GENERATION Z: Interview with Emily Bear

Interview by Trisha Neubauer (MGBH)

Emily Bear (MGBH) is a young pianist and composer with a beautiful heart. Her enthusiasm for music is inspirational and contagious.  A role model for many young girls around the world, she maintains her modesty and sense of direction.  Here are some insights into what it’s like to be her.

 

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PPM: Please, tell us about your family. From other interviews we know that your grandmother is a pianist and a piano teacher. What about your mother and father? What are their occupations?
EB: My Mom was a voice major at University of Michigan Musical Theater Department. She also teaches piano and voice privately and has a Masters from Columbia University in NYC in Music Education.  My Dad is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in Hand & Upper Extremity Surgery. He trained at the Mayo Clinic and Hospital For Special Surgery in NYC. He is the only one in the family who doesn’t play an instrument but is a huge supporter of all of our interests (and has become a great Harp mover for my sister!)
PPM: What do you siblings do now that they are older? They learned to play instruments, too. Do you play music together sometimes?
EB:  My sister plays the Harp and Piano. She is the Principal Harpist with the Rockford Symphony Youth Orchestra and has played with several professional orchestra’s as well. I love to play with Lauren (MGBH) and have accompanied her on the harp as well as played harp-piano versions of my original music with her. Lauren is also a competitive figure skater, skating at the Novice Level (all the double jumps) and her competition music for her skating program is one of my original orchestral pieces!  My brother plays piano, guitar and tenor saxophone. He doesn’t play sax that much any more since he is in college now and not playing with a jazz band anymore. His main hobby is photography.  I love playing music with my siblings.  Sometimes my brother and I will play 4 hands on one piano, and my sister and I will play 2-piano duets as we have 2 grand pianos back to back in our living room.  Or I will play piano, my sister harp and my brother wither on the other piano or on his guitar.

 

Sometimes my brother and I will play 4 hands on one piano, and my sister and I will play 2-piano duets as we have 2 grand pianos back to back in our living room.

 

PPM: Tell us about your Ravinia experience at 5 years old. Do you have a memory of it?
EB:  I remember being super excited for the concert and doing cartwheels backstage. Once I got on stage, I was super focused. The concert music was 1/3 classical, 1/3 jazz and 1/3 my own music that I composed. I remember that I played a song that I had composed that week for my sister called “Little Angels”. I really love performing at Ravinia – it is a very special place for me.

PPM: When you write music for an orchestra, do you use a software like MuseScore or similar?
EB: I compose using LogicPro. I first create a mock up using orchestral instrument samples, layering them one by one. Then I input each note into Finale (a music notation software program) to make the music ready to print for the orchestra.

PPM: What inspires you in writing music?
EB: It could be anything, the weather, a person, a place, something that had just happened. “Snowdance” was composed after I noticed the snow swirling from the wind outside my window by my piano.  I composed “Northern Lights” after reading a Magic Treehouse book on the North Pole. I asked my Mom what an Aurora Borealis was.  She showed me video’s of the rainbow lights in the sky on Youtube. “Final Journey” was composed after a very close family friend passed away and “Les Voyages”, an orchestral piece was based on the book Homer’s Odyssey, which I was reading in English Class at school!  I was awarded the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer of the Year Award for “Northern Lights” when I was 6 years old out of a 30 and under age category.

PPM: What was your first composition and at what age did you write it?
EB: I composed my first real pieces when I was 3 years old. A couple of my earliest pieces are called, “Crystal Ice” and “Sunday Morning.”  Hal Leonard Music has been publishing music I composed since I was 4 years old.  I currently have 5 sheet music songbooks distributed worldwide and 2 sheet music singles.  It is so cool to hear other people playing my music – even using them for recital pieces! A teenager recently won the grand prize in the senior division in a classical music competition performing my piece, “Peralada.”

I composed my first real pieces when I was 3 years old. A couple of my earliest pieces are called, “Crystal Ice” and “Sunday Morning.”

PPM: What charities do you raise money for?
EB: It has always been really important to me to give back through my music. Each of my 7 CD’s have profits designated for different charities. Some of these include Children’s Hospitals of Los Angeles and Chicago, The Ronald McDonald House, PAWS Pet Rescue, & Cancer Charities. I also like to perform at charity benefits, concerts and galas around the world and have helped raise millions of dollars for various charities. One of my favorite concerts was when I performed for the kids at a summer camp for children with cancer. I still have the friendship bracelet they made for me.

PPM: What is your relationship with classical music vs pop vs jazz?
EB: Classical is my base and foundation, Jazz is where I can express my freedom, Pop is fun yet harder than you would think! Last April I performed the Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor, and in October performed Rhapsody In Blue by Gershwin (OBM). I love learning and performing classical works as well as my own orchestral music. Performing jazz is like a conversation with the other musicians I am playing with. Writing and singing pop music is another way to communicate things that I am feeling and can relate to.  For example, one of the songs I recently wrote is about a friend who was getting bullied at school.

PPM: Has your mom ever make you practice piano?
EB: Never. It’s actually a rule in our family that if we have an interest, whether it is piano, figure skating or whatever – that it is our responsibility to be prepared for lessons. When I was little, she would sit with me as I practiced, but that was more for company. It has also been stressed to me and my siblings that you need to have a passion for what you do, work hard and try your best but most important – keep it fun.

It has also been stressed to me and my siblings that you need to have a passion for what you do, work hard and try your best but most important – keep it fun.

PPM: Do you have your daily routine in practicing piano? How many hours a day do you practice? If not every day, what are your practice patterns? Do you take days off music?
EB:  Every day is different depending on what concerts are coming up, when my lessons are, how much schoolwork I have, if I am focusing on a new music composition. It is definitely never boring. I might work on classical piano after school then get an idea for a piece and run upstairs to compose and then start playing some jazz or reviewing for a concert. It is never the same!

PPM: How often do you travel for concerts?
EB: I travel often for concerts,  for music lessons in NYC and Chicago as well as songwriting sessions in Los Angeles.  I really love traveling!

PPM: You have been a recipient of ASCAP jazz award. Did you formally study jazz? If so, who were your teachers?
EB:  I have studied jazz piano since I was 5 years old.  My first jazz teacher was Alan Swain in Chicago.  I also study jazz with Frank Kimbrough from Juilliard Jazz Department.  I was really honored to be awarded the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award in 2016 and now in 2017 as well.  My new CD, Into The Blue, a collection of original jazz tunes performed with my trio reached #5 on Billboard Charts.  Quincy Jones has been my mentor for many years and he is a huge influence on my music.

PPM: Please, tell our readers about your experience of playing at the White House.  How did that happen?
EB: We received a phone call from the White House asking me to perform at the White House Easter Celebration. They asked me to perform 2 concerts in the East Room.  It was surreal to be able to walk through the rooms of the White House and to meet the President.

PPM: Do you have a pianist/piano performer role model that you grew up with as a child?
EB: I like Lang Lang (MGBH), because he is very well respected in the classical world yet is bringing classical music to other mediums and does a lot of outreach with education as well.
PPM: What were some of the most interesting collaborations so far and who do you aspire working with in the future?

EB: I love collaborating with all musicians – I learn different things from each of them and it is always so much fun. I loved collaborating with Zuill Bailey, Grammy Award winning classical cellist, and I love performing and working with musicians from all musical styles. Gloria Estefan (MGBH), Patti Austin (MGBH), Esperanza Spalding (MGBH), Melissa Manchester (MGBH), David Sanborn (MGBH), Lucy Simon (MGBH), Quincy Jones (MGBH), Makoto Ozone (MGBH)…

PPM: What attracts you to composing for film? If you were to become a film composer, how would you choose your films? In what instances would you say no?
EB: I love composing for film because of how music adds such critical emotional layers to the movie. I would have to make sure I was comfortable composing in the style of that film.

PPM: What are some of your favorite moments in performing for audiences?
EB: My favorite performances have been: The White House, Carnegie Hall, Art On Ice (Zurich, Switzerland), Montreux Jazz Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Hangzou,China. When I arranged an original piece I composed to be played by 25 piano’s at the same time in 5 parts (a piano orchestra) for a concert at the Mesa Performing Arts Center last year.

 

Enjoyed the interview? Please, consider donating a small amount to the author to express your appreciation.


                                                                               

3 thoughts on “GENERATION Z: Interview with Emily Bear

  1. I enjoyed reading that interview. Emily is a very well-focussed young lady, very versatile, and knows exactly where she is going. She is obviously well ahead of her years, musically and otherwise. I am a classical music fan, and not into jazz or “pop”, but I recognise talent when I hear it. Like other talented young musicians, Emily is spreading happiness and goodwill around the world with her music, more than all the politicians I might say !. I wish Emily all the very best in her musical career.

  2. Ican’t read music, can’t play an instrument, can’t sing but I can hear and somehow can know and appreciate Emily’s amazing ability to make music. Quincy Jones said it best, that music is only as good as you are inside. I think that is conveyed by Emily to this no talent listener. It is truly an inside job, hard to explain to those who aren’t exposed to this wonderful person and the Bear family.

  3. I have been following this young lady’s rapid rise to fame since I discovered her music on Youtube 10 years ago. Never a big fan of classical or jazz back then I soon began to realize that after watching her play in all kinds of styles that there is more to life than country music. With her ability to compose most of the music she plays, whether for her jazz trio or an orchestra or those impressive on-the-fly improvisations at some of her concerts is only a drop in the bucket in what this talented musician is capable of doing. As a big fan I am anxiously waiting on how her next challenge will be revealed, her venture into pop music. Soon, I hope, her first pop record will be out where she will exhibit her song writing and singing abilities. Based on what I have witnessed in the past I am confident she will excel at this as she has in everything else she has done.

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