Life as Working Musicians in Italy

We aim to answer all your questions about what our lives are like as working freelance musicians here in Italy. 

In the US, we were professional symphonic musicians, Grammy-nominated performers and producers, recording artists, and "giggers"... Until we quit our jobs, sold everything, and started a new life in Italy. And we moved three months before the Covid pandemic lockdowns! So getting started was more challenging than we expected. We compare and contrast our musician life between Italy and the US, explain how we keep ourselves busy here, and recount a few crazy stories.

Want to know more about us and our travel services? Find us at:

www.LittleRoadsEurope.com

www.facebook.com/LittleRoadsEurope

We craft small-town driving itineraries for travelers to Italy, Ireland and Scotland.

And our "alter-egos" as musicians:

www.OrsiniVirtuosi.it

Transcript

MUSICIAN talk

Note: this is not a complete transcript, but rather the show notes that we prepare in advance for ourselves to practice

INTRO: 

Welcome to Little Roads Unfiltered: Italy and Beyond

Today we’re talking about a little slice of life, our life here in Italy as professional musicians - Among other things, we’ll discuss:

- How the term “4 eyes” applies to a business meeting

- How music biz is different in Italy

- What our lives have been like as musicians since moving 

[ROLL MUSIC]

[fade music to 20%]

This is Matt Walker

…and I’m Zeneba Bowers - 

We’re recording while sitting on the terrace of our tiny home in Italy - so you’ll get a sense of the sounds of life in our little town. We want this to be more like a casual conversion with us, rather than a scripted studio session - complete with church bells, cats meowing, motor scooters and trains and the town’s daily siren, and maybe the occasional clink of our drinks. 

“ … we’ll be talking what life has been like, here in Italy working as musicians , in today’s unedited chat - here on Little Roads Unfiltered: Italy and Beyond.”

[Music up then fade out]

For those of you who don’t know us: We are professional musicians and also travel writers and consultants, living and working here in Italy for almost 6 years. 

If you want to learn more about us and our lives, you can find us on our website LittleRoadsEurope..com, on our socials, and now here on our new podcast, which we’re going to do unedited, as if you’re sitting here chatting with us - 

…and by the way, we hope you like our intro music - Matt arranged it, and we recorded it right here in our house! Since we’re musicians working here in Italy, we thought that would be a fun and sensible addition to our show.

So let’s talk about our life as musicians … 

First, a little about our past life:

We met in Nashville, in 1999 when we started working in the symphony there. 

Founded a chamber music ensemble, essentially a group of friends. and with that ensemble we commissioned over 35 new pieces of music, recorded and produced four CDs, the first of which received a Grammy nomination. Ran that ensemble for 16 years.

Really appreciated in the orchestra, in a really beautiful hall built in 2006, perfect acoustics, very comfortable backstage area. Recorded a lot with the orchestra as well. In addition, we played a lot of gigs on the side like recording sessions.

Remember, during this whole time, we were also forming and running LRE, and we published four guidebooks. And we were ready for change, work life balance

Very unusual to have two jobs together in an orchestra. Even more unusual for a couple to move. So we knew if we quit it was quitting forever.

And we were relatively young 47, 51 when we quit. But given a once in a lifetime opportunity when they granted us both work visas. Could go on all day, but we wrote a book instead.

Suffice it to say we were ready to pare our lives down and try something unusual.

Moved three months before the pandemic, with a sack full of plans. Long history of working with both classical and pop musicians, plans to bring people here. Two days before we left Matt went to a meeting to start the ball rolling on sister city initiative

The day after we got here, we were sitting in rehearsal with an amateur baroque ensemble, that we had been invited to sit in with because of Facebook connections. Figured it would be a good way to meet people, and we did! We still play with the soprano, and a violinist from the group.

First set of rehearsals: no time limit, very casual. Wine. Food made by the group’s leader. Chummy atmosphere. Funny because we didn’t know a lot of terms (like stand, rehearsal, or “turn the page”). Italian terms in music

Played a Christmas concert with the group, all baroque music obviously, except for the final piece, “Adeste Fidelis” (O Come All Ye Faithful), soprano in a gorgeous fire engine red dress.

House sale fell through, cat died. Screeching halt to plans

Community service was an important part of our lives in Nashville, and we wanted to continue that here, so a local contact helped us set up our first service which was a free concert at the local elder folk’s home. Invited to Christmas dinner at the soprano’s home, which was a big family event. Had to stay sober which was hard to do given the circumstance. Then we stupidly decided to walk to the gig, since we had no car at the time, cold as hell, really hard walk on a steep incline.

At gig: super nervous! Soprano’s whole family showed up to cheer us on. Really heartwarming. Continued with that gig every year, always at Christmas, and also at least one other time each year.

Didn’t do too much musically right away; just settling in as immigrants, paperwork, house stuff, buying a car, US house sale fell through. Then pandemic!

— “ADVERTISEMENT” BREAK —

SIREN INTERRUPTION: We mentioned that you’d hear the town’s siren - we’ll talk about that in a later episode. But:

That reminds me that we need to stop for a word from our sponsor - - - - 

- - - just kidding, we don’t have any sponsors - and we’re not looking for any either, we want to keep this an ad-free show.

So today’s show is brought to you by: A Good Idea. 

And today’s Good Idea is: 

- Send postcards from your travels!

That’s it!

… So anyway, where were we?

Decided to do a concert series, and commit to playing a different piece every night on Facebook live until the lockdown lifted. No idea how long it was going to be, ended up being over 10 weeks. 62 concerts in a row, outside in all weather. Not easy to find so many works, we had composers and musicians sending us arrangements and suggestions from around the world. Town called and asked if they could broadcast it into the main piazza, and also if we could delay so they could play the national anthem. Man below walking his dog and saluting every time

About halfway through CBS Sunday Morning contacted us because they were doing a story about musicians playing on their balconies in Italy.

At the time we were in talks to perform at the Narnia Festival. Hoping the festival would go on, she engaged us for a few concerts: with the orchestra, and a concert in a 13thC church by candlelight. Also, American Country! FLEXIBLE

Turned out that Narnia was the first summer festival to come back. Spacing, masks, even outdoors. Flayed alive if we played this show in Nashville

That summer we learned new things, which still hold true:

- Temp controls , living in the seasons

- late start, usually 9 or later, for cool rooms. Dinner is always at 8, still don’t understand this

- no real green rooms, bathroom. Sacristy. Sometimes We rent our own,

-quattro occhi, prefer face time above all.

-concerts often advertised on posters, sometimes without listing program

That summer we did the Moon concert, with Floriana and Lois. Matt made arrangements of a couple of pieces (Claire de Lune), moon themed soprano works. Full house, fountain lit up. Green room was Palazzo Chigi, ancient palace and important historical building in town. Lois husband, a professional photographer, contributed one of his photos of the moon and the town printed these huge posters, which was just crazy to see our names in print. This is how most things are advertised.

We also put together a website to play weddings, after experiencing the lockdown. Weren’t really planning that, but the pandemic changed everything. Actually turned into a nice source of income, partly because we arrange the couple’s favorite tune.

 Grande Amore by Il Volo. Bride took two entire cycles of the song to show up, audience laughing. Weddings are more stressful than concerts.

Stint playing at a nearby castle, with our soprano and also a tenor from Rome, and Matt did the arrangements, until the castle management changed

House concerts, duo concerts, for example in Soriano in November

String quartet, concert in October in Orvieto

concerts not planned very far in advance

Record bumper music, house vs. pro studio 

OUTRO: 

I think that’s a good place to wrap it up here - we hope you enjoyed joining us for our little  music Chat! 

We’ll be talking about a wide variety of topics here on this podcast, from travel tips to slice-of-life stories - we’ll post a new episode every Tuesday. 

So catch us next time - we’ll see you down the Little Roads

CIAO!