Feico Deutekom

I did not choose music, music chose me. As far as I can tell I am always listening to music, for real or inside my head, and this has been the way as long as I can remember. For good and for bad. Some restaurants I don’t like to go to, because of the background music they play.

Last week I saw the new Christopher Nolan movie TENET, and despite several warnings that the film is complicated and hard to follow, I got distracted very early on because I was paying more attention to the music score by Ludwig Göransson. It is quite beautiful, I must say.

I am a performer, not a composer, and I am normally fuelled by something I hear that I really like, which I then cannot get rid of inside of my head, until I decide I need to process it by mastering it  - or exorcising it  - and this usually means learning to play it.

Music structures my outlook, it wipes clean my window to the world, and it also allows me to get closer to my feelings: I am usually not a moody person, but listening to Max Richter’s or Olafur Arnalds’s music can make me feel very sad. And I can become totally happy just by listening to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians or John Adams’s Harmonielehre or Shaker Loops.Music widens your perspective. This is at least what I people tell me who listen to my recordings or who come to me after concerts.

This happens for instance during classical festivals where people come relatively unprepared for the Philip Glass or David Lang I play for them, in the midst of other, ‘real’ classical music performances. They tell me that they are hearing this kind of music for the first time and that they feel they have discovered something new, as if a door has opened to a new place (in themselves) that they did not knew existed before.

In the case of Glass or Lang, I know their music can influence the listener’s awareness of time, because of how their music is structured, where a lot of movement is happening but at the same time it seems to be at standstill. This makes the listener feel as if time is being suspended. It is that sense of discovery that I wish I still had regularly, but after having listened to an awful lot of music, it has become rarer for me. But it is wonderful when people tell you that this is what your playing does to them.

My father is a jazz musician. When I was a kid he played banjo in a band. His brother played the piano in the same band and I think that inspired me. The idea that with a keyboard you can make music by yourself, you actually do not need somebody else. I grew up on Top 40 music, disco, and funk new wave and later electronic music. I started playing the piano at 13, a bit late, but that was because our house was not large enough to fit in a piano. My parents bought one when our house was refurbished and we got a bit more space. My first piano teacher taught me a lot, not just about music but about mindfulness and meditation. He also introduced me to classical music, my favourites were Ravel, Debussy and Schubert. When I was 18 some friend told me I had to go and watch Koyaanisqatsi that was playing in the cinema. That was my introduction to Philip Glass music. In a way that was the marriage for me between my taste for classical and my pop sensibilities, it came all together.

Later I started to sing as well. First in choirs and then as a soloist, too. With this I developed my love for Bach (as you know in Holland there is a big tradition of performing the Passions around Easter) as well as Renaissance music. Singing is such a different approach to music than playing the piano. When you hit a ‘C’ on the keyboard, it will always sound like a ‘C’, assuming the piano is in tune. When you sing, especially in a choir, or ensemble, you learn to intonate, mostly by listening well to others. It is as if you approach music from within, more than from the outside the way it is with the piano. I think it also refined my ability to make phrases and sentences, to follow the breath in the music. This has also helped my technique as a pianist. The great thing about singing in a choir is that there are relatively many opportunities to perform, there are so many churches that host concerts.

When I finally had my own ensemble, I would switch between singing and playing the piano, but gradually found myself more and more behind the keys again, both piano and keyboards.  

The ongoing struggle, which is the biggest I suppose but not one I would call unbearable, is building your market share and to raising your profile with audiences. This requires constant effort: getting programmed in bigger venues, reaching higher cd sales as well as getting more followers on your social media channels, selling your albums, raise publicity.

I consider myself very lucky because throughout the years I have met various people at the right moment who have helped me to find my way around as a musician. As I explained earlier, my drive as a musician always comes from loving a pieces of music and then wanting to play it. 

Years ago this brought me, together with a few friends, to start the Attacca Ensemble. I wanted to bring choral pieces to audiences that were hardly performed but that I really loved and believed were worth it. We did concert versions of Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, a marathon version (without intermission) of Kanon Pokaajaanen by Arvo Part, and the Dutch premiere of David Lang’s little match girl passion.

15 years ago this was music you would not find on concert programs very often. Scores were hard to get by and for the singers it required a different technique, a different focus and concentration and, because of the duration of certain pieces, a lot of physical stamina. We called it the extreme sports of music. A lot has changed since then and now you hear this music everywhere, but at the time it felt we had the floor pretty much to ourselves and we had no problems getting regular bookings and sell out venues.

And finally the last 3 years I have been working on as a solo artist.  Performing as a solo musician is in many ways easier. It is cheaper and you do not have to book rehearsal space, prepare multiple scores, pay conductors and soloists and worry about al lot of peoples’ agendas. The other side is that you have to do everything yourself. Every mountain you take, you take entirely by yourself. I am not complaining, because the experiences with the Attacca Ensemble have been worth it every second and later on they have helped me getting bookings for my solo concerts and given me various contacts that have helped me building my solo profile.

I have released two cd albums, the first one, FEICO SOLO, on the Dutch label Zefir owned by Jakko van der Heijden, with pieces from Glass, Adams, Eisenga, Lang and Part, and the second one MUSICAL OFFERING on Orange Mountain Music, Philip Glass’s own music channel. The latter especially has given me a much larger exposure, especially on the Philip Glass social media channels as well as Spotify and Apple.

It took a lot of convincing before I felt I was ready to start recording. At various points, I have asked myself: ‘is this really worth it?’ The standard is high and there is enormous amount of competition there and you really have to find your own voice or uniqueness to stand out from the others. Creating piano arrangements of orchestral or chamber pieces, which I started to do on the first but have done especially on the second album, has helped me do that, has helped me to build a niche. There are many pianists recording Glass music every year, so by making arrangements, you are in a way contributing new repertoire and at the same time you create a certain exclusivity, because you are the only one allowed to play these pieces.

But the struggle is this: once you have taken this road, once you have started to record CDs and become a performing soloist, there is no slowing down. A new cd helps you get bookings for new concerts as well as publicity, and the concerts help you sell the cd, but after a short while the effect wears off and the silence sets in. It becomes more difficult to get bookings, especially when you don’t have management or representation. So you start thinking of a new album. My latest album is just half a year old and already the pressure builds and people are asking what the next one will be and what the right timing for it will be.

I like to think I am entrepreneurial in my approach, since I am sensitive both of what it is what people want and what I am able to sell, whether it is a cd album or a concert, I like to see where opportunities exist and how best to use them. In this day and age you cannot be an artist without being entrepreneurial to certain degree. Still, I see many musicians who are only concerned about artistic expression, whereas their communication skills or marketing sensibility remain largely underdeveloped.

The lesson I have learnt for myself is that the way the classical music scene is developing, even though music is a pure form of communication, to get the attention of the listener you have to develop a verbal story as well. The audience nowadays expects you to be able to explain what the music is about, to be its ambassador.

During my concerts I tend to talk a lot, I tell the audience for instance why minimal music has similarities to landscapes or Persian tapestries. But also I walk away from the piano from time to time, look the audience into the eyes and try to be as honest as possible and describe what this music means for me personally, why it grabbed me in the first place. I have found for myself that if you take this approach you are halfway in. People will recognise that your quality as a musician is complemented by a certain personal integrity. 

The Corona lockdown happened 6 weeks after the release of my latest album PHILIP GLASS – MUSICAL OFFERING. Around 10 concerts that had been planned for this year had to be cancelled or rescheduled for next year. The album had taken two years to prepare and produce, some of the arrangements I made for it even longer, and I had been looking forward to the tour tremendously, to share the music and my excitement about it with live audiences.

Playing in front of live audiences is what I what I really like doing most, and after a great amount of work to get these concerts booked, seeing these concerts evaporate into thin air, has been quite frustrating. Playing in front of attentive listeners in a shared physical space is a privilege. In some circumstances, if the setting is right, the audience will enhance the quality of your playing. 

As a performer, you are attentive to how the audience is experiencing the music, to what extent they are being captured by your playing. This then fuels your performance, as I have experienced many times. It is an amazing circuitry where you are listening to your own performance through the ears of the audience and then ride on that wavelength while you are playing.

During lockdown, like many musicians who felt reduced to inactivity, I have recorded home sessions to post on my social media channels. This has been good practice to keep in form, but also to keep your name floating at the surface, of the social media world, that is. However this is far from the real thing - playing in front of a camera does feel like playing behind a soundproof glass wall.

In The Netherlands after the lockdown concerts were permitted for small audiences of 30 people, this was on 1st of June. De Meervaart, one of the leading venues in Amsterdam, invited me to do their first concert on that same day. Because of the small capacity, I did the concert twice that day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. It was an amazing experience, for myself to be playing live again, and for the audience, who had felt sort of culturally dehydrated for months and were now for the first time experiencing live music again.

Afterwards they did not want to leave, because they felt so special and thankful to be part of this. It was as if an immense thirst had been quenched. The other reason that made this concert so special was the atmosphere in the theatre and the mood of the staff. It was very courageous of them to open their doors to the public again, especially in the light of the countless guidelines they had to follow and all precautions they had to take to ensure social distancing.

And that just for 30 people per performance, money-wise it was a total bomb. Still, they were so excited to see the lights go on again, to hear someone play their Steinway grand piano, to see people entering the building, they were so happy that after months of darkness and silence the building came alive again. I will never forget it.