One of the highlights of this year’s South by Southwest Music Conference was Austin’s hometown classical-pop ensemble Mother Falcon. Crowding onto the small stage at the Hideout, these 13 classically trained youngsters proved they could be as edgy and as riveting as any of the much louder rock bands blaring forth along Sixth Street. They did so by harnessing the strong melodies and pushy rhythms of their competitors to the kind of mind-boggling shifts from theme to theme and harmony to harmony that only classical musicians can pull off.
The four strings, four horns, two guitars, bass, drums and keys alternated between instrumentals and vocal numbers. Only occasionally did they all play at once; more often various subsets of the group would be showcased. At one point the two cellists were playing a throbbing ostinato against a surf guitar; at another point a breathy female vocal from the acoustic guitarist was slowly overtaken by a storm of horns and strings. A stabbing, pizzicato rhythm from the four strings was picked up by the upright bass, drums and horns and built into a rumbling train rhythm, only to be eased to a stop by the wordless, cooing “ooh”s from the cellists.
It was a wonderful evening of music, for these twentysomething musicians had all the lush tone and precision intonation of their classical training but also the resolve to flout decorum and push boundaries. They understand the power of pop music’s muscular, repeating rhythms and catchy, memorable tunes and have found a way to integrate them into ambitious, art-music compositions.
As such, Mother Falcon is part of a new wave of classically trained musicians employing rock vocabulary with thrilling results. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, The National’s Bryce Dessner, San Fermin and Mother Falcon aren’t art-music stars trying to cross over; these are young musicians who, on the brink of their careers, diverted their fledgling classical skills into a genre that might actually reach their own generation: modern rock.
Three factors have enabled their efforts to succeed where so many previous stabs at a classical/rock fusion have flopped. One, these newcomers have a genuine knowledge and respect for both classical music and rock. They’re not classical conductors who sneer at the material as they arrange rock songs for a symphonic pops concert. They’re not status-hungry rockers just adding Beethoven quotations from BBC Radio 3 to add some “class” to their bar-band music. Nor are they adding Hollywood-style strings to pump up the grandiosity of their ballads. Both art music and pop music are part of their unconscious vocabularies, so they compose with both.
Two, these young players know that classical music didn’t stop with Giacomo Puccini (a fact that many symphony audiences still haven’t grasped). They are conversant with 20th century and even 21st century art music, which blend more easily with modern rock than music from the prior centuries. And, three, these musicians don’t dabble in the cerebral puzzles of so much contemporary art music; they aim their skills at the same emotional impact that rock ‘n’ roll has always targeted.
Mother Falcon grew out of Nick Gregg’s desire to hang onto his chosen instrument, the cello, and all the classical technique that went along with it while also writing new songs in the same vein as so many rock and Americana musicians in his hometown of Austin. Today that connection with Austin’s fertile Americana scene is further highlighted by Mother Falcon cellist Diana Burgess’ ongoing duo with singer/songwriter Curtis McMurtry (son of James, grandson of Larry).
Gregg was still in high school in 2008 when he gathered some like-minded string players his own age to create collaborative arrangements and compositions. The concept was so attractive to a generation of classically trained, rock-loving teenagers, that the string players were soon joined by accordion, trumpet, tenor sax, bouzouki, pedal steel guitar, drums and more. Before long, Mother Falcon became a large pool of young Austin musicians, with anywhere from 10 to 20 participating in any given live show or recording.
The group held together through high school and college graduations to release its third full-length studio album, Good Luck Have Fun, last year. The record divides neatly into two parts: five vocal numbers that blend elliptical indie-rock lyrics with pulsing contemporary art music, followed by seven instrumental selections from the score for a forthcoming film documentary about competitive gaming.
“Kid,” the first single, features mandolinist Claire Puckett whispering enchantingly about dangerous and cruel adolescent escapades in Texas’ limestone riverbeds, her dreamy soprano countered by spiky string figures that keep mutating into new themes. Even better is accordionist Tamir Kalifa’s keening tenor on the coming-of-age ballad, “Quiet Mind,” backed by music that breaks loose from the verse-chorus-bridge pop format to leap from theme to theme as rapidly as a recent college graduate might change personalities.
San Fermin was the highlight at last year’s South by Southwest Music Conference. The group could easily have been mistaken for just another indie-rock band from Brooklyn. The set-up was a little odd—trumpet, tenor sax, fiddle, lead male singer, lead female singer and rock rhythm section—but the thumping pulse and heart-on-a-sleeve vocals were familiar.