Theo Espy | Violinist

Theo Espy (he/they, b. 1993) is a violinist from New York City currently based in Chicago as a member of the Grammynominated Spektral Quartet. Theo studied for two years at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg with Paul Roczek, and later received a Bachelor’s degree in Violin Performance from the New England Conservatory under the supervision of Lucy Chapman. They have attended Greenwood Music Camp, Sarasota Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the Composer’s Conference Contemporary Performance Institute, and the Lucerne Music Festival as a student, and was invited back to the Composer’s Conference in Summer 2019 as a member of the faculty ensemble and chamber coach. In their free time, Theo enjoys drawing with micron pens, film photography, tending to their plants, electronic music production, and hanging out in the woods.

I was connected to Theo via the wonderful people at Spektral Quartet in Chicago. Theo has been a violinist with the group for a few years. Listening to them talk about their upbringing as a child of two musicians was about as wonderful and foreign as I could imagine being child of a probation officer and an engineer. We had this lovely chat in February, which of course now feels like years ago. In the interview we talk about touring and future concerts. All of which are of course now cancelled. The pandemic has not been kind to many industries, but performance has been, and will continue to be, hard hit for a very long time. When Theo and I talked about posting this interview, we discussed leaving out the future details. Not even mentioning the concerts that never happened. But, I think of it as a bit of a time capsule. No one is sure when schedules like this will return, but somehow I find it oddly comforting to read. I hope you enjoy what Theo has to say.

{Jacob} - So, you grew up in New York, yes?

{Theo} - Yes! 

{Jacob} - And when did you start playing violin? Were you a 2 year old with a ¼ violin or were you a mature 4?

{Theo} - From what I’ve been told I was very eager to start when I was 2 or 3 but my parents decided that I should wait until the ripe old age of 5 to begin in earnest. I grew up in a very musical family - my mom is a piano teacher who works out of a home studio, and my dad is a concert pianist, recording artist and also a teacher. So music has definitely always been a very big part of my life from the very beginning. I grew up with the expectation that I would play and at the very least be competent at an instrument - the same was true of my older brother - and I think that after I had been playing for a few years there was an inkling that I might become a musician if and when I decided to commit to it. 

{Jacob} - You were destined from day one, regardless of what you wanted! What does your brother play?

{Theo} He played piano! Although he is the vocational black sheep of our family and wound up pursuing other interests while continuing to enjoy music as more of a consumer and hobbyist. He’s an engineer now, hopefully forging a more stable professional path for himself out there than any of the rest of us… 

{Jacob} My partner and I met while he was doing a music degree and then he wisely, also left, and is now in architecture. Much more stable! 

{Theo} - Honestly! Good for them both.

{Jacob} - So, when you were growing up you were surrounded by musicians. Were you only listening to classical? With parents that were performing and teaching so much, what were you exposed to?

{Theo} - I grew up in a New York City apartment where space and soundproofing weren’t really a thing, and my bedroom was equidistant between two Steinway grands that were basically going at all times, so I had  this sort of wonderful cacophony around me. I would hear my mom teaching beginner piano pieces in one room, and my dad practising atonal music in the other room. I think that kind of soundscape which at times felt overwhelming is actually kind of a comforting texture to me now, and I feel lucky for the huge range of styles and aesthetic that was always permeating my mind even when I wasn’t attending to it. I was exposed to Mozart and Clementi, but also Babbitt and Wuorinen. (Often simultaneously, each coming in through a different ear…) In terms of my own listening habits, most of what I consumed at a young age was music my parents introduced us to during car trips. The Beatles, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Astor Piazzolla, Zappa, and hilariously, The Shaggs. It was really in middle school and high school that I started seeking out newer music and getting mixes from friends: I went through a sort of requisite period of listening to some grunge and indie rock and started going to shows at NYC venues to see bands, but often times the openers at those shows were DJs or solo artists whose electronic set-ups fascinated me, and those artists became an entry point into what felt like a magnetic pull towards electronic music, and then R&B, Hip hop, rap, etc. In terms of listening nowadays - I  go through phases with specific types of classical music, but I wouldn't say that it's something that I listen to consistently or religiously at this point. I feel like there are a few distinct modes of listening that I enter with classical music these days - I’ll get very into something and spend a week listening to Bach Cantatas or Purcell Viol Consort music, or early tape-manipulated electronic works or whatever else, while at at other times I’ll be poking around in a more practical way, looking for music I want to play myself, or suggest to my quartet as something to program in the future.

{Jacob} - A healthy diversity of influences all around. I always think that is essential for musicians. I grew up playing in a lot of jazz and funk bands. Also some fusion and ska. And I remember a pianist friend of mine who had played in all these groups with me, going off to do a classical degree. One day she was just noodling around before a lesson on some latin fusion progressions and her teacher came in and was just completely floored. He was a 100% classical pianist and he just couldn’t fathom reproducing some of the rhythms and chords. She said it was like he was trying to play merengue as if it was Haydn. Which is so strange to me, but if you don’t have any other influences, I suppose that’s what can happen. So, which did you do first, New England Conservatory or the Mozarteum.

{Theo} - I attended Universität Mozarteum first - more as an experiment than anything else, really. I was relatively slow to commit to a career in music; I had played violin and taken private lessons throughout my whole childhood and adolescence but I had a lot of other academic aspirations in school, and had a hard time deciding what I wanted to prioritize. Perhaps I also had added trepidation, just being so close to it all and having parents in the music industry…but it was something I couldn’t really fathom walking away from entirely either…so after graduating from high school, I decided I would take a year and give music a real try, and experience living a different part of the world simultaneously. A family friend had told me about the Mozarteum, and Salzburg seemed like a beautiful (and stark) contrast to Manhattan. It wound up being simpler (and cheaper) to audition and receive lessons as an enrolled first year student, rather than to just go to Salzburg and pay for private lessons, so I did that, and found it to be a really formative experience. One year and many college and conservatory applications later, I still wasn’t certain about where I wanted to wind up, or what I wanted my academic path to look like, so I stayed for a second year. In the end I did my first two years of undergrad there, and then three more years at NEC in Boston and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Violin Performance in 2016. 

{Jacob} - And did you move to Chicago directly after that? 

{Theo} - More or less! I spent the summer after graduation mostly re-grouping - practicing and waiting tables at a restaurant in Maine - and then went to the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. It was kind of crazy - I was still in Europe, traveling with a friend, when I received an email from Clara reaching out to let me know that Spektral Quartet was searching for a new violinist and asking if I would be interested in auditioning. So as soon as the trip ended, I came back to New York City to confront a large stack of music and to begin preparing for the trial. It was my first real audition ever! The nerves were real. Anyway, I was lucky enough to be invited to join the group and moved out to Chicago just a few months later to start performing. 

{Jacob} - When you were at NEC, were you part of the Queer Student Union? QUEST?

{Theo} - I was not. I think maybe that was after my time, but honestly I’m not sure that it would have occurred to me to join at that age anyway. I wasn’t really self-identifying as queer yet…I’d like to think that maybe I would have wanted to be involved as an ally? Who knows, maybe sharing a space like that would have helped speed up some of my own self reflection and cognition of my place within the queer community…

{Jacob} - It is interesting that you say that. I run a Queer Ensemble here in Nova Scotia. It is a bit of an offshoot of this project. It is mainly just somewhere for local queer musicians to get together and play. It is really informal and it has no barriers to who can be in it. We have people who play professionally with the local symphony, but also people who barely read music and just want to come make music and build community. When we first started, we had a big conversation as a group about the mission of the ensemble. One of the topics we covered was allies in the group. Is that something we should encourage or was this a purely queer safe space? After a lot of discussion, we decided that allies should be part of the group and that it is important they are there. Mainly for the reason that you have no idea who would identify as queer if they were given the space, or if they had the community, or if they had different experiences leading up to that moment. And then sure enough, about 3 months into the ensemble working together, I had the pleasure of talking with a person who was in the group as an ally that had an awakening and realized that they were drawn to the ensemble as an ally because they were, in fact, queer. Had we excluded them, they would have likely taken even more time to come to that realization! I don’t think it’s groundbreaking to say that representation and safe spaces are important, but it holds true. If we can have those spaces for people that are open and safe and barrier free then who knows who it can affect. 

{Theo} - Representation and queer timelines are such a funny thing. I think about this all the time in the context of my own life: I grew up in such a diverse and liberal place and definitely saw many examples of ways to be a queer person in the world, but, like so many of us, I just wasn’t ready until I was ready. There were moments in my life where I was finding entry points into the queer community through friends or colleagues, and engaging with art and culture coming out of those spaces, but didn’t yet feel justified in labeling myself as part of the community. I think there is a certain amount of impostor syndrome that can happen to many people who are exploring these facets of identity for the first time. Do I feel queer enough to label myself as queer? Will people think I’m legitimate if I don’t display these attributes or thrive within these stereotypes? Do I need to be with this type of person, or look this type of way? I remember feeling anxious that I would be appropriating a label, or taking up space in an environment that wasn’t mine to occupy. It’s funny to me now, because so many people I’ve gotten to know and looked up to as “seasoned” queers or elders have shared with me that there was a period of time in their development where they, too, didn’t feel “queer enough.” But as a wise friend once said to me — most cis-het people don’t sit around questioning their sexuality or gender identity to this degree, and if the label resonates with you then that label IS for you. All in all, I still consider those more clouded years really important for my own growth. It’s so much more potent to step forward and claim something as being central to your own safety and existence when you have already practiced feeling galvanized in that way for others. So yes, I think those spaces that allow allies are vital.

{Jacob} - You’re very right. Everyone’s timeline and goalposts are different. I look at the understanding I have of myself now and the work I do. And then I try to imagine telling my junior high or high school self about my current life. Although, I wasn’t old when I came out at all - I was 19 - it took me several years just to catch up. I’m 32 now, but it has only been in the last 5-7 years that I have started to understand what being queer is like for me. What that means for my relationships, friendships, family life, career, and everything in between. I wouldn’t have been ready for my current life at 19, even though I was out. I’m not even sure 25 year old Jacob was ready. 

{Theo} - It’s so funny. I often think now, in my young adulthood, about how rare my situation was as a young person. Being a young person in Manhattan, and even attending middle school in a markedly queer neighborhood where I witnessed a huge diversity of people and relationships. Compared to others who are maybe growing up in places where there's no visibility, I had a lot of exposure - but not even that led me to early enlightenment about my gender identity or sexuality. I wasn't that I didn't possess any of the vocabulary for it or was wholly unaware of my options, I just didn’t understand the nuances that existed, and how I could find a way to feel fully recognized as myself as someone who didn't fit neatly into the gender binary. I had to spend a long time working through the assumptions placed on me by society, reckoning with the ways in which I never felt that I adhered well to them, and seeking out other people who I recognized myself within, just to feel like I had “permission” to claim my identity fully.

{Jacob} - Do you find yourself listening to a lot of queer artists? Is that something you think about when you're listening to music?

{Theo} -I do think about it. I think all types of visibility, even (or especially!) the quieter kinds are so important, so if an artist either explicitly or implicitly alludes to their queerness, it definitely factors into how I experience the music. I do find myself gravitating towards queer artists, I think partially just because it still feels so magical to me - to see someone I recognize myself in succeeding within my own industry. I think that excitement has also found its way into my quartet as well in a really beautiful way. We each have a certain amount of agency over what we play and what music we bring to the group or advocate for when we’re planning our programming, and I think collectively we’re also pushing ourselves more and more as an organization to find the most intentional ways to perform and center music written by those voices which have generally been overlooked in the Classical music world.

{Jacob} - Do you play with other groups aside from Spektral? Regularly, I mean. 

{Theo} - The quartet has been a part of the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago for the past two years, so I’ve gotten to rehearse and perform with a really amazing larger ensemble of Chicago musicians in that context, but aside from that, no other groups really. I have been really lucky to become friends with a few incredible composers here who I’m working on projects with individually and that have been really exciting. Recently I’ve found myself in really fruitful musical partnerships with the brilliant composers Luis Fernando Amaya and Ted Moore whose music everyone should check out!

{Jacob} - I read somewhere that you also have been known to dabble in electronic music. Do you still play a lot of that? I am more and more fascinated by classical musician’s side gigs. What they choose to spend their creative energy on when it isn’t for their main job. 

{Theo} - It’s been a while since I’ve really finished anything substantial, but I do love listening to and messing around with electronic music. I’m both fascinated (and terrified) by Ableton which I’ve sort of been slowly deciphering over the last few years and I get a lot of joy and frustration out of experimenting within the software, but it has been a few years since I really had time to devote to it with any discipline. I’ll send you my Soundcloud if you’re interested to hear some of my more youthful experimentations.

{Jacob} - I genuinely am. Please do. 

{Theo} - Maybe it’s because I am moving further and further into a “violin-centric” career, but I think those outside projects are really important. Obviously ‘identity’ is such a buzz word right now, but I think we have all spent so much time defining ourselves into little boxes in order to be able to legitimize and market ourselves, that at a certain point it’s just as vital to try to break back out of those. To expand. Classical boxes as in “chamber music” or “orchestra”, “jazz” or “electronic”, but also with personal identity. More and more I think of queer as a sort of defiant response to that same boxing-in. Finding words that empower is incredible - to identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, ace, aro etc. - to claim those labels and find safety and empowerment and community within them can be lifesaving. But “queer” to me is about expansiveness and that nonconformity and subversion of the norm can pervade all parts of my life in such a freeing way, apart from gender or sexuality. A classical violinist who also plays electronic music. Listening to Bach on the subway, and Aphex Twin in the dressing room. Not a girl, not a boy. Words and labels are powerful but they will only ever give us a vague outline. 

When you're someone who makes your living on stages, there are always going to be elements of performance, presentation and perception - but as impossible as it is to fully escape those things, being a body on stage also means you’re also giving someone, to some degree, a view into your self, your priorities, your instincts, what matters to you; who you are as a human as well as a performer. 

{Jacob} - Do you swear to tell people when they read this that your answer wasn’t a prompt? I don’t think I could sum up classicalqueer any better myself! So what's next for your schedule? 

{Theo} - We have a lot of traveling coming up!  I think we’ve more than doubled our touring dates from last year, which has been really amazing and weird. I feel very lucky but it's also been a huge adjustment, to spend so much more time on the road. I think juggling traveling and learning how to be sane on the road together and how to stay healthy is crucial, while also making sure to maintain our commitment to Chicago and the incredible community of artists and musicians here that we get to be a part of. We're going to be in College Park, Maryland next week performing with our amazing friend and collaborator Nathalie Joachim who we recently recorded and released an album with! After that we have a week-long residency in Dallas coming up at a couple different universities and then we’ll be embarking on some short tours on both the east and west coasts. 

{Jacob} - What a phenomenal career. This project has been enlightening in a number of ways of course, but one way that I hadn’t initially thought about is in career paths. I hear of so many diverse and interesting ways to be a classical musician in the world nowadays. I tell my students all the time about these interviews, because I see so many wonderful paths to being a successful performer. And that is all aside from the queerness and visibility aims of this project. 

{Theo} - Totally. I think for a while I was somewhat self-conscious about the fact that I wasn't a prodigy. I wasn't a super disciplined kid when it came to practicing and I never participated in any competitions, or attended pre-college. I hardly ever performed at all, nor was I on a particularly competitive track. But as we discussed before, I think that timeline is so person-specific. I can absolutely look back and think “Oh wow, I could/should have practiced so much more during that time” or “I never had the experience of going to that competition when I was younger." But it is all part of life, and mine brought me to a really fulfilling corner of the music world, even if by a circuitous route. As performers, when we’re on stage we have to try to bring our whole selves to the performance, and that is what I can offer to the world now. It’s amazing that you give your students the access to so many different narratives. We do a lot of school presentations as a quartet and we always try to emphasize to the students we’re working with that a career in the arts can look so many different ways. That none of us sitting on stage had any idea what our performing lives would actually look like until we found ourselves in the thick of it, and that that’s also the beauty of it. The thing you find yourself thriving in may not look how you imagined it would, but there’s a lot of power and resilience in that as well. To recognize the space that needs you and to step into it requires an understanding of your own abilities and strengths and the wealth of experiences that shape you. It teaches you to re-frame how you see those things: to view your quirks and eccentricities and interests as assets and to mold them into what you need them to be, rather than thinking of them as aberrations or shortcomings to be held up to a yardstick that doesn’t reflect the current reality of the music world, our the nuances of our experiences. There are millions of possibilities, just as with any path or identity.

{Jacob} - The last question I usually ask someone is if there is anything they want to add. Something we didn’t get to. Is there anything?

{Theo} - I'm someone that's pretty new to being openly queer and I think a lot these days about what things I want to be vocal about. I think often times in the more circulated media there's a lot of focus on the hardships of being queer, so I think maybe I’ll end this discussion on a note of gratitude. I’ve been meeting more and more young musicians while on the road and at concerts and universities who are queer, and being more open has given me the chance to connect with those people in a way that I probably wouldn't have before. That feels like the greatest gift. Finding community in so many different places has really hit home for me, and there’s such a power in having that coincide with my new life as a traveling musician. It’s a new and beautiful experience for me to connect with someone who I relate to so strongly with who might be thousands of miles away, and then to be able to say “Hey, I’m going to be in your city in a month, come to my show.” Visibility can be such a complicated but incredible thing. It’s so vital that we have people who are showing up as activists, who are vocal and poised and demanding attention - I owe so much to those people. But, I also think that there’s a real power and necessity in finding and creating examples of quiet visibility. Just to simply be: queer, authentic and on stages. We work within a field that can be extremely homogeneous and not always ready to proactively engage with identities that challenge the norm. But to have more people out there practicing their craft as themselves and showing up for audiences or emerging musicians to witness feels like limitless potential. I’m endlessly stoked by the notion that a young musician could see me on stage and leave the concert hall thinking that maybe there is a way that classical music can be for them after all, on their terms, in a way that validates and affirms who they are and doesn’t require them to blend.