JULIA WEBER
Assistant Editor
Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck, both native New Yorkers, will return to their home state for a performance at 8 p.m. tonight, sharing their new collaborative project on the Amphitheater stage for a night celebrating folk music.
Fleming is a world-renowned singer known by many for her classical and operatic works, and Fleck is a genre-spanning banjo virtuoso known for his contributions to contemporary bluegrass, folk and country music. Though at first glance they may seem like unlikely collaborators, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
When Fleck came into bluegrass, he said he felt like “the outsider.”
“Back then, I was a Yankee trying to break into a very Southern musical form. I was the outsider; I always felt like the outsider.”
He said as he found his footing in the genre, he also found acceptance that has only increased throughout his career.
“Bluegrass will accept you if you make your place in there from outside. Eventually, they get used to you and they might even like you,” he said.
Fleming, meanwhile, was immersed in jazz, classical and operatic music early on in her career. As a student, she trained at legacy arts institutions, including the Aspen Music Festival and School and Chautauqua Institution’s very own Music School.
Amid her career in opera, she said Americana music piqued her interest and was a project she hoped to further explore.
A record label manager who recognized this desire introduced the two artists to one another more than 20 years ago, Fleming recalled. It was around that time that Fleming and Fleck created a demo of some of the songs on The Fiddle and the Drum, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that they decided to finish it.
“I ran into him a few years ago, and he said, ‘Hey, let’s finish it. It’s a good demo. We can use all of that material,’ ” Fleming said.
Fleck concurred, saying when they met and finally agreed to give it another listen, there seemed to be “more energy to get it done.” He said, “We both went back and listened to it with fresh ears and thought, ‘Wow, this actually really works. It would be nice to complete it and make it its best version of itself.’ ”
Composed of both recent and traditional songs that have been part of the cultural canon for decades or even centuries, The Fiddle and the Drum spans time and geography, incorporating music from different countries and different time periods. Fleck said newer songs offer more flexibility, while traditional songs give him a chance to put a new spin on them.
“If it’s a piece that’s been recorded a ton, we have to find a way to do it differently. If it’s a newer piece, you’re getting one of the first shots at it, maybe,” he said.
Although the demos were recorded long before the final project was produced, both artists said they were focused on a thematic experience: for Fleck, it was an archetype, and for Fleming, it was a theme.
“We didn’t even realize at the time that [the album] would be so relevant now,” Fleming said. She said she has been thinking a lot about U.S. history recently and considering, “What is our democracy? How did it start?”
She said, “It’s pretty incredible; the whole story is extraordinary.” Thematically, she explained, it was important for the artists to ensure there was “glue between all of these songs, despite the fact that they’re from different periods of time, even different countries.”
Fleck said he views the album as a narration by an individual.
“When you go to the old sagas, it’s always about a woman and then the man heads off to war. Years later, some old man comes up to her and it turns out to be her lover changed by war, destroyed by it. She doesn’t recognize him,” Fleck said.
He cited the album’s tracks “Scarlet Ribbons” and “Pretty Bird” as examples of the album’s narrative arc.
“[‘Pretty Bird’ is] all about, ‘You could lose yourself. A man can take away your glory if it doesn’t go right, and you allow that to happen.’ It’s like an older woman advising a younger woman to be thoughtful about what she gets herself into,” Fleck said.
Fleming added that it’s a song focusing on “honor, shame, all these really strong emotions and turn of events in life were wrapped up in pregnancy.”
Neither artist had anticipated the album’s message and themes would remain so relevant today, but they said they see important conversations emerging from it.
“It’s becoming crucial again now because we’re having these larger countrywide conversations around the abortion pill and can women go into other states, et cetera. We’re dealing with it yet again,” Fleming said. Fleck added, “It’s a story that could have happened four centuries ago, and it’s a story that could happen right now.”
From an artistic standpoint, both musicians find inspiration all around them. To Fleck, an integral part of developing one’s artistic practice is being open to new experiences, which he credited Fleming with doing.
“An artist brings their aesthetic and their beliefs with them; whether you say them directly out loud or whether they’re embedded in the way you do your life, they speak to your audience. If you try to be diverse and try and do lots of different things, you’re showing that you have respect for all different things and all different ways of doing things,” Fleck said. “Sometimes, people get very isolated and insular and stuck in the world that they’re in; they don’t look outside of it and have a bigger picture of what’s going on. I see Renée doing that all the time, exploring collaborations and friendships with people outside of her world.”
Ahead of the artists’ visits to Chautauqua, Fleck said the music will “speak for itself” during the performance.
“Due to Renée’s generosity, she has made this a co-bill between my music and her music. It’s not just us backing up Renée on these beautiful songs; it’s also a My Bluegrass Heart concert. What’s very nice is that we can do some very high intensity modern bluegrass of the type that I write, then bring it down, drop it down to a whisper and have Renée come out and do the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard, and then we’re going to rev it back up,” Fleck said.
Fleck promised “hot playing” with “a fantastic band playing their butts off” as well as “some really beautiful, quiet, solemn moments.”
