Presented by Equity Bank
Stefan Freund composed the music for an upcoming “audible landscape” at The Rabbit hOle, the immersive children’s literature museum in North Kansas City.
By turns scary, surprising, and then charming, the storybook in question—The Three Robbers by Tomi Ungerer—tells the tale of black-hatted bandits who strike at night, instilling fear in everyone except a brave orphan girl who turns the tables on the trio.
By turns classical, zippy, and unforgettable, the musical genius of Freund brings the story to all the senses.
“I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee,” says Freund, “and its music and culture have been a great influence on my life. Another important force in my development as a musician has been my dad, Don, a great composer and pianist. At age 5, I began playing piano, composing, and improvising. At 10, I switched over to cello, since it was easier to read music with one staff rather than two. When I played one of my own pieces for Janos Starker at my Indiana University audition, he said I was a better composer than a cellist, so I pursued that track in earnest.”
Now a professor of composition at the University of Missouri and the artistic director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI), Freund performs, conducts, composes, and produces new music. He is the founding cellist of the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, made up of 20 musicians who met at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His cello performances include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Met Museum, Merkin Hall, Millennium Park, Disney Hall, the Barbican (UK), the Hermitage Theatre (RU), the Muziekgebouw (ND), the World Financial Center, Culture Station Seoul, and the Beijing Modern Music Festival. His cello playing can be heard on 18 released albums featuring Alarm Will Sound.
Coming up are two projects: Performing with Alarm Will Sound for Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Pulitzer Finalist Paper Pianos at the University of Maryland on Saturday, May 10, and composing a concerto for Mizzou saxophone professor Leo Saguiguit and the Mizzou Wind Ensemble to be premiered this fall.
You have been called a musical “chameleon,” as you write in many different styles. What’s on your playlist these days that keeps you inspired?
I’m old school when it comes to listening to music and really love the radio. I find it intimidating to have to decide what to listen to when every piece of music from the history of the world is at your fingertips. I prefer for those decisions to be made for me by tuning into various radio stations and hearing whatever comes on. Similarly, as a composer, I hope I can dial up whatever style of music is appropriate for expressing the emotion or idea that needs to be communicated.
The composition for The Three Robbers began with a picture book. What are other jumping-off points you have had when creating your music?
The music for The Three Robbers came very easily to me since the text and pictures of the book were so evocative. There are also refrains in the music that had a particular rhythmic feeling that I used as motives. Other inspirations for the music were a lullaby when Tiffany goes to sleep, a march when the children go to the robbers’ castle, and rich chords that represent the robbers’ loot.
Tell us about American Wild Ensemble’s music and your work with them, especially Wild Revival.
My first experience working with the American Wild Ensemble was for their Missouri Music at 200 commissioning program. They asked composers to write pieces based on Missouri history, culture, and geography. I had wanted to write a piece influenced by Missouri fiddle music for a while, and I felt this opportunity was the perfect time to do so. There were three string players in the chamber ensemble, and they all have featured roles playing various virtuosic licks and riffs.
Tell us about your work with Alarm Will Sound, which pushes the parameters of music by incorporating text, video, theater, and movement in performances.
AWS just did a concert at Mizzou last Tuesday that featured interdisciplinary works. First, we premiered Brittany J. Green’s gLitchED dreams//invisible BEINGS, with narration and singing by Brittany as well as video by Kate Alexandrite. Then we premiered Ana E. López’s NÉBULA, which featured narration by Ana and a visual installation by Óldo Erréve. The second half was more conventional, at least by AWS’s standards. We played Oscar Bettison’s Livre des Sauvages. This three-movement piece includes the incredible sound world of the sinfonietta augmented by conch shell, recorder, harmonicas, tuning forks, melodicas, toy piano, electric guitar, and many unusual percussion instruments.