K. Ishisbashi is an indie rock musician known for his looped and sampled music led by his violin. Ishibashi, who puts his first and last names together to create his performance name, KishiBashi, is somewhat of an outlier in his genre.
In the Aspen Music Festival and School environment, K is even more so. But when he played with a quartet of music school students on Saturday at the Belly Up, it signaled the start of a new trend at the music school campus. K says it’s hard to bridge the gap between pop and classical.
“I see a divide," says Ishibashi. "It’s usually like, bands play with orchestras or integrate some sort of chamber music integration. There’s definitely a rift between the guitar player who writes songs and the kid who plays violin in an orchestra.”
On a rainy Friday, the string quartet is preparing for their first rehearsal with K. The students in the quartet play together in Nashville. Alex Krew is a 23-year-old cellist in the group. He was the only one who had even heard of Kishi Bashi when they got the invitation to play.
He says the opportunity wasn’t anything like what he’d expected before coming to Aspen.
“I mean, when I originally came to the Aspen Music Festival I was expecting rigorous orchestral training and just doing the traditional kind of thing," says Krew. "But when I got here, there were so many gigs and such an integration with the community that it took me in a different direction than what I was expecting.”
Alex Brose is the vice president of development for the Aspen Music Festival and School. He is also the keeper of all things Kishi Bashi. He says this wasn’t the first time that the school has tried to get a pop or indie musician to come here. Efforts were made to get members of the band, The National to come and work with the students. He had done similar work in the past by bringing in non-classical musicians to play in San Francisco, where he worked previously.
“So we had a bass clarinet quartet dressed in monk robes called the Edmund Welles Quartet – fantastic, fantastic guys playing Tool and Radiohead," says Brose. "We had a bluegrass group that was a terrific award-winner from years ago.”
The quartet reads scores of Ishibashi’s music that K writes himself. Some songs he can use original parts, while having to write new parts altogether. The instrumentation and arrangement changes depending on the performance. K says he writes music that string musicians would want to play.
The quartet gets the music a bit in advance of K arriving. He shows up at the rehearsal space and the music comes together almost instantly.
Alex Brose from the music school says that this event could be the start of something bigger going forward, especially if the performance goes well.
“Well this is dipping our toes in the water. It’s been a real great process. We want to see how it goes. We want to have as many people there as we can, and if it succeeds, seeing a series at the Belly Up is something that could be possible.”
K says he wants the kids that he plays with to realize there is a way for music to happen without staying in the confines of the classical genre.
“I just want them to understand that the bottom line is that music should be fun and you should absolutely be passionate about the music that you play and if you aren’t you should look for other things,” says Ishibashi.
