Cabaret Couple, Singer-Songwriters Anya Turner and Robert Grusecki, Answer Six Questions

AT: Yes, we’ve published songbooks before. They are collections of our songs—piano/vocal sheet music with words and music. WORDS MATTER is not a songbook. It is a collections of lyrics, monologues, essays, photos and other thoughts about singing and songwriting. The book features 108 of our lyrics taken from our CDs, musicals and revues. With each lyric entry we begin with a bio (when it was written and where and when it’s been performed), followed by notes on the writing of the song; the scene, lead-in or monologue that accompanied the song in performance; sometimes an essay or quotation; and photos. All of the accompanying materials are there to illuminate the lyric. Everything points the reader toward a better understanding or experience of the lyric.

One of the challenges of presenting new songs/lyrics is giving the audience a context for hearing it. Over the years we’ve developed a style of live performance that we hope answers that demand. In this book we’ve tried to give the reader every possible window into the lyric. Also included with the book is a CD of selected songs—the title songs from our projects.

RG: How is it different? WORDS MATTER contains lyrics, essays, and photos—everything but sheet music; the book has many color pages so it is a little pricier than a songbook; it both documents our years of songwriting and is a kind of cultural history; and finally, WM is an intimate storybook you can hold in your hands.

NLE: How did you two come together? Get started?

AT: In the first chapter of WORDS MATTER (“Meeting On Musical Terms”) we tell the story of how we first met and how we got started. So, briefly, Robert and I met fresh out of college when we were doing a musical revue called Noel & Cole at a bohemian-style coffeehouse/cabaret in Minneapolis. After going our separate ways for a few years, we reunited and began both our personal and professional life together. At first we were touring the country playing supper clubs and cabarets—five sets a night—performing songs from The Golden Age of Broadway and The Great American Songbook. Those were the songs that inspired us to begin writing our own songs. Once we started we never looked back and we continue to write, record, perform and publish the songs we’ve written.

RG: We met when we were both twenty-two and performing together in our first professional show. I was a little reserved but always made sure I asked her to tie my bowtie before each performance. Anya’s stunning interpretation of “Mad About The Boy” changed my life. And every night as the song ended, I would reach inside the piano and pluck the low Bb flat string as the “button.” Eventually we went on the road, fell in love, and started writing together.

NLE: What’s the key to a lasting, successful partnership personally and professionally?

AT: I believe listening to the other person is the most important part of any partnership or collaboration. To me there is no communication without listening and there is no relationship without communication. As our song Listen says, “If you want to be heard; if you want to break through; if you want to be loved, listen.”

RG: Humor. Also key is knowing the difference between (to quote our song “Life Is Good”) “time to work and time to play.” This means respecting “The Cornflake Principle” as described by Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy: “No talking shop until after breakfast.”

NLE: How do you share the work? Are there things you work at separately?

AT: Once we agree on an idea for a song—something we feel strongly about; something that sings—we respond to that idea, separately. And out of those two separate responses a single response is fashioned, i.e., the song. One of the reasons we don’t talk about who contributed what to our songwriting is because by the time we’re finished writing the piece it would be impossible to know that. It never turns about to be what I wrote or what Robert wrote. It always turns out to be a third, rather unexpected thing: the song that we wrote.

RG: We both do everything, sometimes apart and sometimes together.

NLE: Where do you derive inspiration for your songs and projects?

AT: We’ve been inspired by something we’ve read, the news, literature, history and other people’s lives. But we usually write about the world around us and our own lives—the people, places and experiences we’ve known personally.

RG: Have you ever found yourself absentmindedly singing a song that you know and then suddenly realize how that song unexpectedly reveals how you are really feeling at that moment? Well, writing a song is something like that, except that you create an entirely new song from the feeling below the surface. Projects develop as our songs accumulate. They express that period of time, what was happening in our lives, and what was happening in the world. For example, right now we have about twenty new songs that we need to orchestrate and record. We would be especially inspired to do this project by receiving a “genius” grant. Just putting the idea out there…

NLE: Is there a particular hallmark of your work? A common thread that identifies a song as a Turner-Grusecki piece?

AT: It’s difficult for me to see our work. I’m up too close. So, I’ll answer this question using some of the words that other people have written to describe our work: well-crafted, authentic, original, relevant and singable.

RG: That would be for others to say. I would hope it would have something to do with our songs having a strong dramatic action and an original musical flair. 

Enjoy a taste of Turner and Grusecki; more on AnyaRobertMusic.com.