: Instead of a medley of his hits and soundtracks, Andrew Bird’s symphony performances focus on the 20th anniversary of his first concept album, “The Mysterious Production of Eggs.” He originally composed it while on a career reset in 2001 on his family’s farm in Western Illinois.

Andrew Bird: I didn’t bring any of my record collection with me, and I was just drywalling this barn trying to turn it into a studio. And I was extremely isolated, and I had this little looping pedal, and I just experimented all day long for weeks and weeks on end.

And I challenged myself to write songs that had only two chords or only three notes in the melody, like stripping away all that genre stuff. That’s why it’s kind of cool to come back all these years later and do this particular album, because there’s so many parts and interweaving parts and details that I could never do solo.

Mike Cerre: San Francisco Davies Symphony Hall is a long ways from that Illinois barn and performing as a one-man orchestra.

Andrew Bird’s “The Mysterious Production of Eggs” and his diverse body of work are on full display, with a symphony orchestra for a change, with the recorded sound loops not as essential.

(Cheering)

Mike Cerre: For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Mike Cerre in San Francisco.