Interview with Emilie-Anne Gendron

Emilie-Anne and I first met at Marlboro Music Festival back in 2013. It was an easy and natural connection because of our shared Japanese heritage, but it wasn’t until many years later in 2019 that we worked together more closely. Emilie was part of our very last performance at the Crypt Sessions before COVID hit, and came back to work with Salon Séance last fall in 2022. I’m so happy to have finally sat down to discover more about Emilie and her world!

The End of Time brings together classical music with rituals inspired by Japanese traditions such as folding origami cranes. Did you grow up with, or currently practise, any rituals (anything you do on a regular basis) that help you connect to yourself and/or to others, besides music?

I guess there were some things that fall into that category of ‘ritual’ that I grew up with. It was ingrained into me very early on that practising was a sort of ritual or prayer, if you will. 

In terms of whether there is anything I do now that fills that role? The closest thing I have, honestly, is exercise — like walking. I find it very helpful, especially if I have a lot on my mind.

Another that I do that’s close to a ritual is going to museums to view art. I like going to museums and interacting with a branch of the arts that isn't temporally based. 

I'm curious, what do you get out of immersing yourself in non-temporal forms of art?

Well, there are two things. First, if there's a familiar piece of art that I've seen before — I can find a different way of looking at it, of seeing it. And I feel like there's a lesson here. If you've got an issue, there are always different ways of looking at it, though it's hard for us to do that sometimes. 

And the second is looking at these objects, these depictions, and remembering all these different times and places that have existed before. Just to remember — whether it's comforting or not — that there's this whole span of existence and that what you're feeling right now is just this one tiny dot within that. 

Is there something you turn to, when you're going through a difficult time in your life?

There’s a list – I think it's by John Cage – it's like a list of rules for his classes. There was one rule that was “Try to enjoy the process,” the process of learning. And he writes, “It is lighter than you think.” And I try to remember that all the time. 

Also, yoga is something that I always come back to. I'm not good at it in the conventional sense, which is maybe also a refreshing thing to turn to, since there's no expectation. By contrast, with the violin and with our practice, everything is geared toward a technical ideal. So to have something that isn't ideal-oriented like that is special.

Why do you think you became an interpreter rather than a generative artist?

The idea of becoming a generative artist never occurred to me at any point in my training, even later down the line, at Juilliard. It was never really presented to me as a choice, because I was trained the way a thoroughbred is, trained to be just one thing. That's what I was. The question of who Emilie is and Emilie's identity is something I'm only now starting to think about. 

A few years ago, my quartet started a festival or a series where we each curate one concert and do everything for it — writing the programme notes, coming up with the programming concept. It's rudimentary really, but for me it was a big thing to reflect on what I would actually want to put in a concert. It wasn’t somebody telling me I have this assignment, but rather asking me what I would want to put in a programme and how I would present it to an audience. 

Messiaen and Pasquier were already established artists and that gave them a golden ticket to be released from the POW earlier than others. Have you ever felt that music has been like a passport to the world or gave you access to things you wouldn't otherwise have had?

That is exactly what I feel like. I think 95% of anywhere I've been, or anyone I've met, or any experience I’ve had, wouldn't have happened if it weren’t for music. I know this is cliché to say — but it's unlocked the world for me. And to take the question inwards, I also feel that music and perhaps specifically being a violinist, has forced me to confront, in a good way, certain aspects of my personality. It's forced me to grow in certain ways.

I feel that, if I had gone into another field, it may not have happened so quickly. It's made me uncomfortable in a good way, as an introverted person. It exposes who you are. Perhaps faster than in a different field.

If there’s one question you could ask one question to Messiaen what would it be?

I would drag out the copy of the Fantaisie for violin and piano that he wrote in 1933. It was written for his first wife Claire Delbos and he premiered it with her. The piece is so cool, because even though it's early Messiaen, it sounds like him already. There are composers like that, even their youthful works have that idea, that voice.I have so many questions for him about dynamics and articulations, even about a couple notes here and there. 

To find out more about Emilie-Anne, visit her website, here.