Greg Amerind Interview
This interview was conducted via email due to Greg's busy schedule and my being unable to meet ror a while.
Jean: You’ve spent almost a life time in the area of performance from what I’ve read on the web, and I am wondering if you could tell my web readers something about what it is like to be involved as a performer from very early on. Was the progression smooth, or did you sometimes meet steep challenges?
Greg: Actually, I never really thought about performing as a vocation until I hit high school. I had done some singing with my sister for parties and starred in a play she wrote and produced in our backyard. Plus I had played piano recitals up until I was nine or ten. At that point, I really wanted to be an athlete and music sort of took a back seat. I loved football and then got into tennis when I was in the ninth grade. I had started playing trumpet in eighth grade and discovered I was very good. But the biggest thing that kept me from thinking along the lines of a performing career was that I was painfully shy. I had very few friends and just kept to myself mostly. When I went into high school, I continued with trumpet and tennis, not really sure which I wanted to do more. They were pretty equal. But I gradually came to the realization that I wasn’t a very good tennis player, and I was a very good musician. So tennis became just a hobby. When I hit eleventh grade, two very important things happened that determined my course from that point forward. First, I did my first vocal solo with the jazz band. It was an arrangement of “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is” by the group Chicago. I was such a hit and didn’t really know what to do with my new-found fame and popularity. Next, I enrolled in the drama class. By the end of that year, I had joined choir, madrigals, and was cast in our musical production of Bye Bye Birdie and I was on my way! I continued with trumpet but singing and acting were quickly becoming my passion. When I graduated and started college, I still planned on majoring in trumpet, but, like I had discovered with tennis, as a trumpeter, I was mediocre, but I was very good at singing. So I changed to vocal performance and never looked back. Trumpet gradually faded into my past and singing took over. I also was beginning to compose and arrange by my senior year in high school and that continued as well. But getting back to the original question, I didn’t plan out my path. It simply opened and presented itself to me as I followed my heart. The biggest thing was overcoming my shyness, which was a gradual process. I still tend to be very reserved unless I am performing or teaching (which is the same dynamic).
Jean: What gives you the most satisfaction about being a performer, and what music do you like to perform best?
Greg: Connecting with the audience is easily the most satisfying aspect. Whether I’m singing, playing, acting, teaching, or delivering a singing telegram (one of my many day jobs) it’s all about connecting and sharing that part of myself. When I’ve performed in situations where that connection wasn’t made, it’s very disappointing. So I work hard to make it happen because otherwise, what’s the point really? I would have to say that jazz is the music I enjoy the most. Although I also love musical theater and choral singing, jazz is my passion.
Jean:. People are often curious about the performance world, and of course over time many magazine and newspaper articles tell about working with people who have become famous in the field. I’m curious to know something about the range of people you’ve encountered including some that did make the climb to fame.
Greg: I’ve known a lot of successful performers over the years, from high school on up. Most of them are not what I would call celebrities but simply people who work steady as performers. Some of them might be recognizable; there’s Jim Moret who was a year ahead of me in high school and played the lead in our afore-mentioned Bye Bye Birdie. He is now a well-known anchor and host on CNN. Daniel Esralow, also a HS classmate became a successful dancer and has his own dance company that tours around the world. Arye Gross is a well-known film actor who was a couple of years behind me. He was my roommate on a class trip to New York and at the time, he was the last person I would ever have expected to have a successful career. But he did very well. One of my closest friends since my freshman year in college is Cris Franco. Cris has written for sitcoms, done tons of theater, one man shows, stand-up, acted in several major films. He and I have stayed in touch over the years and recently got together when I was on tour with the Phoenix Boys Choir. To me, he’s the same guy I met in college. I’ve caught up with a lot of friends that I had lost touch with thanks to sites like Facebook and Classmates, and have been very pleased to find that most of them stayed with music and/or acting and have good careers. Many of them are teachers like me who still perform. Celebrity is what we all start out dreaming of, but it is a fleeting thing. It either comes or it doesn’t and I don’t think we really have any control over whether or not it happens. I have worked with a few heavy-weights, like Lionel Hampton, Neil Diamond, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Ann Jillian, John Astin, Patrick Duffy, etc. The interesting thing is that all of them were pretty much just like me. Just trying to connect to the audience and keep creating. I didn’t get the impression that they even thought of themselves as famous. Of course they knew they were famous and all that, but the way they interacted with me and other performers was as comrades, just trying to put on the best possible show that day. We were/are equals in that sense.
Jean: At the present time you have a really awesome job with the Phoenix Boys Choir. I am interested in knowing how you came into the position, and hearing about some of the job satisfactions and challenges.
Greg: I heard about the job as a student at ASU. I was going into my final year of my Bachelor in music education and it seemed a good place to get some great experience. It started as part time, administrative, overseeing their training program focusing on recruitment, but quickly turned into a much more involved position and within the first year, I found myself in the position of artistic assistant. The choir directing aspect is very rewarding and gets easier all the time as I learn on the job. I’ve also done some composing and arranging for the Tour and Masters Choirs which has been really fun. The challenge is two-fold – balancing the time commitment with everything else in my life, and constantly trying to recruit new boys into the program. That never stops because the boys can only go so far before they graduate, their voice changes or they just move on to something else as boys that age often do. In order for the program to continue, there is a constant need for new boys to join. That’s particularly tough right now with the down economy. We have to compete with other activities, and we have to convince the parents that their son is getting a world class music education to justify the cost.
Jean: David Britton told me that in the early part of your career, you were a studio musician. I’d like to know something about what that kind of work entails, and how you got into that aspect of the business. I imagine that in doing this you also became a union member.
Greg: I actually never did much union work. In LA it was possible to work a lot under the radar, and often the pay was better, because you could name your own price instead of being forced into a scale payment. Most of what I did was songwriters and publisher demos. The main thing was that you had to be a first-class reader and a quick and flexible study. It was often not the most creative job because you had to deliver whatever the people who hire you wanted. But it was always fun. A couple of times, I was hired by someone who had no clue about music and expected us to just do what they wanted without any printed music. I remember one time; a famous TV personality hired a quartet to do back-up on his trophy wife’s Country and Western album. She was an okay singer, but we arrived and had no music to sing. They just sort of said, do something like this and then would try to demonstrate what they wanted. It quickly became obvious that we would have to create the harmonies on the spot. This was where my abilities as a composer and arranger would come in handy. On that occasion, I took the famous TV guy aside and negotiated some extra pay to “arrange” the vocals. I expected him to react badly and fire all of us, but to my surprise, he totally got it, and agreed to my terms. So we took a break, I got some music paper and sketched out the vocal parts and we just did it. I think he was actually very impressed and got a real lesson in professionalism that day. The session actually turned out really well. I don’t think the CD was ever released commercially though. This lead to some other gigs where I was asked to arrange in advance. I did join SAG due to some work I did on the Neil Diamond movie “The Jazz Singer.” I still get an occasional residual from that film, too. Cool, huh? That was the one and only union job I did. But I ended up with a brief appearance on screen. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it, hah!
Jean: What sources do you draw on for the development of imagination in your singing? Does this vary with the audience or primarily with the content of the music?
Greg: That’s a very interesting question. I would say I draw primarily from the text of the music. Like I said before, I like to make sure that I connect with the audience. To me, that connection begins with connecting to the piece I am performing. And I can always find something in the piece that is personal, even if only one line, but then that becomes my focal point. Once I get a feel for how the audience is responding, I may adjust what I’m doing to evoke a deeper response. But truthfully, I don’t intellectualize it. It’s a feeling, instinctual.
Jean: I know that you are also a composer. I am curious to know how long you have been composing, and what you like to write best.
Greg: I began writing at the piano very early, according to my mom. She heard me making stuff up when I was four or five. I wrote my very first song at around age twelve, on the guitar. It was called Chocolate Ice Cream, a pop-song about my favorite desert food. At fifteen I was writing all the time, usually some morose love song on the guitar. When I was sixteen, I sang an original composition on stage for the first time at one of our band performances. It was a lullaby for my girlfriend at the time, and I sang it as a surprise for her primarily. I didn’t have any grandiose idea that I was a singer-songwriter at that point. I was also writing arrangements for the band and orchestra. This was due to the encouragement of our music teacher, himself a composer and arranger. He gave us all the opportunity to write and workshop our pieces. A true educator. So by the time I got to college, I had already been given the equivalent of two years of college theory and composition. From the beginning, I wrote mostly jazz, folk and pop music. In my twenties, I focused on jazz, because I had a professional jazz vocal ensemble. I also almost always had some kind of volatile romantic relationship going that gave me a lot of fuel for writing. I was always fascinated with what I call long-form writing. I was rarely satisfied with the typical pop formula of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus, etc. My songs were usually more jazz influenced and somewhat symphonic in form. Some of my early stuff was very experimental, relied heavily on improvisation, usually six to eight minutes in length. Without realizing it, I was approaching composition as art song. Ironically, art song is now my favorite form, along with choral music. My choral arrangements include an 8-movement a cappella set based on Pagan folklore, a Jazz Oratorio for chorus and jazz band, and lots of traditional and jazz compositions. My art song output is getting bigger all the time, my latest being a seven song-cycle setting of text from the Hermann Hesse novel, Siddhartha. I think at last count I had close to 200 compositions in varying modes and genres.
Jean: What are some of your future career goals?
Greg: I’d like to get all of my compositions and arrangements published and into mass circulation. I also plan to finish my Masters in Vocal Performance Pedagogy this year, and start on my DMA. I’m looking for a university that will allow me to focus a vocal performance degree in the area of jazz studies. I currently direct ASU’s vocal jazz ensemble and would like to do that at some school for the rest of my days. It would also be fun to sing in a professional vocal jazz ensemble again, but it isn’t something I’m actively seeking. I will continue to compose songs and choral music, and teach privately as well as in the classroom. I’ve always wanted to run a music school in some remote mountain area. I think I still harbor a dream of acting in a film again, with a quirky character that everyone remembers. I would also like to make a recording that wins a Grammy.
Jean: I notice that you were at Pepperdine. Can you tell me anything about the musical experience there, and also perhaps something about your musical mentors over the years.
Greg: I was never actually a student there. I did my undergrad at Cal State Northridge and UCLA before finally finishing at ASU. Pepperdine is my dad’s college. He has been a dean there for the last 30 years. My performances there include a couple of sets with Lionel Hampton, a performance of Carmina Burana, and just this past spring, on tour with the Phoenix Boys Choir. It’s a wonderful location and I love to sing there. My musical mentors, hmmm. Well I’ve already mentioned my high school band teacher, his name was John Magruder. So many of his students went on to very successful careers as musicians and teachers of music, because he fostered us. My first real voice teacher was a man named John Guarnieri. He taught me much of what I know about singing. He was an amazing man, with a huge heart and I always left my lessons completely encouraged and empowered. John Alexander was my first choral director in college. He is such an amazing artist. He more than anyone created in me a deep love for choral music because he was so connected to his singers and his audience through the music. And my very dear friend Cris Franco whom I mentioned before. He has great instincts as a writer. He gave me some of the most comprehensive one-one lessons in songwriting that I could have ever had. Cris would help me break down my lyrics to the bare bones and then build it back up. He more than anyone taught me the importance of clarity as a writer and performer. Then there’s David Britton. He took a middle aged, out of shape, mis-directed voice and helped me erase 30 years of gunk. I love singing now more than I ever did, largely because of the work we do.
Jean: I know that you also have an eye to the well being of the country and the world and various causes there-in. Would you like to share something about these interests???
Greg: I am very concerned about the human race right now. I’ve always been politically minded, but after I became a parent, my concern grew 100 fold. I don’t think most people realize how precious our freedoms are, and how easily they can disappear if we don’t protect them. My biggest pet peeve is ignorance because in our country there is simply no excuse for it. Many people are just lazy and are easily lead astray. That’s fine on an individual basis, but when that ignorance becomes widespread enough that we start electing leaders have no moral scruples, it becomes everyone’s problem. As an educator myself, I find it deeply disturbing to find what is being taught to many of our children and do everything I can to counteract it with what I know to be the truth. My advice to everyone is “do your homework” and don’t take my word or anyone else’s word for what is said in the media or in your immediate environment. It’s human nature to spread misinformation, so do your best not to give in and try to spread the truth with facts, not gossip or hearsay.
Jean:. Is there anything else people should know about you and what you do?
Well, I’m a Buddhist and have been for the past twenty-five years. I practice with the Soka Gakkai (value creating society) which is a world wide lay organization in over 200 countries. We chant “Nam myoho renge kyo” which is the essence of the entirety of the Buddha’s teachings. It says basically that all sentient beings inherently possess the Buddha nature, all are Buddha. Chanting that phrase activates this inherent nature and penetrates all of the other aspects of human nature, thereby elevating the individual to manifest his highest potential. Everything I accomplished in the last twenty-five years is a direct result of my Buddhist practice. I am also a father of three magnificent girls, ages 18, 20 and 37, and a grandfather of two, ages 7 and 9. I’ve been happily married for twenty-two years. My wife is an aspiring actress my soul mate and my best friend, my two younger daughters are aspiring artists and my oldest daughter is a teacher. I have blue eyes, silvery hair, and love the ocean. My favorite place in the known universe is Yosemite Valley. I love long bike rides, floating in a cool swimming pool and two hour long soaks in a big tub.
Eric Christopher Perry Interview
I was delighted a few days ago to be able to once again get out for a coffee while continuing with these interviews. As it turns out, Eric is like me--a real talker once he gets started, and our free wheeling discussion in the end didn't conform too closely to the questions I'd written out in advance. This was fine though, as the spontaneity created an interesting time of it.
An ASU, M.M. Voice Performance student, Eric is one of those individuals who also gets the whole picture, and who to my view is capable of ultimately being a very good conductor. His previous experience with musicals and opera not only includes given roles, but in the realm of directing in community theatre at age twenty-four, he already has handled five productions. This work has given him perspective on the medium that one called in for a role or two might not really notice. I asked him to tell me about these experiences and he explained the challenges of working with differing set sizes, and limited space at times for what is presently referred to as art theater. This was a new term for me, but to put it simply, historically informed performance is OK, but changes can be made to give a freshness to an older work. In one case Eric had worked on the score of Cabaret (as director/conductor), and eliminated the ending orchestral aspect of one song so that the nuanced vocal would stand out and give a subtle performance quality that would be a bit startling and memorable.
Eric says that when he is a director he doesn’t really do anything another director wouldn’t. Instrumentation is reduced to what the traffic will bear for a venue, or in one case he doubled the orchestra size to produce some new excitement in another production.
I was particularly interested in how he approaches a score and staged work. His ideas are very definite. His actors/singers are not to learn a role from a CD and then replicate what they hear, but they are to listen once or twice to get the general idea and the development of the role takes place in rehearsals and coaching. Eric, on his own listens to every single recording of a production he can lay his hands on, and at the end of that process is fully aware of where anything he sees or hears in his cast may have come from. Then, whatever is going on is modified in the rehearsal process to give something new. From his singer’s training Eric approaches the storyline and singing with excellent singing as the foundation for his work. By contrast an instrumentalist might be thinking about the orchestral colors and variation, first. But as a text first person my opinion is that the story line leads over the accompaniment despite the amazing level of playing that comes from any given orchestra, so I found myself in a agreement with his studied approach.
In the case of his work with Cabaret, Eric reduced the first act instrumentation to one upright piano (tacked piano), one upright bass, a small percussion trap kit, and clarinet. The clarinet doubled for siren sound effects--the sound all being produced live in a very limited space. For those who know the small theater setting this is an appealing combination, but for contrast Eric switched to harp for music in the second act. Adaptation then, is a key to creating art theater . The theater set was built on a square with the audience surrounding with a absolute minimal size. The challenges involved in any case are trusting the melodies and harmonies to carry the story, and the story is central. But I am always impressed when I attend a production to know and understand the technicalities that must be met to convey the medium--the line of the story.
In Eric’s view the composer has generally already written what is needed to convey the words. Mozart is a favorite of his in this regard. Cosi Fan Tutti offered Eric an early role playing the part of Fernando…a young and foolish type of character. After this first role several of Eric’s teachers did not really think his voice was suited for opera and reflecting back to his first voice teacher, Eric shared that her principle interest was having him sing Sondheim. But as a student of music with a broad base of interest, Eric became aware early that certain voice types might offer more employment than others. He likes the recitalist opportunities that come his way, as well as chances to sing Bach and Handel. Listening to him, he has already developed some of the qualities that made his teacher David Britton something of a specialist of the Baroque period.
We spent some time speculating about various composers, both past and present, and whether the vocal work is enhanced, simplified or at times detracted by the created accompaniments. Eric is a great contemporary fan of Jason Robert Brown, who was until our discussion unknown to me. Brown is, Eric explained, very popular with young people today. He writes about moments in ordinary experience, and to illustrate the concept Eric made up on the spot a song about the interview we were doing in the Wildflower Baking Company. I was delighted, and reminded of something people might write in a diary, or to a friend on email, or perhaps something one might do to journal finding one’s way through life. Brown, according to Eric, keeps the lyrics simple, but sometimes the piano elaborations are encompassing enough to pull from the text. Retrospectively I got to wondering if the accompaniment always follows what is going on textually, or if at times on a different plane the subconscious is doing a little exploring on its own, and the words are somehow just fitted to the musical moment. Cost and color combined with creativity are the main considerations and produce thrills and memories, and talking about these elements of process a nice intellectual respite from just being busy and getting a job done.
Having said that, such a view is a topic later for further exploration. When ‘you’ visit with Eric his mind is very focused, and he is very goal oriented, but I’ve observed over a bit of time that he is quite able to be working on more than one thing at once. Preparing for his part in a Studio 303 show, I also observed him working in his spare time in the green room taking care of some bits and pieces of other projects he had coming up. At the same time all of this was going on he also was joking around with colleagues who seemed to be very much enjoying his style of banter. He says quirky puntastic (his word) humor is what gets him by. But when he is in charge as a director, he purports to have a change of character--opinionated, terse, sarcastic and so on. Working with friends Jayson Keeton, Aundre Seals and the art theater concept, getting a rise from the crowd and even hearing screams of reaction from the audience is a goal, as accomplished in the Cabaret production where the bare voice in the end produced a wave of emotion. Key, is isolating what is needed.
Whatever the opportunities that come, Eric is ready to jump in and take advantage of the newness. One of his primary mentors has been Gerald Thomas Gray of Fredonia, New York. Gerald arranged for Eric to go on tour with him at one point briefly, and Eric fell in love with the life style of travel and singing in different places and fresh possibilities for an interesting musical life. His present goals include working toward moving to Minneapolis eventually, where he thinks he may be able to pursue a whole range of musical venues that his training has prepared him to do. Ideally, being able to work the range from singer, to director and teach keeps one in an environment that has great career good he has discovered.
One always wonders how musicians get to where they do in life. Some members of Eric’s family are not musically inclined at all. He did have a grandmother who was at one time a behind the scenes radio organist, and when he was young his father who is a guitarist and Eric worked together as a team providing music to nursing homes and singing at parties. His father asked him to harmonize, and it was something he did instinctively prior to study. Those factors plus, and I had to appreciate this…a love of the rhythms of Paula Abdul’s music pointed him in the right direction. If anyone has seen Paula in the last year or so performing with Randy Jackson on a special he organized, she’s still got it. The influences come from everywhere. Piano techniques today by Erik Whitaker, also impact the concept of variety in his work. Hot sticks from the early years, and synth drum sounds added the rhythmic level.
Today, with the partnership of a friend, Eric is doing some recording for an unusual CD label. This is a public domain effort, and the approach is coverage rather than making money. In a typical evening with torrent downloading, over 200 people around the world can obtain some of the songs Eric has written. At this point recording is not about the money, but about becoming known to expand his career. Funding by grants and donation cover the server and production costs.
Philosophically Eric has a bit of a mantra that he reminds himself is good for living--”keep it in perspective.” He also refers back to his first voice teacher Thea Wheeler, who taught him to strive for perfection daily even though it is not fully attainable. Gerald Gray, and David Britton who is Eric’s present teacher have pointed him in the direction which generates the energy that reciprocates. Eric cannot say enough good things about these mentors. When the going gets tough, as it does for all of us at times, Eric throws himself into his work. He reminisces about working on the Rocky Horror Show production at one point, and how using his creativity in that venue pulled him through a crossroads time.
I am always struck by the fact that it takes such a combination of angles to make a full fledged musician, but I enjoy writing about people like Eric and how they approach the challenges. Yes, the applause is the reward, but the process is the trip, and Eric likes very much to travel.
