Sonic Circuits Interview: 21st Century Ensemble
What happens when you take four musicians who are excellent, even extraordinary on their own and put them together in a room and just tell them to play? Tonight, you'll get to find out with the 21st Century Ensemble. Janel Leppin (cello) and Anthony Pirog (guitar) have crafted beautiful pieces on their own but when combined with the Lost Civilizations duo of Mike Sebastian (reeds) and T.A. Zook (basscello, miscellaneous instruments) they create a far more complex array of textures and sounds. And it's all improvised. The way the quartet played off each other at Pyramid Atlantic on Saturday night was sometimes loud and challenging and sometimes melodic and smooth, but never boring. We caught up with them after the Pyramid Atlantic show (celebrating the District of Noise, Volume 2 release). Catch them for yourself tonight on the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage at 6 p.m. for free.
How many different saxophones do you play?
Mike: Just two saxophones and a bass clarinet. Three wind instruments.
It sounds like you prefer the tenor?
Mike: Yeah, I prefer the tenor over the rest of them. That’s my main axe.
I’d heard that you two (Janel & Anthony) have recently left D.C.. Where are you living now?
Janel: The Lower East Side.
What was the impetus for moving up there?
Anthony: We both grew up here. I went to school there so I had a great time, knew what it had to offer. Janel has never left this area.
Janel: Well, to live. So, I was excited about the energy there. There’s so much creative energy.
Anthony: We’re still here quite a bit, though.
I was wondering if you still had a strong tie to other musicians here.
Janel: We love Washington, D.C.
Anthony: That was the problem, yeah. I was here for two or three weeks. There for a week. Now I’m here for a week and a half. So, we’re still bouncing back and forth.
Mike: In my opinion, I mean, I can’t speak for them, but New York City’s kind of a stepping stone up, that’s where it’s all at. There’s great creative musicians around here too, don’t get me wrong, but New York is where things seem to go. A lot of the great jazz musicians from all over, from United States to Europe, all move to New York City to try to make it. That’s where it’s at. And I really hope that they do well there. So that they can invite me down there.
Ted: I’ll be so overbearing to put it in one word: destiny. It’s their destiny. That’s where they’re going. Things are going to happen.
Branching off of the last interview we did with you...what’s the newest guitar?
Anthony: ’63 Silvertone. It’s really exciting.
Janel: That’s not the newest one.
Anthony: Oh, Surf Green Acoustic, never mind.
What do you go for as far as sound and aesthetic when the four of you get together as opposed to when you do things separately?
Ted: That’s hard to say. Janel and Anthony have beautifully crafted pieces that they play as a duo. It’s amazing, if it’s something you haven’t heard yet. Check out their MySpace. The four of us together, do, I think, a completely different thing. It’s not scored. It’s not rehearsed. It’s improvised extemporaneously on the spot. You never know, you’re just letting the muse come through.
Mike: It’s a very stimulating project for me. I play with a few different other groups and they’re all different. I like this one. It can be melodic and yet very experimental as well. It’s kind of got the best of both worlds. I play in another group that’s like, high energy free jazz. I play in another group that, it’s hard to explain. It’s a different flavor, just because of the different personalities involved.
Ted: Mike and I also play in a duo that’s also all improvised. Lost Civilizations.
Mike: A lot of times we have a guest play with us. That’s a very melodic kind of space. Whereas I play in another kind of free jazz thing where everybody’s kind of going crazy blowing at the same time. Total chaos. It’s just different. But I think Lost Civilizations has a little bit of the tie with 21st century.
Is the Kennedy Center Stage new territory for any of you or is this something that you’ve all done before?
Mike: It’s brand new to me.
Ted: New to me.
Anthony: Me too.
Janel: I’ve played there a lot, but as a classical musician, which is my background. But the Millennium Stage, it’s a beautiful, free stage. It’s great exposure. It’s wonderful that they’re open to having us there, the Sonic Circuits festival, because it’s not your typical, run of the mill Millennium Stage performance, so it’s kind of exciting. I did it two years ago with this really wonderful composer from Lithuania for laptop and two cellos. And it was beautiful, really exciting. I had no visual score just headphones. And I was playing what I heard in the headphones. So I learned the score and memorized it by ear which was a really interesting process as opposed to a visual score. And then I played koto also. It’s a Japanese seven foot long instrument. I played in a big ensemble playing koto there. And I played in the concert hall too, as a child, playing in youth orchestras. But it’s such an exciting beautiful place and I’m really happy to be playing something happening right now.