Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson. And this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music makes our lives better and spotlight the resources you can use to enhance your life with music. My guest today is a local based right here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. William Eddins is the music director emeritus for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and a frequent guest conductor of major orchestras throughout the world. He was an associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in the 90s and is an accomplished pianist. During the summer of 2020, pandemic and public unrest, particularly here in Minneapolis, Bill co-founded a socially missioned brewery with the goal of raising money for music education and instruments for Metro youth. This brewery is in downtown Saint Paul. It’s called MetroNOME Brewery, with the name being an acronym for Nurturing Outstanding Music Education. Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Bill.
Bill Eddins: [00:01:02] Hi, Mindy. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:05] Great to have you. Well, first of all, I’ve got to hand it to anyone who can find a way to combine the twin passions of music and beer. Second of all, being in the music industry. I heard about MetroNOME a while ago, probably around the time that you opened a few years ago, and you’ve been on my radar. I wanted to get there and maybe post on social media about the experience, but once I started checking you out, checking out MetroNOME Brewery and what you have going on there, I thought, this is so much. There’s so much depth here. I don’t want to just do a social media post. I need to do a full interview and episode on this setup. So great to have you here. I mean, we could do an entire episode on you and all of your interests and accomplishments. You’re quite the Renaissance man. You graduated from Eastman School of Music at age 18, is that right? Yes.
Bill Eddins: [00:01:58] Not something I would necessarily recommend.
Mindy Peterson: [00:02:00] Okay. Okay.
Bill Eddins: [00:02:02] By the way. But nonetheless it’s true.
Mindy Peterson: [00:02:04] Okay. You told me Renee Fleming, a former guest on this podcast, was a friend, colleague peer of yours at Eastman. You’ve written historical fiction. You are a certified Thai yoga massage practitioner, and I’m umpire for the United States Tennis Association. And and it goes on in in addition to your many outstanding achievements and accomplishments as a musician. So like I said, we could have a whole episode on all of that. But let’s talk about metronome and the mission of metronome. You strongly believe that education in general, and music education in particular, is the gateway to a better, more fulfilling life. And you want to ensure that any child who loves music is able to play. Tell us a little bit more about how you came to start MetroNOME Brewery, and how the brewery funds music, instruments and education for youth.
Bill Eddins: [00:02:58] Okay, well, the first thing you need to know about me, in case you haven’t figured this out already, is that I am a nerd. Capital N, um, and I’m a restless kind of guy, and I like to. I’m in search of anything that’s interesting.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:15] Well, there’s a lot that piques your interest.
Bill Eddins: [00:03:17] Obviously, there’s a lot out there that that really makes me go, ooh, I want to explore that for the next six years, you know, the.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:24] Sleep interest you at all or do you not sleep?
Bill Eddins: [00:03:26] It really does. And the problem is, is that I don’t sleep. I have these these sleep disorders and such because the brain kicks in and I would love to sleep eight hours a night. That would, that would, that would just be Paradise in my world. But, uh, no, I guess I’ll sleep next lifetime. But, I mean, I’ll be that as it may. Well, that music is is an obvious thing. I’ve had an interest in music since I was knee high to the dining room table. Beer was something that I stumbled across when I went to college. Really. I mean, I know this comes as a shocker because I’m sure this has never happened before or since, right in the history of college or beer. But I got to Eastman and it was there was this store in Rochester that had something like 185 different kinds of beer. Wow. Now, keep in mind that this this is back in the you know, this is 1979, 1980. The United States was a beer wasteland. I mean, we just we just did not have a lot of great beer here. This is long before the craft beer revolution, and, you know, and now you have a taproom on every street corner. If you go into a downtown, you know, things like decades before that, it was, you know, it was the big ones and they called it beer, but it wasn’t really beer. But this store in Rochester had beer, had actual beer from around the world at I just went, oh, this is wonderful. And so the the beers of Belgium and, and England really kind of attracted me. And so I’ve always been a beer lover and, uh, I started doing home brewing because, you know, of course I needed something to do. I have all this spare time in between everything else, but I, you know, I started home brewing, then I had kids, and that was the end of that. And then.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:28] And the spare time or home brewing? Both.
Bill Eddins: [00:05:32] Both. Let’s be honest. Good lord. Uh, but about maybe.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:36] That’s when your sleep ended, too.
Bill Eddins: [00:05:38] Yeah. Right. And and thank you very much. And yes, you figured that out. Well, about 12, 13 years into that, my sister in law, I’m going to blame her. I’m throwing her under the bus. Uh, got us a wine making kit for Christmas. And as I was cleaning out the cellar down there to make room for all this, I found some of my old brewing equipment. I said, oh, I should get back into brewing. You know, when the kids get older. And a couple years later I started doing a little brewing. Then I got. Serendipitously, I met this guy named Matt, and we were coaching our kids baseball team. And it turns out he was a homebrewer, too. We just started homebrewing together, so we would sit on out on my back patio and BS for hours and brew beer. Well, the summer of 2020 hit. I was out of a job as a conductor and I wasn’t doing any Thai yoga, massage, or I wasn’t doing any Usta tennis or anything else for that matter, because we were in the middle of a global pandemic.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:43] Uh huh.
Bill Eddins: [00:06:44] And I also found myself in the middle of my third set of riots. I did Miami 89 and LA 92, and now I was smack dab in the middle of the third one, and about a month later I was. I was in the shower. I love telling the story. I’m in the shower, just looking out the window, warm water on you. This is where you start getting into trouble because you know, the brain just starts to go into various directions because you’re all warm and fuzzy and everything in the water. And half of my brain was was looking out the window going, it’s a beautiful day. Why am I not brewing? The other half of my brain was was working on this whole why did I just live through my third set of riots in this country? Why don’t we actually fund things that make our society better? Why? You know, being a musician, I’m starting to get worked up here, you know, why do we always cut music education whenever the budgets, you know, $0.03 under or whatever, you know, and I’m getting mad at one hand. The other side of my brain is getting mad about beer. This side is mad about music. And they just went quick and and I found myself staring at a tile in my in a shower, and with this idea that we were going to, I was going to found this brewery and it would be a for profit brewery, but with a social mission.
Bill Eddins: [00:08:05] And that was to to support music education, because music education has given me so much. I mean, it is I’ve, I’ve been around the world multiple times. I’ve, I’ve seen things that some kid from, you know, northern suburbs of Buffalo probably wouldn’t have seen simply because the music I found myself in these situations. Well, I got out of the shower and I sent my buddy an email and I said, this is my idea. And that guy sat on it for nine days. He did not so much as acknowledge the fact that I had sent him an email. It was driving me insane. I was I was just I was going nuts. And but after after about nine days, he said, yeah, you know, I think we could probably do it. Well, fast forward, here we are. It’s four years later. We opened our doors in February 22nd, still in the middle of a pandemic for all intents and purposes, and economic downturn in the in the hospitality industry and this and that or the other. But we’re still open and we’re still making a go at it. And, you know, the support of the music industry, the music people, people who just love music, musicians and people who just love live music has been extraordinary. I think I run, I might run the most active live music venue in the Upper Midwest really?
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:31] Well, I know you’ve I know you’ve said that people just have come out of the woodwork to help make this dream a reality, because they believe in the power of music and the joy and beauty of music education. Tell us about some of the people who have come out of the woodwork to support you. Maybe some who are expected, but maybe some surprises in there.
Bill Eddins: [00:09:50] Well, under the possibly expected. I mean, I have this lovely little venue called Fingal’s Cave down in our basement, which you’ve been to. Yeah. And I, I get to populate this venue with, with live music, and we can have music down there Monday through Sunday in many weeks, and sometimes upstairs as well in the facility. So people who perform music love the idea that there is this small, intimate venue that is run by people who are into music, who really love music in a place that is all about music. And these people can come and they can perform in this venue and just, you know, make music. We we have a lot of people who come and perform and simply donate the proceeds of their concert to our foundation, to the MetroNOME Foundation, because they just want to play music and they want to support music education.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:49] Yeah. Yeah.
Bill Eddins: [00:10:50] You know that. That’s one side. The other thing is, you know, we’ve had people volunteer their time for MetroNOME Brewery just out of the goodness of their hearts, out of the support of the mission, whether it comes to marketing, PR, just working in the place. Our chief sound guy just showed up, started doing sound for us.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:16] And he. Is he still doing it now?
Bill Eddins: [00:11:18] Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So I remember looking over at one point at my at my partner, I had been out of town for a week or two or something. I was doing some concerts. I was in there. Who the hell is that? He’s like, well, yeah, that that he’s he showed up and he started doing, uh, doing sound for us. Okay. Okay. It turns out I don’t know if I should spill the beans. I mean, it’s common knowledge, really, in the business, but the guy is the chief sound tech for TPT.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:45] Oh, really? Oh, he lives in the building.
Bill Eddins: [00:11:48] And he just. He just showed up and started doing sound for us.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:52] Wow. In two years. Two plus years later, he’s still doing it.
Bill Eddins: [00:11:55] Yeah, yeah. And he’s a great guy. We get along like a house afire. He’s hilarious and whatever, but he. He does it because he got suckered in by the the mission. Yeah. This this idea that we could be doing something innovative by having a product and having this, this for profit company that our mission is to grow when it comes to that. Right. We want to be successful. We want to do this. But the reason we want to be successful is so that we can take that profit and turn around and feed it right back into our society. Yeah. Because we believe that we probably won’t see the impacts of it this year or next year, probably not the year after, not really the full impacts of it. You come back to me in a generation, and what we might accomplish could have an absolutely profound effect in where it is that we live. And that’s our goal long term.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:05] Tell tell us about some of the organizations that you partner with and donate to.
Bill Eddins: [00:13:10] Uh, well, we have partnered with so many when it comes to schools, for example, such as Hopewell or MacPhail. Organizations like that, we have hosted fundraisers for them. Okay. We’ve also worked with organizations such as the SPCA, Saint Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts. We host both of those organizations in performances over at at metronome, but we also work with the a lot of the professional organizations, large and small, when it comes to music. We’ve partnered with the Minnesota Opera and the Minnesota Orchestra, the Spco, the Ordway, the Classical Chamber Players, the Thursday Musical, You know, this, that, and the other. I can’t even begin to name them all.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:03] Sure. So so some of the different forms that your support takes, it’s hosting fundraisers for them. Is it donations or scholarships for underserved children to have lessons, say at MacPhail.
Bill Eddins: [00:14:17] That well, that would certainly be part of our long term goal now. Now I need to back up here because remember, think about what our business model is. We have to turn a profit first. We’re not a nonprofit that we can go out and just raise money and immediately turn it around. We have to turn a profit. But that’s the innovative thing about how we’re thinking about this. We want this to be an ongoing funder. It’s also almost as if we’re we’re trying to create what are those our perpetual machines?
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:50] Perpetual motion?
Bill Eddins: [00:14:51] Yeah, perpetual motion machines. It’s almost as if we’re trying to create that, because we want to have this product that people keep buying and that we have the the profit from that and that funds the education and that brings PR, marketing, and people are interested in the product so that they buy it and then it funds. So it’s this perpetual motion kind of, um, kind of creation. So we are just now at the point where we are starting to reach out to some of these other organizations and saying, okay, the MetroNOME Foundation, our nonprofit arm, has some money and we need to get rid of it, because that’s our whole purpose of existence to just take this money and fund you guys.
Mindy Peterson: [00:15:43] Sure. Well, and you have quite, quite a diverse foundation board of directors with a lot of people with ties to Minnesota Opera. The president and CEO of Minnesota Orchestra, and a lot of other people from a really wide variety of backgrounds, which is pretty cool. One thing that really amazed me about metronome is not only your musical background, but the musical background of the other team players too. Your brewmaster. I was really intrigued. I, my husband and I just moved out of Eden Prairie, but we were walking distance from Boom Island Brewery and your your brewmaster is the was the co-founder and brewmaster of Boom Island, Kevin Welch. I didn’t know he had a first career as a professional horn player and played for around 18 years as a musician, and then says he made the transition to a different art form brewing. And so that’s two dreams can come true, which is pretty cool. And then your co-founder, Matt, I got to meet him when I was there at metronome listening to Neon Suns shout out to them. But Matt has, um. Although his background is in degree is in engineering. He played the sax in fourth grade. Continue through high school and college, played in the Saint Olaf Band and Jazz band for all four years. So that’s pretty amazing that not only do you have this incredible musical background, but the other major players in this organization also have this real appreciation and immersion to some extent in the world of music.
Bill Eddins: [00:17:21] I think it shows very much in who we are and what is it that we’re trying to do that those of us who have had this experience with music and know of its impact on our lives, whether or not we were professionals. I’m a professional. Kevin was a professional. Matt never had any dream of being a professional musician. But, you know, his his wife and both of his boys and half his family there, they all play instruments such that we all know. We all understand what the impact is that music can have on the life of anybody, because we we’ve gone through it ourselves and we just want other kids to have that opportunity. It’s as simple as that, really.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:11] Absolutely. Well, in this podcast is all about spotlighting the ways music enhances our lives, whether we consider ourselves musicians or not. And I know you said that one reason you advocate for music is not just for musicians and music players, makers of music, but also for people who want to listen to music and whether we consider ourselves musicians or not. I mean, who doesn’t love music and want a robust music industry? Yeah.
Bill Eddins: [00:18:38] So here’s here’s the thing. We are all musicians. Really. I mean, that’s the nature of music. It is a language. And there are very few of us who are so as completely tone deaf that we that we don’t have an instinctive understanding of certain musical concepts and ideas. I mean, they call music the universal language. Okay, it’s a little bit of a trope, but it’s still true. I mean, there’s a there’s a reason why that trope has, you know, has come along, uh, and it, uh, I don’t know where I was going. I don’t know where I was going with this. Well, it sounds.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:21] Like you’re ready to go on a rant, so let me give you something to rant about. You said that the best way to improve society is through music education. Why do you think it is that arts education is always the first thing to go? When, as you said, we’re $0.03 short in our funding.
Bill Eddins: [00:19:40] Uh, you know, if I actually understood that, I could… I think there is a misunderstanding of why it is. Having this kind of background in one’s life is important. The most important thing is I think it puts us in touch with our own humanity. I think that is the most, the most critical thing. When you are in a band or you are in an orchestra or you are in, you know, your power trio or whatever it is, you can play Indonesian gamelan or, or you know, if you’re if you’re rapping or whatever, and you a couple of things have to happen. You have to have your mind open enough to be able to understand what other people are doing and to be able to react to what other people are doing in this idiom.
Mindy Peterson: [00:20:46] There’s a level of empathy and awareness, for sure. That’s that’s the that’s the.
Bill Eddins: [00:20:50] That’s the word. It is that I was I was about to get to empathy. You have to look at another person as a fellow human being, and you have to have this kind of connection, understanding.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:09] And all I can think about as you’re saying those things is as we’re recording this right now, it’s a week or less since the shooting at the high school in Georgia. And I just I think kids who have empathy and awareness, kids who have active music in their life, I just can’t envision them being the ones who are going to grab a gun and go shoot up a school.
Bill Eddins: [00:21:33] It doesn’t happen that often. I got I got to say this the other thing as a kid, I can’t tell you how many kids I know or how many people I know who grew up, you know, playing in in band was my refuge. It was where I could be myself and just express myself.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:52] Oh, yeah, I hear that all the time. Musical theatre. Band, orchestra. Choir. Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Bill Eddins: [00:21:58] Yes, absolutely. Well, that’s what it’s all about.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:00] Yeah. Well, some of those benefits that you’re talking about, the empathy, the awareness. Those are hard to quantify.
Bill Eddins: [00:22:08] Mhm. They’re impossible to quantify. No no they’re not hard. They’re impossible to.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:13] Quantify. Well you were talking earlier about the the long term investment. You’re in this for the long game. And a lot of these results of music education, not only are they difficult or impossible to quantify, but as you alluded to earlier, you’re not seeing them necessarily when a kid’s in fifth grade and they’re starting band. You’re maybe seeing it when they’re in high school and they are developing social skills and they’re connected to other human beings rather than pulling into themselves and showing up with a gun, or you’re seeing it when they’re an adult and they’re able to have more healthy relationships with their partner because of that awareness and that empathy and that ability to communicate well. I want to I want to keep an eye on the time here. I want to hear about the beer. So tell us a little bit about the beer. I know I’m rambling, aren’t we? Okay, so full full disclosure, I’m not a huge beer connoisseur, so I can’t talk very informatively about beer. But I do know if I’m going to have beer. I like dark beer. Oh, and I.
Bill Eddins: [00:23:17] Oh, see, I oh, I love you. Okay, so.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:19] And I okay. You know, there’s plenty of dark beers I’ve had where I’m like, yeah, just not real. Like, give me the tequila. Yeah, right. Like get me back there.
Bill Eddins: [00:23:31] Um, yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:31] But I will say I was debating between your Cole Porter and your enigma. Um, another Mindi was serving that night. Gotta love another Mindy. She gave me a little sample of each one, and I was like, oh, hands down, give me the enigma. I loved it. It was great. The, uh. What was it? Double. Double brown.
Bill Eddins: [00:23:54] Double brown. Went see this? This is the. As I mentioned earlier, this is the kind of beer that got me into beer when I got into beer. Right. This this kind of English double browns or or Belgian singles and doubles and triples. And that these are the types of beer. The malt forward. It’s all about the malt and and the aging of the beer and this and that and the other. Oh, I just love this kind of beer. And when Matt and I finally decided that we were going to go in for metronome, one of the first things that we agreed on, we said we have to have a great English brown on the menu, because so many breweries do not in this country, they have no idea what, what this what this style is. And it usually ends up being just not very good. And that drives me nuts, really, because as I said, I love this beer. So Enigma, I, I’m delighted to hear that you have such fabulous taste in beer. Because if it’s.
Mindy Peterson: [00:24:59] Below my beer ego. Absolutely. Because I am not. I can’t claim to be a connoisseur.
Bill Eddins: [00:25:04] Well, let’s put it this way. If it’s below 40 degrees outside, I’m usually drinking Enigma. I just love.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:11] Nine months out of the year here. Right? Yeah.
Bill Eddins: [00:25:14] Yeah, yeah, I was a little ticked off last winter because, you know, it just really didn’t get cold enough.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:20] It was. It was really mild.
Bill Eddins: [00:25:21] So I, uh, I drank a lot of the Cole Porter while I was at it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:28] Okay. Well, yeah. I love the enigma. I love the names. So, Cole Porter, you have the Sound Czech Pilsner. It’s spelled…
Bill Eddins: [00:25:36] One of my favorites is that we have a wonderful Belgium because of course, you know, Kevin is a Belgian specialist. Boom Island was founded as a Belgian brewery, and he actually just got back from Belgium a couple of days ago. Yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:50] He leads tours over there.
Bill Eddins: [00:25:52] He leads tours over there. He was on tour over there to all the breweries because he knows all the people, yada yada. He’s big on that. So we had we have a wonderful, uh, Belgian, West German Alsace-Lorraine type of beer called the saison on right now, which we call Camille. And, you know, you really have to be a classical music nerd to get this one because then you call it Camille Saint-Saens. Aha! Get it? Oh, God, that’s terrible. Uh, but we love doing things like this. The porter is the Cole Porter, you know. Cole. Cole. Sorry. Um, the enigma is named after, uh, the Enigma Variations of Edward Elgar. Of course, the the British composers. So we thought that would be appropriate. And we do things like that because we’re nerds and we’re geeks. And, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:46] You have some regulars on tap, right? And then you have a rotating cast of characters as well, you’re constantly I saw this on your website. We’re constantly composing a symphony of suds sours and seltzers.
Bill Eddins: [00:27:02] Yeah. Like that, did you?
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:03] Yes, I did. I know your beer is available other places too, so obviously people can come in and visit. You have the the taproom. You have the cellar. You mentioned Fingal’s Cave. Awesome. Like tons of personality in this, um, venue, which you also rent out if people want to rent it out, right?
Bill Eddins: [00:27:20] Those those few nights when we don’t have music down there?
Bill Eddins: [00:27:24] And that’s becoming fewer and fewer.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:27] Good, good. Well, tell us your your beer is available. Other places too. Where else can people find your beer?
Bill Eddins: [00:27:33] See, the whole idea behind our, our business model is that we are going heavily into distribution so that we can get our beer out into the greater Twin Cities area Metro area to people who one love beer, two love music, and three want to support music education. You know, rather than trying to bring everyone down to our facility, that’s not really practical. We’re doing what most other beer breweries do. We get into distribution. So I mean, our our beers in some Haskell’s a cerdic’s, it’s in Plymouth Liquor Barrel, you know, places more and more and more every day. Various restaurants such as oh Owamni by the sous Chef ou we’ve had two beers in there and, you know. We we strut just a little bit when we mention that. James Beard award winning restaurant. Thank you very much.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:32] For listeners who aren’t in the Twin Cities, is it available outside the Twin Cities? If not, can they request it from their local distributors and restaurants?
Bill Eddins: [00:28:42] If you’re in Minnesota, sure, you can request it. It’s a little bit difficult for us at the moment because we’re still a small outfit. You know, we’re doing all the distribution ourselves. We’re just trying to grow. We’re only a couple of years old here. Yeah, we’re trying to right now is kind of that moment where as a brewery, we’re going to start going over the hump into profitability and really starting to grow through distribution. But, you know, we’re almost there. We’re almost there. But hopefully, I hope the day comes where we have to argue about whether or not we’re going to start crossing state lines. And that’s when, you know, we’ve really been successful.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:25] Well, for listeners who are in the Twin Cities area or Minnesota, visit.
Bill Eddins: [00:29:30] Yes, please.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:31] Visit MetroNOME Brewery. Uh, you can you can view the events and on your website will have links in the show notes to that. And that’s interesting. You people volunteering services as a way to support your mission. So that’s that’s cool. If you have a service that you want to volunteer, contact them and let them know by their beer at other venues. Request their beer and your favorite retail store or restaurant.
Bill Eddins: [00:29:55] Especially that one. Especially that one.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:00] Uh, you have a tax deductible foundation people can donate to. Is that right?
Bill Eddins: [00:30:05] Absolutely. If they go to our website, they will find a page for the MetroNOME Foundation. And you can go there and donate online right through that page. And we’re going to take that money and we’re going to fund music education for kids right here in the Twin Cities. That’s the only thing that we do.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:23] So for listeners who aren’t in the Twin Cities metro area, aren’t in Minnesota, don’t tune this out. You can still request their beer, give them a problem where they have to figure out if they’re going to start crossing state lines or not. And I just hope, I hope that listeners utilize this conversation as inspiration. So maybe you’re not in this area, but you’re a beer brew hobbyist, and you want to team up with metronome to replicate this in your area. Or maybe you have a hobby that is similarly traditionally unrelated to music education, shall we say. Maybe you’re into knitting or some other hobby. Create the connection. Maybe there’s not a connection to music at first glance. Establish one and find a way to make that connection and you’ll create your own community. As as I know you have with metronome of people who love beer and love music and want to use their entertainment dollars and time and their services to help move forward. To borrow your tagline, playing it forward one pint at a time. Love that.
Bill Eddins: [00:31:33] Making me thirsty.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:35] Well, anything else you want listeners to know about metronome and your mission? Any other inspiration that you want to leave listeners with before we close out with a coda?
Bill Eddins: [00:31:45] Uh, I mean, not really. I just, I, I hope that we are an inspiration to people to come together and create this, this community. Because this this is what this is what the two things that, that music and beer immediately have in common is about creating a community. You know, you either sit, sit around together over a beer and you yak at people you know, and and talk about, you know, what happened at the baseball game, or you sit around with people with beer and you listen to music and you enjoy that as a community. That’s that’s what we’re all about. And we just think that we need more of that in today’s world, I think.
Mindy Peterson: [00:32:22] 100%. Well, Bill, this has been so fun. As you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda by sharing a song or a story about a moment that music enhanced your life. Do you have a song or a story that you can share with us in closing?
Bill Eddins: [00:32:40] Uh, wow. I mean, there are there there are so many moments, I will tell you, one that you may not expect. Uh, and I’ll see if I can keep this in under a minute and a half. In 1984, I was asked to participate in a piano competition, even though I’m not a great competition pianist. And that competition was in, of all places, South Africa. And I went at the height of apartheid. I went to South Africa because I wanted to see I wanted to witness it, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:33:18] And at the time you were living in Buffalo, New York.
Bill Eddins: [00:33:20] Uh, I had just graduated from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
Bill Eddins: [00:33:24] But, you know, I wanted to see with my own eyes what apartheid was all about. And, and, uh, you know, it’s hard to tell on a podcast, but, you know, uh, I have a lot of Central African blood in me. You know, I went there and spent two weeks. It was two of the most fascinating weeks of my life. I loved South Africa. I was appalled by apartheid on every level of my being and was terrified I wouldn’t even go to the bathroom without my US passport, because that was essentially the only thing that kept me legal. Mm. Uh, I was convinced that the only way South Africa was going to change was through a very, very bloody revolution. So there was no one more surprised than I when Mandela walked out of the prison and there were free and fair elections. Uh, I was stunned. I was just amazed. And a couple of years later, South Africa started calling me to come and conduct.
Mindy Peterson: [00:34:31] Oh, really?
Bill Eddins: [00:34:32] And so ever since then, every couple years or so, I end up going back there and conducting orchestras and Durban and Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and I love it. It is an impossible country. The country doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. It has all this history that’s so bizarre and strange and has come so far and has so much promise and so much this and that and the other. But it’s just you. Until you’ve been there. You can’t wrap your head around South Africa. It’s just different. But it’s had such a profound impact on me because I got the opportunity to it informed my my social character. I should say I got back to the United States, found the political center, turned left and started running. And I haven’t stopped since. And I’m not about to stop. But I mean, this comes full circle because the last stage I set foot on was this little stage called Carnegie Hall, and it was with the Africa United Youth Orchestra. They called me early this year. They were putting together a kind of southern Africa, not South Africa, but Southern Africa Youth Orchestra, young people to play a concert in Joburg and then fly to New York and be a part of the Wow Festival. The World Orchestra week at Carnegie Hall. So you had the European Youth Orchestra, the American Youth Orchestra, the kids from Venezuela, from Afghanistan and here, here it was from the southern tip of Africa, South Africa, Mozambique, the DRC. You know, these various countries, this collection of kids who are into classical music. And those kids got to play in Carnegie Hall, and we did the New World Symphony of Dvorak at Carnegie Hall, which was premiered at Carnegie Hall.
Bill Eddins: [00:36:30] And these kids had an experience that literally will change the face of music, of classical music and all of the the southern half of Africa, because this is the first generation to ever have an experience like that. And now they they know what it’s like. Been on stage looking out at 2700 people who are just yelling their their eyes out. I was looking around. These kids were just crying. They were just they were just in tears. Just just stunned by by what what had happened. And it was it was such, such an incredible moment, you know. And it all started because 40 odd years ago, I decided to go to a piano competition in this screwed up place called South Africa. And it’s been such a part of my life. It’s weird. It’s really strange. And I love it. And I’m going to be going back in August of next year.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai