Coming to the Seattle area on a whim in the mid-’80’s, cellist and composer Lori Goldston found what she was looking for — a place where the rules were loose and imaginative work was being made. For an artist of wide-ranging tastes with an instrument that takes on many voices, the pliable Cascadia culture was an excellent creative pocket.
From her early acoustic work with Nirvana, where she saw artists gain world attention but not lose their political and social consciousness, to her current big project, “Share This Place,” a song cycle about insects that will debut at the Seattle International Children’s Festival in the spring of 2007, Lori feels at home in a context that is continually being built and refined.
Lori’s love of music goes back to sitting with her grandmother on the couch in New York City, where she learned to associate the beauty and expressiveness of radio opera with coziness and satisfaction.
Today Lori, who studied with Aaron Shapinksy at Bennington College, likens her cello to an opera singer, taking on whatever voice is needed for a performance.
As a teacher that keeps her open to serving as a bridge for students who want to move from classical to rock or free expression.
As a composer and accompanist for films, choreographers and dancers, the flexibility of her instrument and her openness to collaborate keep her surrounded by creativity as her music translates mood and pace for time-related arts.
Her steadiest collaborator is her partner, Kyle Hanson, who adds his accordion to her cello in their duo The Shifting Light and within Spectratone International. He also teamed to add his half of their toddler, Isaac, who assumes that every family has a drum set in its basement and a rescued crow in the side yard.
“Do you have a CD?” he asks visitors.
For years, Lori and Kyle were known for The Black Cat Orchestra, which played traditional and original music with such widely varying musical influences as Eastern Europe, Asia and South America.
That band, which was described as one of the most critically celebrated ensembles in the Northwest, has evolved into the more acoustical sound of Spectratone International. Spectratone will release its first album in 2007.
In 2004 Lori collaborated with writer Stacey Levine and visual artists Curtis Taylor and Eve Cohen for a puppet opera based on the book, “The Wreck of the St. Nicolai.” The opera looks at one of the early attempts to exploit the Northwest — in that case it was fur — through the story of a cultural collision between native and non-native peoples.
“It was the first of an infinite flow of misunderstandings that have been the basis for the culture in the Northwest and most of Western Civilization,” she says.
Since then, salmon, timber and computer savvy have been mined. In an imagination upheaval in the 1970s, aerospace engineers who were laid off by The Boeing Co., went into garages and created innovative businesses that still influence the area today.
Those garages later spawned grunge music. That first big wave of world attention to the Northwest music scene is happening again, Lori feels, and for the same creative reasons.
“I work in this context by choice,” she says. “I really feel lucky to be around it and to get that support.”