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Kvistad, who is today the principal percussionist of the San Francisco
Opera Orchestra. “He played drums in dance bands, and I noticed he
was attracting a lot of girls by doing that,” says Kvistad with a grin.
After attending Michigan’s Interlochen Arts Academy, the budding
percussionist-composer earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio’s
Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a master’s from Northern
Illinois University. The next big step came in the 1970s, when he met
fellow percussionist Jan Williams, who introduced him to revered
composer Lukas Foss.
“Foss was co-leading the Center of the Creative Arts at SUNY
Buffalo, which awarded fellowships to qualifying musicians, called
Creative Associates,” Kvistad recalls. “Jan was one of them, along
with [saxophonist] Anthony Braxton and [keyboardist] Richard
Teitelbaum. I became one, which was great because I got to play with
a symphony for the first time and I really learned a lot about composing
and performing.” Kvistad would eventually go on to pass down the
knowledge he acquired under Foss, when he became a faculty member
at Northern Illinois University and, later on, at the University of
Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music.
In 1972, he and Rick started the Blackearth Percussion Group, which
recorded and toured North America and Europe, performing works
by John Cage, Lou Harrison, and others. One of Blackearth’s ardent
admirers was minimalist maverick Steve Reich. So taken was the
composer with the younger brother’s abilities that he recruited him
for his own group, with whom the percussionist recorded such pivotal
works as the Grammy-winning Music for 18 Musicians. “Garry took to
my music like a duck to water,” raves Reich by phone. “He intuitively
knows how to interpret it—when to lay off and when to play hard.”
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