Other
writings
Main page
The concert started ten minutes late. As a portly Peter Ostroushko, his
inseparable coffee in hand, and a tall Dirk Freymuth sauntered into the
centrestage of the huddled Beckman Institute Auditorium at Caltech, the hum in the
audience trailed off. Mr.Ostroushko is of Ukrainian origin and was born and
brought up in North East Minneapolis. Son of a shoemaker, Mr.Ostroushko picked up
playing the mandolin from his father who he described as "shoemaker by day,
mandolin-player by night". Dirk Freymuth was born in Frankfurt but brought up in
Los Angeles. He now stays in Minneapolis.
What fashions a culture? What ingredients go into the ultimate moulding of an
ethos? To give these questions a more definite form and immediate perspective,
what contributed to the origins of country music in America? One answer I gleaned
from last night is the oneness people from the Prairies feel with one another and
their Heartland. That oneness in itself is a consequence of the daily hardships
they have to face. The greatest music comes from a feeling of loneliness and
abandonment. And nowhere else is this more deeply felt than in the Prairies, in
the forgotten vastlands of Montana, the sun-scorched and depressed fields of
Tennessee and Georgia and in the frigid alleys of Minnesota.
From the start of the concert, it looked to me that this was going to be one of
those transcedental experiences for the Midwesterner who had forsaken the Prairies
to come and live in the alien and cosmopolitan habitat of Los Angeles, where the
need to retain one's cultural identity has been forsaken for the more immediate
concern of eking out one's diurnal existence.
It started off with a quick Brazilian note. Then, Mr.Ostroushko played a
self-composed tune called "Sacred Heart" which was a quiet lilting lullaby and an
ode to a town called Sacred Heart in the Prairies which "was dying a slow death".
This was followed by a quick Celtic tune played on the fiddle. This was a piece by
John Doherty, an Irish fiddle-player who stayed for the most part of his life in
Donegal in north-west Ireland. In Mr.Ostroushko's own words, John Doherty was "a
link with the old times" who lived by his music. He would oftentimes trade his
tunes for food and drink. After this was a slow piece that was played alternately
by Mr.Ostroushko on the fiddle and Mr.Freymuth on the guitar with the other
providing essential support. Once again the tune owed its existence to the
Prairie: Medicine Bow, WY. Then came a beautiful Southern Baptist hymnal, "Little
Bessie" which was played and sung out by Mr.Ostroushko in his soft and at times
raspy voice, quite truly in the best traditions of country music. I found this
tune spiritually uplifting given its mystic melody and entrancing lyric. To add to
this great panorama of emotions, Mr.Ostroushko next sung a lively and hilarious
tune, "Baking Potatoes" I think, paying mocking homage to his Ukrainian roots.
Then, Mr.Freymuth fished out his bouzouki which is a stringed instrument used
often to play traditional Irish music, and the duo played a medley of John Doherty
tunes. Mr.Ostroushko's homage to his hero continued with a short piece called the
"Teelin Bay Waltz". Teelin Bay, he tells us, is a place remoter than Donegal cut
off by the "obligatory flock of sheep on the one-lane road". The next piece,
"Boston" was a brilliantly synchronised exercise with Mr.Ostrouhko on the fiddle
and Mr.Freymuth on the guitar. This was followed by "Heart of the Heartland" which
was quite similar in spirit to "Sacred Heart" and another Brazilian tune.
After a brief vocal effort by Mr.Ostroushko, we were treated to a medley of
mandolin tunes by Norman Blake who Mr.Ostroushko described as the "Renaissance
hill-billy". The tunes were the popular "Muddy Creek" and "Jefferson Davis".
Mr.Ostroushko rounded out the evening with a timely "Hymn, Page 9/11" and yet
another John Doherty tune, "Reels".
Mr.Ostroushko typifies the best of the Midwest: a weary countenance that bespeaks
of many years of unbearable winters that have at the same time also endowed him
with rare softness and beatitude, a mellow unaffected voice and a very gentle
sense of humour, self-deprecating at times. His music is soul-stirring and
emancipating and as notes cascade down from his mandolin they recreate the same
melodic tension as when small pellets of rain-water drop into a shallow puddle.
As regards the music, I think the reason I like Irish traditional music so much is
on account of its tonal richness. Also, quite akin to Carnatic music, it is very
much rhythm-driven. Country music and bluegrass owe much of their origins to Irish
folk-music and so proclivity to this form of music is natural. Both Peter
Ostroushko and Dirk Freymuth represent that very select genre of gifted musicians
who possess the ability to make music that literally strikes a chord.
Other
writings
Main page
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.