Musician Started His Career on a High Plain

Pianist-composer Philip Aaberg remembers the Christmases of his youth, growing up on the high plains of Montana near the Canadian border in the town of Chester, population 900.

“For me, Christmas Eve was the big night,” he says in a phone call from McLean, Va., where he’s taking a day off from the Winter Solstice Concert tour. “It was always really cold, and there was usually snow. And that’s the night we opened our presents, the night Santa came.

“Our town was a pretty mono-cultural area. You were either Catholic or Methodist and almost everybody was of Scandinavian origin. Christmas Eve was a very magical night, all the farmers coming into town to go to church, their tires squeaking against the snow. Everybody took part in decorating the church, and there was great music at the service--Mozart, the Palestrina, Czech carols. It wasn’t just some seminarian strumming the guitar.”

Aaberg, who appears Sunday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts with the Turtle Island String Quartet and guitar-vocal duo Tuck and Patti in this year’s Solstice Concert, was a large part of that Christmas Eve music in Montana. He began playing the church organ at 12, learning the secular and classical music of the season.

Eventually, Aaberg left Chester to attend Harvard University and embark on a career as a pianist that has taken him to performance halls across America, Europe and Japan. A string of piano recordings for the Windham Hill label earned him a reputation as an impressionistic composer-keyboardist. His album “High Plains,” inspired by his Montana homeland, set the standard for regionally influenced contemporary composers.

In addition, the 46-year-old Aaberg is a longtime member of 20th-century composer Paul Dresher’s music and theater ensemble. He has worked with new music hero John Adams and has recorded blues with slide-guitarist Roy Rogers. He’s also been heard with such pop musicians as Peter Gabriel and John Hiatt. His sensitive score for the Japanese film “The Story of Naomi Uemura” is being followed with music for a theater production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Now based in Oakland, Aaberg says he remembers his early days in Chester every time he steps on stage during the Solstice tour.

“We all put a lot of our experience into the program. [Tuck & Patti and The Turtle Island String Quartet] are all from different backgrounds,” he says. “Some of us were raised Christians, some Jewish. But we’ve been talking about this and realize that [the holiday season] is the one time that people, all people, are receptive to the ideals of peace and love.

“We live in a very cynical age, an age where people are afraid to wear their heart on their sleeves because someone might rip it off. But this is the one time of the year that you can state the bigger ideas of peace and harmony, and people will be open to them.”

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Aaberg says that this season’s Solstice tour, his sixth, is different from past years.’

“It used to be more folk-oriented. But this year, everyone is from a different tradition of improvisational music. The Turtle Island String Quartet can play anything and improvise on top of it. Tuck and Patti’s roots are in funk, gospel, jazz and blues, and they’ve evolved this subtle pop style. At any one time we might have seven people on the stage who can play different styles and improvise.”

Rather than do separate sets, the three Solstice entities combine in mix-and-match sessions.

“We’ve figured out a repertoire that draws from a great multicultural tradition, ranging from Hanukkah songs to Christmas carols. [Guitarist] Tuck [Andress] plays along on Brazilian tunes that the Turtle Island String Quartet does. [Violinist] Darol Anger plays ‘High Plains’ with me in a way that makes it totally different. We all get together for ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ in jazz style and we really manhandle the ‘Nutcracker Suite.’ ”

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This cross-cultural, mixed-discipline repertoire is particularly apt for Aaberg. A search of various record stores found his albums stocked in jazz, new age and classical sections.

“I like that,” he says. “I think categorization is a malevolent practice. I think of myself as an American musician, influenced by all the types of music we have in America.”

Although he shied away from environment-inspired music for a time after the success of “High Plains,” he’ll return to the genre for his next, as yet unrecorded album. “There’s been about 8 billion of those albums in the last few years, and a lot of them don’t really address the land, they don’t really come from a true impressionism. It’s like, ‘Here’s a pretty tune, let’s call it “Big Dog Mountain.” ’ So I left that kind of music alone for a while.

“But now I’ve returned to it with a highly orchestrated concept that brings together country instruments, western fiddle, pedal steel guitar, with other elements of American music, brass choirs, string quartets. The music has a western concept, reflecting the plains and the Rockies. I’m writing it in such a way that I hope it reflects the true characteristics of the land.”

* The Winter Solstice Concert with Philip Aaberg, Tuck & Patti and the Turtle Island String Quartet plays the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. Sunday, 7 p.m. $20-$30. (800) 300-4345.