Sam Amidon: Wandering Melodies

American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sam Amidon’s art roams freely across the borderlands between folk and classical, popular and art music. Wandering Melodies mirrors his creative process with a personal playlist shot through with connections, contrasts, and correspondences. “I wanted to explore various corners where traditional and classical music intersect,” he tells Apple Music Classical. The mix includes points where a traditional folk song is paired with what Amidon calls its “classical twin,” a modern composition infused with elements of the folk original. “I chose examples of cross-pollination which feel creative and exciting and done with love, and which have particular meaning to me.” Amidon carried the cross-cultural quest into Willows, his collaboration with violinist Pekka Kuusisto and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. The album, he explains, “explores many different connections—grief, elegiac melodies, folksongs, nature, and more—and in amongst these themes is a strong connection between traditional folk music and classical composition.” Willows includes his haunting performance of Nico Muhly’s rework of “Kedron,” prefaced in this playlist by a gem from the seminal 1979 album Rivers of Delight, on which his folk musician parents joined Word of Mouth Chorus. “I have countless memories of my dad playing Bartók on the piano in our house,” Sam Amidon recalls. “So I’ve opened with a piano piece from For Children, which is based on a folk tune. I’ve closed with Carla Bley’s “Jesus Maria,” played by the Jimmy Giuffre 3. For me, it has everything, evoking early music, Bartók, Appalachian sonorities and laments, blues, and jazz-based improvisation.”