Yoshie Fruchter

Sep 22

Musician and Performance Artist—June through September ’19

Website yoshiefruchtermusic.com | Based In Brooklyn, New York

Q: One of the benefits of the Peleh Residency is being able to do one’s creative work and spend time with one's family, without having to choose. Was that the case with you?

A: During our normal life, my wife and I travel and work at night quite often. One invaluable benefit of the residency was being able to spend a lot of time together as a family. For instance, we were together every night for dinner. It was also really valuable for our son Max to be living in a new place, and to make friends outside of his circle back home. He loved the residency house, and all the different rooms he could play in, both inside and outside.

Q: How did you balance having open space, with a framework to actually move forward with art-making.

A: For me as a creative person, it does something for your focus not to have to work on deadlines all the time. To have a chance to step back. At the same time, it could have been easy to flounder with too much space. I credit the residency with encouraging me to set goals, even if those goals didn’t necessarily have to include a finished product at the end. We artists were trusted to do what we have to do, to decide what is valuable to finish by the end. Having a dedicated mentor helped with that goal-setting as well.

For some people this process might include taking walks in the woods and re-discovering oneself.

Q: Who did you meet when you were out here?

A: I discovered new communities of musicians, including at The Kitchen, a synagogue in San Francisco. I had the chance to be around a lot of people making music together in larger groups. This was very exciting creatively, and also helpful professionally. When I was coming back to play a gig near Sacramento, I was able to work with some local musicians. It would have been too expensive and logistically complicated to bring people out here from New York. This made it possible for people to hear my music who might not otherwise be able to.

Q: Which musical projects were you able to move forward during the residency?

A: There were two main projects. The first was a transcription project, where I would listen to traditional music from Turkey and the Middle East, write the music out and analyze it. I did 15-20 transcriptions, in different song forms, for the oud. These included the Sirto, Longa, Saz Semai and Taksim song forms.

The second project was writing a bunch of new music to have been recorded this spring, in part in response to the material I transcribed [this wasn’t possible because of COVID-19]. During the residency I had the space and environment to create almost an album’s worth of music. I could write music really quickly, get inspiration from a lot of different places, and try things out. In this new kind of space I could let the music float around in my brain until it was ready. One song that came out of this is called Falling Rocks. At the end of the summer, I was even able to try some songs out at concerts that I had scheduled in the Bay Area.

The space and time to be away from our normal life was nourishing for the mind, the body and the soul.

Yoshie Fruchter is a guitar, bass and oud player who has made his mark with a style of playing and composing all his own. His latest project, Sandcatchers (oud and lap steel), explores the sounds of the Middle East combined with the American South. He also released two albums on John Zorn’s Tzadik records with his band Pitom and played on three others. He is notable for his work in composing, performing and interpreting Jewish song and has constantly forged new directions with his music, regardless of genre.

In addition to his own projects, Yoshie is a sought after sideman and has worked and played in projects with John Zorn, Frank London, Zeb Bangash, David Krakauer, Joey Weisenberg, Basya Shechter, Eitan Katz and many more. He is also currently a frequent sub on the Tony award winning Broadway show Hadestown. Outside of his performing career, Yoshie is an experienced teacher and has taught music workshops at schools, festivals and synagogues throughout the US, Canada and Europe.