Musician, composer, producer, and otherwise pillar of Seattle music.
EVENT: Horvitz plays Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Chamber Players on Sun Jan 21.
What will you be playing at Benaroya?
"I did this music for The Circus--which is a Charlie Chaplin film--for a concert in Portugal. Two of the Seattle Chamber Players were involved in that concert, so they wanted to present it as a part of their series. Then the Chaplin estate said we couldn't do it. What I'm going to do instead are excerpts from that piece--probably 20 to 25 minutes of it--which is most of it, so it won't be too bad. We'll also play some quartets written for violin, cello, clarinet, and flute."
You're often still thought of as part of "the downtown New York scene." Can you avoid that?
"The language just sticks with you, from where and when critics first became aware of your work. A lot of those 'scenes,' from the French Impressionists to the Crusades, were just a group of friends, you know? The only thing I ever liked about that phrase is that it didn't in any way describe the music. When [critics] describe the music, most of the time they get it wrong. Zony Mash goes around to some of these towns in the Northwest or down the coast and are described in the press as a funk band, which, you know, there are elements of funk--I suppose there are elements of every music."
I've been confronted recently by a few stories of Seattle's inferiority complex, especially with the arts.
"That's something I don't get into, because I've already been to New York. When I first got here, musicians would say, 'Why did you leave New York? I was just about to move there.' And I would say, 'Yeah, you should. I'm really glad I did.' If you have any sense that you need to be in New York for a while, especially as an artist, then you really should go."
