Tagged: 13 for 13

If your concept of choral music is somewhere between the TV show “Glee” and the Kings College Choir, the music Eric Banks loves may come as a revelation.

Eyvind Kang is a violist, composer and improviser who lives in Seattle.  You might not have heard of him before, but he’s played with the pop stars Beck and Laurie Anderson and with big names in jazz and new music like Bill Frisell and John Zorn.  All these artists are drawn to Eyvind because of his playing, his musical imagination and his unpredictability.

When Randy Engstrom and Andy Fife start talking about Seattle arts and culture you can almost feel the air around them vibrate. "It’s like a natural resource," enthuses Engstrom. Fife chimes in. "This is a place where nature is abundant and provides so much. Likewise culture."

You get the sense you’re face to face with the contemporary versions of Frederick Weyerhauser or Bill Boeing, adventurers who came West to seek their fortunes more than a century ago. Instead of harvesting trees, though, Fife and Engstrom plan to harness culture to expand Seattle’s economic vibrancy.