[music playing] Support for the Alaska Live series of live music and conversation on KUAC is made possible by a grant from Design Alaska.

Design Alaska, strengthening community through support at the arts.

And we are live at the KUAC studios.

Welcome to KUAC's Alaska Live.

My guest, Zuill Bailey, cello.

Thank you for being here and for coming back to Fairbanks.

I am thrilled to be back here in Fairbanks.

I was remembering that it's been 21 years since my first visit in 2004.

Where did that go?

Oh, it's so good to have you back here in 2025.

You've got your cello all warmed up?

I do.

Going to start us off with something?

Sure.

Sure.

OK.

OK.

Here we go.

[cello playing] Aww.

[applause] It's just gorgeous.

Zuill Bailey, thank you so much for being here and for bringing your talent and your sense of peace that your cello playing brings.

I think it's really important in this day and age to have soul-soothing-- Listen to the tone of your voice right now and how it's changed in the past two minutes.

Yeah.

I know.

That's why I just played that piece.

What was that you played?

Well, it's by Pablo Casals.

It's called Song of the Birds.

And he used to play this to bring peace, not just, obviously, global peace, but peace of mind.

To be thoughtful.

To be balanced.

It's amazing how-- especially I say this because I am a cellist, but the sound of the cello can really change the emotional temperature very quickly.

And it all starts with it changes my emotional temperature.

It just creates space.

And it does remind that classical music or music is the art form that has that X factor that you can't really put your finger on.

Why does it feel different and yet the same every time?

Is it the vibration?

Is it that it evokes your imagination, memories?

Yeah.

Right there, that's why I play the cello.

I remember reading-- or maybe it was a time when you were on Alaska Live before-- welcome back-- Thank you.

--by the way-- that you were drawn to the cello at such a young age of 4 years old.

Is that when you were drawn to the cello?

Well, I mean, drawn to the cello, I was put behind a cello by my wonderful parents, and that's called music education in young people.

An opportunity, I do thank my parents daily for giving me options and also giving me great instruction.

They could have easily put me behind a cello and got me a bad teacher and I would have never wanted to play the cello.

Of course.

So that's important to know.

So in this particular case, yes, I was put behind a cello.

I was also put in front of a piano at 4 years old.

Wow.

But I didn't wrap my hands around the piano.

I wrapped my arms around the cello.

And for those who knows what a cello looks like, you sit and you put your arms around the cello.

You place the cello against your heart and game on.

I literally would shut my eyes, kind of like you just saw me do, and my parents would have to tap me on the shoulder to stop, to eat, to go to sleep, to do homework, to function as a human being because I didn't want that feeling to stop.

Some kids are addicted to the phone or, when we were kids, it would have been TV or something, but you were addicted to the cello, I'd say.

I do think, though-- I mean, there was TV when I was a kid.

We used to ride horses to school.

I'm joking, of course.

We did.

I know.

We had three channels as a kid, but my parents would only allow me to watch TV on the weekends.

And so everything was still in its place of balance.

Entertainment was running out in the yard and in the woods and sharpening sticks and things like that.

But, again, when you watch TV-- I'm not going to get into this right now-- you're kind of a passenger.

Not in music.

I mean, the discussions we've been having this week about what playing music and being a driver in it, how it lights your brain up in different ways that only it does.

I think that's what it did.

And listening to music live is different than listening to recordings or watching them on YouTube these days or-- Well, it's the unknown.

I mean, COVID was interesting because everything was on screens.

But the thing that I missed most was being with people and the exchange and just the idea that it's a dance, the communication and the unknown which provides hope.

Just being a bystander to watch TV-- I find the greatest pacifier is the TV.

Meaning how I fall asleep because I'm just like, whatever.

I can watch it later if I want.

But unless you've got a big problem, you don't fall asleep while talking to someone.

When you were 4, was that cello about the size of a viola?

Yeah.

It was a small cello.

I mean, they come in quarter size, half size, 3/4 size, and full size, and mine was probably a viola-shaped-- sized instrument with a chopstick sticking out of the bottom of it.

And you know what, my chairs, which is hysterical to me, were-- And I only say this because we do so much community engagement with communities now.

I say this because when I tell this story, they don't know what I'm talking about.

My seat were telephone books.

Like, what is that, right?

So anyway, I had three Washington, DC telephone books that I sat on, and, yeah, so.

I love it.

The good old days.

Oh.

And you grew up in the Washington, DC area, and there was just a load of music there in the Washington, DC area.

And that must have been really helpful in your ability to experience live music and-- Well, in many ways, I know the history of how Fairbanks has supported the arts over the decades.

It was very similar to here.

Yeah.

I know.

We are so lucky.

Yeah.

Yes.

To have a beautiful concert hall, which in my particular case growing up was the Kennedy Center.

And to have an abundance of educators, opportunity, youth symphony, that built, basically, my entire social structure.

That sounds so familiar, like you said, to Fairbanks.

We've got youth symphony.

We've got wind ensemble.

We've got a vibrant UAF music department.

It does change communities because I-- listen, you know how much I travel, I go to communities on occasion where there aren't the arts.

I tell you what, it's a scary place.

And I say this to kids all the time, but the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

Oh, yeah.

So when you don't vibrate in the creative, inspired way, thinking different outside of just rote tasks, when you don't, the soul is not being nourished.

You just reminded me of another funny story is that every time I tell my stories about sitting on telephone books, I always have someone, some young person say, oh, Mr.

Bailey, does that mean you were born in the 1900s?

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Think about that.

Yes.

I was born in the 1900s.

Yes.

We were born in the 1900s.

That's so funny.

[laughs] Ah.

Well, tell me about this cello that you've brought back here.

I feel like it's the same special one that-- Yes.

The Rosette.

This cello was not born in the 1900s.

It was born in the 1600s-- No.

That's amazing.

--in Venice, Italy, by a man named Matteo Goffriller.

Yes, I did bring it here last time.

It is my partner in life, musically speaking.

It is one of two that has a rose carved under the fingerboard.

It has got a very unique, earthy voice that I-- literally, when I heard this cello when I was 25, I couldn't believe that the sound of a cello in my imagination was real.

Because it's got extra wood, it's got extra space.

So it has just something extra that-- I always thought of a cello as being more bassy than more like a viola.

And the cellos in history have gotten smaller because they're easier to play.

But the early ones have this breadth like this one.

Yeah.

This one has such a gorgeous voice.

And in your hands, it has a really beautiful voice, too.

I'm looking forward to hearing it again.

Would you like to hear something right now?

Yes.

That first piece that I played was by Pablo Casals called Song of the Birds.

I don't know if I said the title.

Song of the Birds.

No, we didn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And this next piece will be the piece-- actually, the first piece that I think was written for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.

And so it was written in 1720, so, again, doing the math, this cello was born when Bach was 8.

I think today's Bach's birthday.

Wow, happy birthday, J.S.

Bach.

Yeah.

Go, Bach.

Yeah.

And the cello was 27 when this piece was written.

Yeah.

Wow.

[cello playing] [applause] Zuill Bailey joins us here at the KUAC Alaska Live studios.

And, oh, I just-- I love the Bach cello suites.

And I think the last time you were here-- was that the last time you were here that you were playing the Bach cello suites or that was a few times ago?

Wow, I think that was-- I think you're talking about 2012 when you say that.

Wow.

Time flies.

I remember that that was so remarkable, especially in Davis Concert Hall, to have a chair sitting in the middle of the stage in that beautiful place, bringing this gorgeous cello for two and a half hours of just solo Bach.

It felt like a religious experience, for me, at least.

And remarkable.

The music is remarkable.

It is considered our cellistic bible, partially because the original manuscript of his writing does not exist.

So-- Oh, that's so interesting.

--what we have is-- well, the closest thing we have is Anna Magdalena, which is his second wife, who wrote down what people were doing during the time of Bach.

And there are a few other sources, but nothing in his writing.

So there really is no guide of how to play it.

So what I mean by the musical bible, it's kind of a guide, not a map.

Or maybe it is a map, but whatever semantics you want to use.

But there is no definitive way of playing it.

So every time you play it, it's different.

It evokes something different.

And it's really a lifetime musical partner like this cello that keeps one hoping for more and deeper meaning.

And that's how it all began.

And there are only 35 more movements after that.

Right.

It starts pretty high.

Pretty good.

Tell me about picking the piece that you're going to do with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra.

I know there's a couple of them, but it's the one that you won a Grammy-- three Grammys for in 2017.

Tales of Hemingway for cello and orchestra.

Is this the first time that this is going to be performed with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra?

Yes.

Yes.

So 2014, I was playing with the Detroit Symphony, obviously, in Michigan, and Michael Daugherty had been hired by the Nashville Symphony in Tennessee to write this amazing piece for me, and he heard me play the Elgar cello concerto, which was the first piece that I played here in Fairbanks.

It's a four-movement masterpiece at the end of Elgar's life.

In fact, it was the last piece he wrote, the last full piece he wrote.

And he was really kind of telling a life story, with the cello being the song without words, with all the different ranges of the cello, from the highest singing, to the middle-range speaking, to the lower-range sighing and crying.

So when Michael heard this Elgar cello concerto, he realized, with this particular masculine instrument, that he could finally tell the story of Ernest Hemingway that he'd always wanted to tell.

Wow.

And, of course, I didn't know what that meant.

At the time I said, you go do that.

And so, long story shorter, the premiere of this piece was supposed to be, I think, March or April of 2015.

The music was supposed to be given to me in December of '14, and it wasn't.

[laughs] Deadlines.

I got it, and I got pieces of it, swatches of fabric, musical fabric, in February.

And then I met with him and I played it, and he rewrote it.

And so the week of the concert itself, which was so amazing and charged with adrenaline and fear, he kept rewriting it.

I say this over and over because that recording that garnered all of those awards was the first performance of it.

So backstage he said, oh, I've got another idea.

In that part, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'd like you to take it up an octave and do this.

I said, Michael-- now, you have to understand that Michael Daugherty, the amazing Michael Daugherty-- The composer.

Yes.

--he is 6 feet 8 inches tall.

Wow.

So I'm not.

So backstage, I'm looking straight at the ceiling at him tell me from above that I need to do something that's not written on the page for the live recording.

And I just gave up.

I gave up the nerves.

I said, Michael, all right, I'll make you a deal.

I will do everything you asked of me, but you have to make me a deal, a promise.

Whatever comes out of my cello, you have to rewrite the piece on paper to be that.

Meaning, because this was the first concert, the first performance in the presence of the composer, so it was going to be the interpretation of his, quote, "work," and I didn't know if I could do it.

I didn't know.

And I said, but whatever I write, you have to change your piece to that and that's now your piece, and he promised me.

And then they're like, 3, 2, go, on the stage, and I walked out with such confidence because I knew I couldn't mess up because there was nothing to mess up.

Right.

Now it's a collaboration between you-- Improvisation is what it is.

So I walked out.

I learned something about myself, about fear, the power of fear.

I learned something about just going for it and the power of the zone, like in basketball or anything, the zone.

And I tell you, I did it.

They released the recording a year later.

Then it was up for the Grammy award for best soloist, best record, and best piece.

And it won all three of those.

It won all three.

It swept all the categories.

And then from 20-- I don't know-- 16 until to COVID, 2020, I played it 60 times with orchestra worldwide.

Really?

60.

Everywhere.

From Estonia to Brazil, everywhere.

And people went bonkers for this piece.

This piece has more going on in it and more visceral, cinematic adventures than any piece I've ever heard.

And on first listening, I'm setting the bar high, aren't I?

No, but-- yeah.

On first listening, it's an unbelievable journey.

So to bring it here-- and I haven't played it, by the way-- I say all these stories, I haven't played it since the pandemic.

So all of the momentum of the piece stopped because the world stopped.

And this is the first performance in five years.

And I tell you, when we started rehearsing the other night to get ready for Sunday's concert, I mean, it all hit me again.

All these memories, this amazing journey.

Psychologically speaking, what he paints musically, you see.

You see on the stage and you hear, and it's literally like watching like Lord of the Rings in Hemingway's life.

You have been an artistic director for a while now, and that has-- you get to put together concerts.

And this one, I'm sure, you had a hand in.

But how is it different to be a part of a concert that's been put together, and how is it for you to be-- You're decades into being artistic director like at the Sitka Summer Music Festival, and El Paso Pro Musica, there's one in Mesa, Arizona that you do, that's really amazing to be able to do that.

How is that different than coming to a place and being a part of the program?

Great question.

I think my perspective now, having been and am being on both sides, is that you have to really be responsible for what you're doing.

It's not a vanity project.

Yes, of course, there is some aspect of entertainment involved, but the multifaceted nature of a nonprofit is so much more than just the concert.

It's what it does to the orchestra to invigorate them to go back out and teach privately, and go back into their professional lives and other realms to enrich their families.

It is to take the steering wheel and get out in the schools and to invigorate the music programs and the art programs for kids that don't know yet to go.

And as we did this morning in North Pole, teach them how to go to the concerts.

Teach them what clapping means.

Teach them how to listen and that the rests and the silence in music is part of the music like speech patterns and silences.

That's a big part for you when you're going to places as a guest artist, and where you live in El Paso is that community and-- Listen, if I don't reach more people before the concert in any given community, out in the community, I've not done my service.

So I typically can reach thousands of people in the community, whether it be pop-ups or retirement centers or sometimes prisons or sometimes schools, of course, school concerts and museums, master classes, that's before the public celebration.

I see concerts as being-- you've seen this meme on the internet where you'll see a glacier and the tip is sticking out of the ocean, and the bottom underneath the ocean is this massive structure.

The iceberg.

Yeah.

Iceberg.

That's what I mean, iceberg.

That's the organization, the Fairbanks symphony.

Because the concert is the celebration and the culmination of tremendous community service.

Yeah.

That's what I love about shows like Alaska Live or like the Tiny Desk concerts with NPR.

They let you get to know the artist and hear those, what makes you tick and why you do what you do.

And I know when I-- I didn't realize that you were part of the Tiny Desk concert, like, right in its infancy.

I think I was the third one.

Well, you were the third one, that was back in 2010, I saw.

Yes.

Yes.

In fact, it was so weird because if you look at that, I thought it was just a radio thing.

Like sometimes Alaska Live is just a radio thing.

Today it's more filming, too, yeah.

I walked in like another radio thing, I think I was wearing a banana republic something, something, and they're like-- they started setting up around me.

Very similar to this.

This is terrific.

And I went, what are you doing?

And they said, oh, we've got this thing.

And I said, oh.

And they said, literally, just talk and play about 15 minutes.

I'm like, OK.

So they didn't guide me.

They didn't tell me anything.

And this is, I mean, obviously, a juggernaut now.

This Tiny Desk, everybody wants to do Tiny Desk concerts.

But it is informal.

It does take the veneer off of things that seem untouchable, the music that we celebrate or all fine arts, and makes it accessible.

I asked Paul Rosenthal, my successor in Sitka, one time who his favorite performers in history were.

His immediate response was his friends.

Aww, that's so great.

I loved that.

Because if you know people, you trust them.

And if they're with you, holding your hand, telling your story, you believe them.

And so as you've been coming back to Alaska so many times, you already seem like our friend.

And so, I mean, in that way, I think that you're just keeping that connection so strong here to Alaska, and you've been here in Fairbanks quite a bit, and Edouard's been here with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra, and so it is like friends coming back.

Do you know what I call that?

A sound investment.

[laughs] Very good.

No.

I mean, this is, I don't know, my seventh, eighth, 10th time being here, maybe the fourth with the orchestra.

I came back during the pandemic as a trusted friend, playing one of the streamed concerts, the Haydn concerto.

Look, I have all these sayings, but I live by them, and I say them to remind myself, but the grass is greener where you water it.

That is such a good-- For the first 15 years of my career, I would go to these places, play and leave, play and leave, and I just didn't feel like it was doing anything for me because I didn't feel like it was doing anything in the long term for them.

I was just going to say, you definitely do something for the audience when you play and leave and play and leave, but that deep connection that lasts longer.

That's right.

That's what you're doing.

That's right.

That's great.

And that's what brings you back or brings me back to working so hard to try to see that the seeds that you are able to give to a community, they are tended to and then they grow, and then you can see, again, a relationship, you see it through thick and thin.

So I was very, very honored to be asked to come here during the pandemic.

Oh my gosh, when I got off the plane this time, I had this crazy flashback because the last time I got off the plane, I was wearing two masks, a visor, and I was met by hazmat suits.

Wow.

Uh-huh.

And in the lobby of the airport, there were testing stations, and I had to be taken to a little back room, and then I was escorted to the hotel where I couldn't leave for like three days.

That was the last time.

The daily was just about how the pandemic and us all doing all that may have hurt us socially.

I like this visit better.

Yes, I do.

I do, too.

So far, so good.

I like this better.

Let's do this more often.

And I hope you don't have to wear a mask leaving Alaska because Mount Spurr, down there by-- Oh, I heard.

Yeah.

--Anchorage is about to flow.

And contrary to what Here & Now said earlier, Anchorage is not our capital city.

They apologized for that, but they know it's Juneau, but they said-- Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Oh, let's hear something else from you and your beautiful cello and the way you can make it talk so beautifully.

Well, I'm always confronted with people that say, do you play things other than classical music?

And I'd say, your view of classical music is definitely askew because there's so much-- there are so many things that are around us that are classical music, but-- so here's something.

Zuill Bailey.

[cello playing] Wow.

[applause] So that is by a living composer.

That is by John Williams, who wrote Jaws.

Are you kidding me?

Schindler's List.

That was John Williams.

That was the theme from Schindler's List.

It almost did sound like I recognized it from a movie, but I could not place it.

Well, a lot of kids say, that sounds like Harry Potter.

And, again, this is movie music, which is video game music, which is-- it is classical, but it's-- my view on classical music is a massive umbrella using the symphonic form, meaning instruments like the violin acoustic.

And so the more we box it in, the more we're underselling it.

John Williams is 92 years old.

I think he's going to go down in history as one of the greatest ever because his music is so accessible.

What I love about that piece is that when Steven Spielberg showed him the movie-- Schindler's List.

--the moving pictures, he said, I cannot write music for that, of the Holocaust, of course.

And Spielberg said, we've got a problem.

You have to because all the great composers are already dead.

All the other great composers are already dead.

They're decomposing versus composing.

Right.

They're decomposing rather than, John Williams, you can compose still.

And why I love those melodies on a cello, first of all, the cello that you're listening to was not built to do that.

It was built to play bass tones.

But the evolution of the cello basically parallels the same range as the human voice.

So in the 1800s and on, composers began literally telling their stories with sounds, not words, because the cello can do that.

It's basically a song without words.

And the cello's range is so comforting and heartbreaking that it can.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That piece was absolutely heartbreaking.

And that's why I was like, I recognize that, but is it just because I've got emotions here that are-- and I feel like it's because-- I mean, I've seen that movie, and-- Yeah.

It's originally for violin and orchestra.

Itzhak Perlman was the violinist.

And so that's a piece that I-- that brought me back during the silence at first of the pandemic.

That's the last piece that I heard prior to the world shutting down by Itzhak Perlman as an encore in recital, and it was just-- In March of 2020.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yes.

It was haunting me.

And so I just sat down one day after about two or three weeks of not playing my cello, when the world shut down, and I just started noodling with it.

So it's not originally for the cello at all, but it sounds pretty good on the cello.

It does.

It feels good.

Feels good.

Yeah.

I like it that you put those words feeling into what you're playing and what we're all feeling when we hear it, too.

I mean, it's like hearing the human voice.

It's like experiencing emotions through the strings of the cello.

And it's-- It's a vibrancy.

Yeah.

It is.

It is.

Because, I mean, the fact is that going back to indifference, as we've talked about, I try to tell my sons and my young people, to feel means you're human.

The scary part is when you don't feel.

Are your sons playing music?

They're in the arts.

They're in the arts.

They love music, and, of course, they love the cello.

I named my son after this cello, by the way.

What did you name your son?

Matteo.

Oh yeah.

That's great.

After the maker of this cello.

So yeah, it's very personal, the arts, in my world, and I can't imagine life without it.

And you call El Paso home these days, and you're a professor of cello there at the University of Texas in El Paso.

And is that something that you saw yourself doing when you first came out of Juilliard and you're like, OK, now I'm going to go out in the world and play with symphonies and play solo concert halls, and then I'm going to teach?

What was that like?

Listen, I think the world and the arts has changed so much since I was a young person.

We don't have to go into this kind of detail.

But whens I was coming through, I felt like we were led to feel like we had to choose one or the other.

We had to choose whether we wanted to be in an orchestra, or we wanted to play chamber music, or we wanted to be a pedagogue, or we wanted to play solo.

And then, of course, you shoot for what you wished to choose for, and then life guided you to other opportunities as well.

I think in today's day and age, one of the things is that you can do it all.

You just have to find a balance to do it.

So, no, I'm really grateful that life didn't play out as I wished it to.

Because the greatest things that have happened to me, life-changing, were not planned.

Absolutely not planned.

And I don't even know-- I probably wouldn't have survived being a musician if my plans had been successful.

You mentioned earlier in this Alaska Live session that you've played in places like hospitals, retirement homes, prisons.

I mean, how has that changed you and your course in life going to these places?

And what made you-- and what even brought you that mission of going to hospitals or prisons?

It's totally personal.

My son was born under duress, and I played for him in the hospital, and I saw the monitors change.

So I saw his heart rate go down and his oxygen levels go up by the sound of music.

So I was like, that is medicine that you cannot deny.

My grandmother lived to 106.

Wow.

I played for her in her retirement center, then her hospice, and all the things that come with that throughout her life.

I saw her react to the music and cry and sing in ways that she normally did not communicate at that age without the music.

Yeah.

I bet her retirement center friends were like, can you bring your grandson back?

Because that feeling was probably undeniable and they wanted that.

Yeah.

One of the things that she taught me that I remembered beyond the power of music was that-- I said, what is one of the hardest things about growing old?

She was 104 at the time.

And she said, it's really difficult to be on Earth when your people aren't anymore.

Yeah.

When you go to 106-- And that goes back to community.

Well, I mean, you can make new friends all day long, but your people are the people that walk through life with you and felt the same things that you can relate to and you can echo behind.

And that goes back to the nurturing aspect of-- Look, Tom Hanks said something in an interview one time that really stuck with me.

Someone asked him what advice he would give to his earlier self.

And he said, oh, I would say, this too shall pass.

And everyone moaned and sighed, and he goes, no, no, I mean the good stuff.

No.

He said, you don't recognize that when you, if you win an Oscar, that that is that moment and the next day is a very different moment.

Then two months later, that's such a past moment.

And we always attribute that phrase, this too shall pass, to bad things like, oh, just hold on.

It'll be fine.

This too shall pass.

I reversed it because of his advice that we don't have to have this.

This is not guaranteed.

The present is a gift.

This is it.

And so we have to take care of it.

We have to be grateful, not take it for granted.

And at some point, if we are extremely lucky, we're going to be where my grandmother was and be able to look back and say, I had a long time with my people and I really appreciated it.

And I might add that radio is such a huge part of that, too, in that, we're all listening together.

We're having a communal experience.

And if you're listening to a random podcast, you don't know who else is listening to that.

Your community may not be listening to that.

Not that podcasts are bad, but.

And when you go to a concert hall, or you're at your school and you're getting to hear these special things, it's absolutely is a part of a community.

You're there listening even-- I have to think when I'm alone in the radio booth, I'm like, no, there's people listening as a community, and we're making connections through this and we're all listening at the same time.

And we remember where we were, who we were with when those things happen.

I'm asked all the time, and I was thinking about this morning's performances, I'm asked all the time where my favorite places to perform are.

And I always say, right here, right now.

I don't play any different.

Whether I'm sitting in a classroom performing for kids or, I'm at a fill in the blank famous concert hall, and that's a practice behavior.

I am present.

And when you have an interaction, it's a gift as opposed to just preaching.

Yeah.

Right.

Every time it's different.

And you want to say, oh, no, I've practiced it this way.

But every moment is a bit different and it means a little bit different to the audience, to you, to, yeah.

That's another really-- kind of a blessing of playing the cello.

I get to face the audience.

It's horrifying also because I get to see everybody doing what they do.

If you would have been a pianist, that would have been different.

Yes.

Or a violinist, sideways.

A conductor, forget about it.

Yeah, a lot of jokes there.

But, no, I get to watch, and I do watch.

When I converse or express or exchange, I'm watching body language, eyes, everything.

I love when people have their arms crossed at the beginning of a piece and they relax their arms and they just sit there.

And then I love when they close their eyes because, as we get older, sometimes sleep is difficult or rest or relaxation, but music has that thing that kind of takes us to another place, even momentarily, but that it's magic.

I was thinking about how that happened when you were on the set of Oz.

You were in Oz a little while back, a couple decades ago, that's OK.

But it was the HBO series Oz, and you were actually a cellist in that show.

And what was it like for those people to have to get out of the moment of listening to you and actually act?

I mean, I have to think that sometimes they wanted to just experience it and not act out the prison riot or whatever.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I think, first of all, you have to know that most of the extras on the show Oz were ex-prisoners.

So they were legitimately probably not acting.

And they were many of the main core who were, of course, the features.

But one of the things that made me happiest was when my scenes, which were not verbal because I didn't want to say certain words on camera because I didn't want to be an actor, so I asked them not-- I asked them to erase much of my dialogue so I wouldn't have to use certain words and be seen a certain way, which was not my goal.

So they cut most of my dialogue and made me play-- Yeah.

You were a cellist.

--which is hysterical.

I was a cellist that did something really bad.

But when I played on the set, everyone came in because-- they evacuated the set for being quiet and things like that for me to play my stuff, but they all-- even the ex-cons came in and they sat there and it invigorated-- the word's not invigorated, it affected them.

Yes.

Right.

That's what I was thinking.

And they looked at me very differently when I was walking out than when I walked in, like kind of mystified that that magic wand could do that to them.

So that was interesting.

And then that was the set of a prison, but you have actually gone-- Oh, many times.

--to prisons like San Quentin?

Yes, I did.

And I tell this story all the time, this man started crying right in the middle of me playing some Bach, and I stopped and asked if he was OK.

And he stood up, completely weeping, and said he'd been in prison for 28 years and hadn't cried in 28 years.

And he was broken.

And he wanted to know why the sounds of my cello affected him so much.

Wow.

What did you tell him?

Well, I mean, I sat there.

They filmed this, so I was sitting there looking at like, what do you say?

And I said, I want to ask everybody, what is the opposite of love?

And they all yelled, hate.

I said, no, the opposite of love is indifference.

And to feel, like we were talking about earlier, is human.

And I looked at the gentleman and I said, welcome back.

I said, welcome back.

Now, I said, let me play something else for you now so you can feel the goosebumps or the warmth or the discomfort.

And I mean that.

It's interesting to play for young people because they react honestly.

And a lot of times, it's they lose control of their bodies.

They start jerking around, or start laughing out of nowhere, or they lose discipline because they're not comfortable feeling.

And I note it each time I do it, and I ask them about it, and I tell stories to try to make them feel comfortable around it.

So long story to answer you answer your question, this is-- everything that I do is because of something that changed my life.

So, yes, you're correct.

I'd never played in a prison before Oz.

You're correct.

Even though, oh, I did say two horrible things in San Quentin.

The first one was, it's every musician-- I said, it's really a thrill to be here today.

I said, it's every musician's dream to play for a captive audience.

How'd that go over?

Not well.

No.

It did not go over well.

And the other one was, oh, don't worry.

I'm not a prisoner, but I played one on TV.

That didn't work out so well either.

I think Johnny Cash, he had actually been in prisons when-- Well, anyway, I kept throwing these bombs out there.

And luckily I played the cello well for them because they forgot all of my nonsense.

Right.

Exactly.

That erased that probably.

But yeah, I started playing in the prisons and it was remarkable.

And I even took this cello.

You did?

Yes.

I wanted them to feel that.

I wanted them to feel that cello, not just a cello.

And I said, I brought you a gift today.

Not me, but something that's extraordinary that you may never have heard before or felt.

And that they have value and that you were able to do that.

I hope so.

I hope so.

And then, of course, the retirement centers, which are our past donors.

We have to remember that.

The people who-- classical music, I think-- and, again, they always-- they, humanity, says, oh, the classical music is an aging audience.

Well, yeah, they are because that's when they have time to relax and smell the roses.

So in my history of playing, it's always been an older audience.

It's very rare unless it's a young person's concert do you have a lot of 25-year-olds because they're still getting their life going.

They're not on date night yet.

They're not trying to impress or feel something outside of their profession.

So right after the concert goers hit a certain age, then they have to be careful.

Maybe they don't go out at night anymore.

And so I made a point, because of my grandmother, to recognize that these were patrons, donors, five years earlier.

And I was right.

And the attention and the gratitude.

They can't go, so we go to them.

I go to them.

Well, while you're still in your 20s, you should take in shows like at the Davis Concert Hall.

And can you imagine going on your second date there and you would really get to know your date.

That's winning, by the way.

That's called a winning date.

Yes.

I think so, too.

Go to the Fairbanks Symphony.

Yes.

Yes.

And especially if you hear Tales of Hemingway-- Oh my goodness.

--by Michael Daugherty-- You are going to be able to get to know your date through all the feelings.

Oh, it's going to be something.

All the feels.

But, I mean, I think that people are like, well, I really do want to get to know where this person is coming from.

And if you experience something like that together, you either are like, nope, nope, or, yep, maybe so.

Listen, I was speaking of this earlier that I noticed a lot of hand-holding in the concert last night.

I loved that.

I loved that.

And I also noticed, because I watch everything, I noticed that in some of the really, really sensitive sections of the music, people would kind of squeeze the person next to them or pull them closer.

That is-- come on, come on, that is amazing.

And I have to remind myself sometimes that I'm playing the cello when this is happening because I'm like, oh, isn't that cute?

Oh, God.

Where am I?

All right.

Back to it.

Yeah.

Well, do you have one more piece for us, Zuill Bailey?

Sure.

OK.

This will be the finale for Alaska Live.

Zuill Bailey here on KUAC's Alaska Live.

[cello playing] [applause] Zuill Bailey, thank you so much for-- My pleasure.

--being a guest here on today's Alaska Live.

Always.

Thank you.

[cello playing] You can find links to more episodes of Alaska Live TV and download audio podcasts of the Alaska Live radio show online at kuac.org.

Support for the Alaska Live series of live music and conversation on KUAC is made possible by a grant from Design Alaska.

Design Alaska, strengthening community through support of the arts.