Zo? Keating is a rock star. Why? She takes the classical sound of a stringed instrument and combines it with modern technology to create densely leveled records unlike anything the world has ever heard. Keating masterfully uses musical production software in her live performances to create the effect of a one-(wo)man classical-electronic band.
In today’s world, many artists are now looking to blaze their own path of being independent instead of pursuing the notorious dotted line at the bottom of a major industry label contract. During our lifetimes alone, record labels have undergone many game-changing mergers placing three-quarters of the world’s market in the hands of just a few companies. The diversity of opinion is now limited to very few hands, which means that fewer people are given input as to what music the label should represent. Artists that are signed to these labels have little to no control on what music they create. It is a job just like any other where the boss has the final word.
Musicians like Keating are now finding a way to survive on their own. With the onset of the Internet and new technology, less emphasis is now being placed on labels for support. One can now find well-known musicians such as Keating using social media and the influence of street performance as an avenue to gain traffic.
Another draw to Keating is her ability to create a diverse array of sounds. She can create soulful and interpretive albums as well as eerie soundtracks for television shows and movies. Her past experience with classical music stems back to her hometown in Ontario, Canada. The electronic sound can be tied to her move to America. Keating begins with just a few strokes of the seemingly basic instrument, only to create a genre-defying new sound consisting of many contemplated layers of strings and ambient production. Keating’s credentials are notable but what is most striking about her is how seamlessly she combines a free-flowing lifestyle with such a contemplated sound. On Tuesday afternoon, I was granted the opportunity to ask her a few questions, while her son Alex was asleep.
Not only is Keating an exceptional cellist, she is an academic. More specifically, she is interested in information systems. In her twenties, she spontaneously moved to San Francisco from New York and began working as an information architect. The popularization of the Internet and the onset of the dot-com boom brought many opportunities for people with her skills that were entering the workforce in the ’90s. At this point, Keating was working by day and playing cello by night but was not necessarily pursuing music as a career. Then one day she started framing her music as an information architect would. She started to organize her different sounds into songs as if they were concepts entering a database.
“I play the cello with the computer,” Keating said.
She begins by creating “a big cathartic super sound” and then figures out how to spread it out later. By doing this, Keating is able to capture the emotion that she wants to elicit during the climax of the song right away. This intelligent way of crafting music is common for independent artists that use the production software themselves. The other option would be to build the song horizontally, which is more common for bands and studios that have a team of producers in the room. This technique requires a lot of money and time, two things that independent artists generally don’t have. When she performs live she actually does everything by herself using her MacBook and pedals to loop the sounds and add effects to them as the songs progress.
This cellist takes matters into her own hands and strives to provide music that people can connect with. Since she does everything by herself, she is able to create a very intimate experience with her fan base. Today, young people are forced to create their own opportunities and Zo? Keating wants to offer an escape through her music. She feels bad for young people today and strives to “take them out of space and time” and “pull them out of the minutia of daily life.”
“It gets harder and harder for people to lose themselves in the moment,” Keating said. “People are so scattered, there are all these things to pay attention to, and I think it’s a really important part of our lives that we get out of ourselves and get a view from above.”
On Saturday attendees can expect a free flowing, improvisational show with a special dance performance from Kate Corby and Dancers. The show starts at 8 p.m. in Music Hall. Further details can be found on the Wisconsin Union Theater website.
