Poetry of music

Songs will save us, if we let them.”

Justin Spenner

At the age of six, Justin Spenner was exposed to an interesting soundtrack of music.
His aunt, who he said could never pass up a deal, found an ad that said free violin lessons were provided with the rental of a violin. She grabbed the offer, and Spenner was soon taking violin lessons three times a week in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wis.
“My mom would drop me off, and on the way we listened to Schubert and Mozart in the car,” Spenner said. “My dad would pick me up on his way home from work, and he liked to listen to Metallica and AC/DC. This was the existence of a beautiful hard rock, metal and classical experience.”
Today as a performing musician and singer, Spenner has incorporated all these genres of music into his performances.
He and Carson Rose Schneider have formed a duo called “Poem Music,” in which the perform art songs in various languages. Spenner also has a choir, called “To Be Named Thing.” And his band, (Ab)scheid, focuses most on punk and metal music. “(Ab)scheid is an obscure, outdated German word that means to separate,” Spenner said. “It is like the idea of a metal band and lyrics being a way to separate from anxiety, anger and negative emotions.”
Spenner said music has always been a part of his life, from those first violin lessons to participating in choirs in high school. He and his older brother played in bands that performed at rec centers on Friday nights.
“People from my high school who would not usually talk to me would show up,” he recalled. “We were talking to each other in this musical way.”
He studied voice in college. Fifteen years ago, he moved to the Twin Cities to get a master’s in performance. He and Schneider met in 2017 at a performance at Skylark Opera that they were both working on. The two got to know each other and started talking about music.
“I was looking for a collaborator to do Schubert’s Winterreise, or Winter Journey. It’s a 70-minute German song about isolation. So we started doing programs of Winterreise together and some other songs at Hamline Methodist Church.” Schneider played the piano, and Spenner sang baritone.
“We really clicked, and liked to talk about the poetry of music. We were both very confident in each other’s music and in our own. It felt like if we did nothing but talk about the music, we could still just show up on recital day and do it.
“He has this wonderful kind of academic mind and pays attention to the tradition of the old songs we are doing.” Spenner said his background in punk and metal bands offers a very different background to what they can bring together.
Spenner said he has been able to focus on his music as a profession. “There may be an image of a full-time musician who hangs around for a chunk of the day, learns some music, practices and goes to perform. But being a full-time professional has gaps to fill. Some of us are lucky enough to get big contracts or programs, and I do some of those things. But a lot of what I do has to do with producing concerts and figuring out a map of different things to do. For me, grant writing and teaching [have filled those gaps]. I would have to do dozens of performances a month to make ends meet. If I overbook myself, the music loses its charm, and the audience can tell.”
According to Spenner, his early days of listening to classic, rock and metal sounds led him to be curious about anything that seemed different or challenging. “When I hear something new, I have this compulsion to try and figure it out. I do a lot of experimental music, ballads and Norwegian folk singing.”
Spenner plays guitar, bass and piano, all largely self-taught. He uses the piano mostly for teaching and learning music.
He said his favorite language to sing in is German. “It’s fun to figure out the consonants and all the compound words you can break apart,” he noted. He also does repertoires in Italian, French, Russian, Czech and Spanish.
“I think, feeling-wise, I love the sensation of singing opera and metal. They are very connected. Both really explore the capacity of the human voice,” Spenner said. “I work inwards to see what the body feels like, rather than what it sounds like. I find that very therapeutic.”
Spenner said he taps into what feels like yoga, feeling so refreshed after doing an hour’s concert that he feels like he could go for another hour.
He prefers to explore the different genres to present them as options for others to explore themselves. “One way to get people really in the moment is to present something unexpected.” He likes to do a bunch of genres at once, such as something classical and then a folk song.
Spenner said he really enjoys performing in the Hamline Midway and Frogtown areas. “It reminds me very much of where I grew up in Milwaukee; the shops and stores are very similar.”
The musician said he spends a lot of time preparing music by wandering around, score in hand, paying attention to poetry and how it reflects and interacts with everyday life. “There is a lot of disconnect in our culture today, and it has become a rallying cry for me to let people know about undoing that culture of isolation. We blame ourselves that we can’t change the world,” he said.
Spenner said social media never tells a story about a dog getting saved or a kid’s lemonade stand. “It is about the worst of the worst,” he said. “But one tool through human history in community and tribal conflicts is congregating for music. Songs will save us all, if we let them.”
Upcoming shows: Tuesday, Jan. 27, 6:30 p.m.: B-Sides Arbitrary Residency at Barely Brothers Records; and Tuesday, Feb. 24, 7 p.m.: Peer Gynt w/ Edvard Grieg Society at Metronome.