In anticipation of Aaron Redner's exciting announcement of his upcoming performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons concerto and thematically related tunes, Adam Gromfin discusses with Redner the Vivaldi evening, the state of Hot Buttered Rum side projects, and what it would be like to fiddle with the Dead.

[note: Aaron's performance was taped, courtesy of taper Tim McCarthy.  You can find the recording here.]

Q:  What was your inspiration for putting together this evening?

Redner:  My musical past is steeped in Classical music.  I spent years and years in school studying classical violin.  The repertoire for the instrument is phenomenal.  Since I joined Hot Buttered Rum we’ve been on the road non-stop for 6 years.  I now feel the need to tap into my classical roots and fuse them with the new skills I’ve gained from playing improvisational music with roots found in Americana.

Q:  Why Vivaldi?  And why his Four Seasons piece?  For those unfamiliar with the piece, can you give a brief background?

AR:  I picked the Four Seasons because of the widespread appeal of the music.  People will be caught off guard when they realize how familiar the music is to their ears.  It is one of the first examples of programmatic music and each concerto is prefaced by a beautiful poem to describe the music.  At the event, someone will read a poem before each corresponding concerto to set the mood.  I view these concerti as among the most amazing examples of human creativity.

Q:  Over the past few years, it seems that the members of HBR have made an effort to pursue side projects.  Nat has hosted two Carnival Concerts, Zac has played some side shows (including a kids’ gig), Erik has played a couple Erik & Friends gigs, and The Jawdroppers [project with Hot Buttered Rum members Bryan Horne, Erik Yates, Redner, and a rotating cast of additional musicians] seem to play somewhat regularly now.  What role do these side projects play for you personally and what effect do you think they have on the band and its own music?

AR:  Hot Buttered Rum has spent so much time on the road — up to 175 dates a year.  The “side-projects” we take on enable us to explore music outside of the HBR sphere.  The more that each of us stretches out musically, the more we define what individual contribution to the band’s music we will provide.  And the projects hopefully allow our fans to see more and more depth in HBR’s music.

Q:  What will most surprise people by the evening?

AR:  Hopefully people will be surprised by how much fun they can have at a Classical concert.  There will actually be a lot of music that is not “Classical.”  But I’m interested in breaking down barriers and showing people that Classical music can be fun and that there doesn’t need to be a wall between performer and audience.  People will also be blown away at the level of musicianship provided by the other musicians in the concert who are all top-shelf!

Q:  What does it mean to have seasonally-related tunes interspersed between the movements?  Any concerns about it feeling disjointed for the audience?

AR:  It shouldn’t be a disjointed experience for the audience at all.  I will seek to provide a good flow to the concert that blurs the distinctions between musical styles.   Songs like Summertime and Autumn Leaves are from the jazz idiom, but are beautiful tunes that leave a lot of room for interpretation.  I seek to bring a similar sense of spontaneity to the Vivaldi, which actually offers lots of space for a very individualistic version.

Q:  What would Vivaldi say if he attended?

AR:  Probably something in Italian that I would barely understand!?!  Vivaldi was a virtuoso who lived an interesting and productive life.  I think he’d approve of my desire to tie his music to other great composers.

Q:  Any interest in composing more Classical pieces and importing them into Hot Buttered Rum’s repertoire — a sort of fusion of Classical and Contemporary, akin to what people might expect at the Vivaldi show?

The instrumental music I bring into the Butter world tends to be influenced by American string music and jazz.  The great composers came up with much better Classical music than I ever could.

Q:  Fair enough.  Then let’s talk about some more contemporary composers.  I’d imagine that there aren’t not a lot of musicians out there who, sporting a Grateful Dead tattoo play a Dead cover in a bluegrass setting one night and a Vivaldi concerto in a Classical setting next.  Given the variety of music you play, and the multiple musical languages and vocabularies in you, is it ever hard to keep them separated?  Or is it something that you prefer not to separate, letting the musical languages meld into a sort of pidgin/fusion style all your own?

AR:  I’ve been inspired by people like Edgar Myer, Béla Fleck, Chris Thile, and Mark O’Connor.  All of them are musicians who are able to play fluently in a variety of musical styles while always sounding like themselves.  This comes from an understanding of each musical idiom that can only come from studying the repertoire of that style.  Developing a lifestyle that enables hours of practice is necessary to achieve that facility.  I try to forget everything when I’m on stage and let my imagination drive the experience.  Watching the Olympics really got me fired up. When you watch a transcendent athlete, you see that they give everything they have when the time is right and hope that the years of technical preparation provides them with the chops they need to succeed.

Q:  If you could step into a time machine and get on stage at some of the Dead shows you attended, which tune would you want to play fiddle on, and how do you think it would have sounded?

AR:  If I could have played with the Dead, I’d have picked something that had an open, free section like Bird Song or Dark Star.  Songs like that are completely different each time and I’d love to add my musical DNA to those tunes.  We [Butter] are about to do a tour with the Dark Star Orchestra in the Northeast in November.  Maybe that dream will kinda come true!

Q:  And now for the clichéd and obligatory (but often interesting) interview question:  What’s the most played music on your ipod or CD player this month?

AR:  Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. David Grisman.  And a few different versions of the Four Seasons.  And whatever someone gives me to listen.  I love discovering new music!

Q:  With all the talk of genre bending, and barrier crossing, I have to ask: Do you consider yourself more a fiddler or violinist, and is the only real difference between a fiddle and violin that no one has ever spilled beer on the latter?

AR:  Some of the best “Classical” players I know call their instruments fiddles.  I don’t make a distinction between the two and view them as interchangeable.  I love playing fiddle tunes and will continue to learn new ones as long as I live.  Gotta run, actually – I just spilled beer on my phone!?!