FGM Turns 200! with Megan Chartier - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 201: FGM Turns 200! with Megan Chartier - Part 1

Looking for a way to listen to diverse creators and to support equity in the arts? Tune in weekly to For Good Measure!

In this week's episode, we continue FGM Turns 200!, a mini-series where we talk to Ensemble for These Times' members and past guest artists. Today, we are joined by E4TT's cellist Megan Chartier, who we spoke to in May 2025. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Megan Chartier, check her out here: https://www.meganchartier.com/.

This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/18963620

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Christy Xu

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we are joined by E4TT cellist, Megan Chartier. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

Nanette McGuinness  00:28

Thank you so much for joining us, Megan. We are thrilled to have you both as part of E4TT and for this podcast.

Megan Chartier  00:36

Thanks for having me.

Nanette McGuinness  00:37

Sure so first, tell me about your musical journey or path.

Megan Chartier  00:41

Well, where do you want me to begin?

Nanette McGuinness  00:45

Wherever you want. This is an open ended question. It could start yesterday, or it could start when you were a baby.

Megan Chartier  00:52

Oh, well, I won't start... I mean, but I was, actually, I was thinking about this as it pertains to contemporary music. You know, I followed a very traditional background in music where I started in school, I was drawn to the cello and kind of rode out all the youth orchestras and all the very typical routes through my master's program and and that's where I think, you know, things kind of deviate a little bit and get a little interesting. But I had, actually, after leaving Michigan with my Master's from University of Michigan, I had some friends convinced me to move down to Miami with them to start a string trio. So we had done our degrees together at Michigan, and they had moved down a year before, and I wasn't doing anything. What does anyone do when they graduate with their masters and don't have the next degree planned? So I said sure, and we did a summer festival together in Miami as my kind of test to see whether or not I'd move there. And we did that, and things went well. Made a lot of connections in the Miami area, and very quickly moved down there. And so we ended up starting a string trio called the Wind Wood Trio, and we played a lot of different well. We started this classical and started to deviate a little bit. And at that point, I think we all decided we had different interests and so, but we stayed in Miami together after that, and I was principal of Miami Symphony, and they were also, I think was Principal Second and Assistant Principal Viola. So we were all friends, tight, doing those types of things. But in Miami, there's always many different genres and directions you can go. And so it was very interesting. And I did that, played with a bunch of orchestras around all around Florida, and made some friends. And I was, I was thinking back to the very first I was mentioning the contemporary music connection to this. And one of the things I had done some contemporary music at Michigan, but then, when I had gone down for this festival, I was part of the contemporary music institute that preceded the actual festival. So I had made some friends, and I had given a recital, as I had won a competition at Michigan where I had to come back after I had graduated to give a performance in an Armer. And I ended up commissioning, or co-commissioning, a friend of mine, Emmanuel, buried out to write a piece for solo cello. And so I had this concert where I had it was all 50th, like, in 50 year increments of anniversaries. So...

Nanette McGuinness  03:45

Oh cool.

Megan Chartier  03:46

...the Debussy Sonata... and I'm trying to remember what else but a whole bunch of things. And then it ended with a premiere of, you know, his work. And so that was kind of my introduction to real contemporary music. And then I moved to after Miami, I moved to Texas, and I was playing with San Antonio Symphony for several years, and ended up moving out to the Bay Area, where my husband was a conductor, and he decided to leave conducting and go and go to law school. So he went to Berkeley, and I came here, and so I've been playing freelancing around here, and I'm Principal of the... of Opera San Luis Obispo down the coast, and I teach at Cal Poly.

Nanette McGuinness  04:34

Wow. Well, we're certainly glad you moved out here.

Megan Chartier  04:37

Yeah, I love it here. I... it was always the dream. It was always the goal to get out west.

Nanette McGuinness  04:45

Yeah, did any other instruments tempt you when you were little? Or did the cello call your name from the get go?

Megan Chartier  04:51

So I wanted to play the biggest instrument that they had, and that was the cello at the time. Bass was not an option, but I did actually play bass. When I was in college, we had to play a secondary instrument, and so I only for like a semester, and I but I just like violin to Viola. It it's kind of a smooth transition, more or less. And so I ended up playing bass for like two years and and really considered switching over to bass. Wow. Full time I played musicals where I played both cello and bass, and so you could catch me, you know, on campus with, you know, walking around with my cello on my back and my bass in the front and my stool on the other side, yeah, but I decided to keep with cello.

Nanette McGuinness  05:38

Yes. Well, we're glad you did that, but that raises the interesting question, if we ever had a piece with that needed bass, would you still play it or you don't play it anymore?

Megan Chartier  05:49

It's been, how long it's it's been well over 10. It's been about Gotcha 1313, years, maybe since I played bass. I mean, I could maybe figure it out, but probably not.

Nanette McGuinness  06:01

Probably not, because you don't have one.

Megan Chartier  06:03

I don't... I don't have one! That that would be the first problem. (laughing)

Nanette McGuinness  06:07

And they are very small things.

Megan Chartier  06:11

Exactly.

Nanette McGuinness  06:13

I hear that you and your family are doing a little family reunion this summer in Arizona and going to an Instrument Museum. Do the rest of your family play instruments as well?

Megan Chartier  06:26

They do not. I think, funny anecdote that I always say when I when somebody asks me, this is that we all tried, with the exception of my brother, I'm one of four, but I have a twin sister who played the violin when I have a twin and, and she can, she would agree with this, so I can say this, but she's probably the worst violinist, and and so. And she really tried. She gave it. She tried to play through college and everything, but, but nope. That was a hard Nope. But, in fact, actually my parents, my mom, always talks about when, when she was pregnant with us, one side of her belly was anytime they do the whole Mozart Effect thing, and one side was doing somersaults, and one side was just like, nothing. It's really clear. Yeah. And so when I was a baby, it was pretty clear sitting in front of Barb Barney, you know, one of us is like going crazy and the other one's just nothing. And so it was always a part of me, but my my mom played instruments growing up, but and listens to music now, but it's just, you know, for fun. But my dad is the real I think, where I the biggest amount of musical passion from and so when I he played, took piano lessons here and there when I was a kid, and always had an interest in guitar, but I started playing guitar in middle school, probably because of Guitar Hero and other things like that, and I had a little band, and we only played one song. And did we ever play one song? I don't know, but I really wanted to play guitar. So when I got my first guitar, my dad taught me smoke in the water and Jesse's Girl, and those were the two songs, two songs he could play, and the two songs that granted me access to other things on guitar. And I was not a great guitar player by any means, but I really liked, just like playing and and singing. And to this day, actually, I recently got my son a guitar, and so I play for him now, and just just little songs and kids things and other things. But yeah, and so with my dad, music has been a huge passion where, I mean, it's just always on. So every time he's working, it's just blasting. And the joke too is that every every time I got in trouble, my lessons were always coming out in the form of Rush lyrics, most, mostly always rush my dad's favorite band, but, but I just, I know everything, basically about non classical music, you know, through, through my dad's music and and branched off from there. And so that was always a big thing, and now he we get to share the passion a little bit. He, in covid, started picking up guitar, and he's got like 20 guitars, and he built recording like a little recording studio in his basement, pretty big collection, including some some guitars signed by Alex Lifeson of Rush, of course, of course, yeah, and so. But he's, he goes in and out, but it's pretty, pretty obsessed with just the noodling of it. It actually really helps him. This is just an interesting thing outside of the background, but he's a computer pro. Armer. And so he saw the developer Exactly. And so, so it's, it helps him, like, problem solve, I think, out of certain things. So he'll kind of noodle around and move his fingers, and it's almost like a, like a fidget toy connected to his musical passion. So, so it's kind of a fun thing to explore now, and especially with three young grandsons. That's his, like, he's, he's the cool grandpa with his guitar.

Nanette McGuinness  10:26

That's a cool, well, it probably, you know, in the noodling around if he's working with a different part of his brain, and it frees his brain that needs to work on it in the background to figure something out. So, yeah...

Megan Chartier  10:37

Well, and that's actually how I feel about art with like music and art, is that one informs the other. They're not the same part of my brain, and so I have to use cello oftentimes helps me problem solve. Out of some difficult the Shostakovich cover that I'm doing actually is involves something that it's kind of crazy. I've never done it. I've never seen it done before, but I am determined it's going to happen. It's going to be the coolest thing ever. Evolves. Involves a lot of 24 karat gold. And so, yeah, and that's very funny. I love gold. I would put gold on every single thing. It's on most of my drawings, but, yeah, but it's I definitely have to, you know, practice to be able to, like, I'm just playing scales and playing noodly things, and then all of a sudden it just comes to me, I know how I'm gonna manage this, like, difficult, technical thing with the art, and then same way, the other way around. And so if I'm really not I'm stuck on a passage I'll draw, and sometimes, just like the rhythm of the pen, because I do cross hatching that like, literally, the the music of the pen on the page kind of helps, helps me work out, just like I get kind of in a zone, in flow, where I'm not thinking about the drawing, I'm thinking about the other things. And I think it's the same way for cello onto the other thing. And I think I will ask my dad about that, but I'm pretty sure it's the same for him.

Nanette McGuinness  12:08

I would bet. I would bet. Well, that's very sweet, actually, when I think about it, you and your dad his musical interest.

Nanette McGuinness  12:16

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Megan Chartier, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to Co-producer and Audio Engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]