Stationed in the back of the orchestra as part of their GRS positions, percussionist Andy Fritz and horn player Paul Austin have a cinematic view of their colleagues. GRSMA highlights these two musicians in this feature.

 

GRSMA: Where did you grow up, and were you part of a musical family?

 

ANDY FRITZ: I grew up in Grand Rapids, so my first experience of live symphonic music was the Grand Rapids Symphony (GRS). My dad casually played a little piano and guitar, but no one in my immediate family is a professional musician. We listened to a lot of music in my home growing up: “West Side Story,” Lionel Ritchie, Genesis, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” “Les Miserables,” and some Andrew Lloyd Weber. When I decided to pursue music in college, I started taking private lessons with Bill Vits, former GRS Principal Percussionist. At the same time, I connected with my great-uncle Robert Bergt, who was a conductor in St. Louis with the ‘Bach Kantori,’ a chamber orchestra and chorus that specialized in performing the music of J. S. Bach and other baroque composers. He ultimately connected me with Webster University, where I completed my undergraduate studies in music.  

 

PAUL AUSTIN: My dad was in the Air Force, so we were stationed all around the country. By the time I was in the third grade, I had been enrolled in four different elementary schools in three different states. When he retired from the service, our family moved to rural Tennessee, where he had grown up. My mother is German, so my childhood was similar to the television show “Green Acres.” I didn’t come from a musical family, but my mom recalls attending orchestra concerts at Frankfurt’s Opera House when she was a child. When I was very young, I remember making it a point to be in front of the television at 6pm to hear the theme music to the evening news (which I later discovered was the opening of the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) and being fascinated by the sound of an orchestra.

 

GRSMA: Tell us about your musical studies. Where did you receive your training to win an audition for the GRS?

 

PA: Actually, I started as a percussionist and switched to the horn in 8th grade. Realizing that I had a lot of catching up to do, I secretly used my lunch money to pay for private lessons. By 10th grade, I had earned a seat in All-State and was bitten by the orchestra bug when we played Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. My undergraduate degree is from Tennessee Tech University, which had a young faculty fresh out of Indiana University who played alongside us in the school’s orchestra. Our Sunday concerts were supplemented by string players from the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, so I was exposed to working with professional players. Aaron Copland had a week-long residency at TTU my sophomore year, which was impactful. My masters and doctoral degrees in performance are from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, which prepared me for orchestral auditioning. Being a Resident Artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts and studying with the renowned teacher Frøydis Ree Wekre was the final puzzle piece towards getting my GRS job.

 

AF: I completed my undergraduate in St Louis and then moved to Kansas City for a Masters degree at the University of Missouri Conservatory. I finished my formal orchestral studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago. I was very fortunate during those years to study and play with members of the St. Louis Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Chicago Symphony orchestras. There are experiences and insights gained from all of my teachers that I still use today. Prior to becoming a member of the GRS, I was a member of the Lansing Symphony, Battle Creek Symphony, and Ann Arbor Symphony. My work with those groups also influenced my orchestra playing and experience prior to joining the GRS.   

 

GRSMA: Who are among your musical mentors and heroes?

 

AF: Bill Vits had a major influence on me. During the many years I was playing as an extra, whether it was the advice he would offer, observing how he would solve certain problems, or how he would play with the ensemble, there are constantly things in my playing I can attribute to his influence. I was also highly influenced by my teachers Ed Harrison and Vadim Karpinos of the Chicago Lyric Opera and Chicago Symphony, respectively. Their mastery and teaching style had a major impact on my approach to sound production, technique and style as well as strategies for learning complex music and staying afloat when things get crazy.

 

My musical heroes in the percussion world are Gary Burton, Joe Morello, Carter Beauford, Billy Martin, and Zakir Hussain. It was in college that I first learned of the collaboration between Gary Burton and Chick Corea; “Crystal Silence” and “Duets” were a constant in my musical rotation. Another influential album for me is Pat Methany and Charlie Hayden’s album “Beyond the Missouri Sky.” I am also a huge fan of our local community radio station WYCE 88.1. It’s a great resource, and I am constantly hearing new music and learning new artists.

 

PA: You might be surprised to hear that singers such as Jessye Norman and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau have had an impact upon my musicianship and horn playing. Whenever I hear their recordings (Strauss “Four Last Songs,” for example, or Mahler lieder), their voices go right through me. I have deep admiration for many horn players and am concerned about leaving someone off a list here, but they know who they are.

 

GRSMA: Who are your favorite composers?

 

AF: There are so many, including Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, J. S. Bach, Steve Reich, Darius Milhaud, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin, Frank Zappa, TRESOR, Sun-el Musician, Garth Stevenson.    

 

PA: My favorite composers are Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, Hindemith, and Prokofiev.

 

GRSMA: If you weren't a musician, what other career path would you have taken?

 

PA: Good question! Maybe a writer or an actor? I think that I belong in the arts in some way if I couldn’t be a musician.

 

AF: I love music because it incorporates so many different disciplines. It is not only a physical and mental endeavor, it also involves history, theory, creativity, live performance, and recording. It is an art form but it’s also a craft and a skill. It can be an individual pursuit (soloing) and a collective pursuit (with the orchestra). We play music that is brand new, and we can perform masterpieces that are hundreds of years old. I can’t think of anything quite like it. It’s hard for me to imagine another path than the one I’m on. In reality I do have another calling, my wife and I run a sound healing, massage and bodywork business called Limitless Movement, so there’s that. Come check us out!  

 

GRSMA: What are your hobbies or interests?

 

AF: I’m interested in a lot of different things. I enjoy process and learning about how things work. I’m an avid reader, when I have the time, and I enjoy riding and learning how to fix bikes. I’ve been interested in athletics, from running triathlons to sailing to anything outdoors. I’ve recently gotten into vegan cooking. I also try to lean into my role as a dad and love spending time with my two kids.  

 

PA: I’ve embraced the puzzles that the New York Times offers and don’t try to do anything in the morning until after I’ve played Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, and Wordle. Later in the day, I play Letter Boxed and Tiles. Also, our ten-year-old golden doodle Autumn keeps me grounded.