By Lisa Loy
On first impression, the two women appear to be worlds apart––Soo Bae, perfection in a floor length gown, a porcelain complexion, unapproachable, divine, and Ruth Wyand, the girl next door in boots and blue jeans, a wild mass of dark curls, and eyes that rivet with the intensity of a gypsy. Soo, the classical cellist. Ruth, the fingerstyle and slide Americana guitarist.
Then, the contrast all but disappears when they smile; they are engaging. These women light up the room wherever they may be, they are easy to talk to and laugh easily, they share many qualities and experiences, and they don’t even know each other. The growing community of music lovers on the Outer Banks, however, knows them both. They are women of note.
Korean-Canadian cellist Soo Bae is the Winner of the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and played for Isaac Stern’s 80th Birthday in Carnegie Hall. The Canada Council for the Arts has just announced that Soo Bae, as a top winner of its cello competition, has been awarded the three-year loan of its ca. 1696 Bonjour Stradivari cello, the most valuable instrument in the Council’s Musical Instrument Bank valued at nearly $5-million Canadian. This incredible instrument rested on the adjacent airplane seat by Soo Bae as she made her way to the Outer Banks last month.
Soo came to the beach with pianist Reiko Uchida in late February at the invitation of the newly formed Outer Banks Patrons of the Arts. Their patronage, with the support of the Currituck County Arts Council and the Whalehead Preservation Trust, resulted in educational performances for more than 600 Currituck County students and a public performance at the Whalehead Club. The 48 Patrons were rewarded with a private concert at the home of Jimbo and Millie Ward in Southern Shores.
“I had such a wonderful time playing and hanging out in North Carolina. It’s truly a gorgeous place with beautiful people, and I'm honored to have given the very first of many concerts to come,” Soo Bae said of the Patrons premier event.
Although she is known as a chamber musician, she is a magnet for innovation and recently performed with jazz clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera and violinist, composer Mark O’Connor. Her Outer Banks program included predominantly classical works, such as the beautiful Elégie, Op.24 by Gabriel Fauré. But it was the avanté gard composition, written especially for Soo Bae by Huang Ruo, entitled Four Fragments that impressed her audiences with her power as she attacked the strings with blazing gusto and speed.
Born in Seoul, Korea, Soo Bae began her cello studies at the age of six, and moved to Toronto two years later, where she enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Music. She received her Bachelor of Music from The Curtis Institute of Music and her Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School. She enjoys teaching at the Geneva Conservatory in New York City, the Angelo Mission Ensemble in New Jersey (of which she is founder and director), and assists Joel Krosnick teaching cello at The Juilliard School.
She is preparing to record her debut CD for Naxos, the world’s leading classical music label, featuring all 12 solo cello caprices of cellist-composer Alfredo Piatti. Soo Bae also became the first Canadian ever awarded a prize at the Adam International Cello Festival & Competition in New Zealand.
Like Soo Bae, the New Jersey born Ruth Wyand has been victorious in competition. Last year Ruth became the first woman ever to win the Gamble Rodgers Music Festival’s Fingerstyle Guitar Competition in St. Augustine, Florida. She has been invited to play at such high profile events as the Chet Atkins Guitar Festival in Nashville, the Newport Guitar Festival in Rhode Island, and the Hank Williams Songwriting Competition. Ruth was also recognized at the South Florida Folk Festival for the Best Upbeat Song and received the Philadelphia Folk Factory’s People’s Choice Award. She competes annually in the “World Series” of fingerstyle competitions during the Walnut Valley Music Festival in Winfield, Kansas.
As a child, Ruth lived in a black neighborhood in Atlantic City called Venice Park. A neighbor named Mac Elder, who was from North Carolina, used to wash his car every Sunday in the driveway and listen to old gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues. Ruth and her little sister learned many songs this way and would pretend to be blues singers. The 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song, When the Levee Breaks was a favorite (Led Zeplin later covered this song on their 4th album.)
“At the time I wanted to be Kansas Joe and she was Memphis Minnie. We also wanted to be Ike and Tina and the Supremes. We had no clue about race or gender until it was time to join sports teams.” Ruth said.
Her debut at age 15 in a biker bar playing blues guitar, led to the next 15 years as a bandleader performing regionally in clubs and concert halls. Along the way she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Theory and honed her skills in singing and songwriting as well. She loves to teach through performance in school assembly programs. In Dare County Ruth teaches guitar, songwriting and voice in between touring nationally and internationally including New Zealand.
“She’s such a great guitarist in a world where accomplished women guitarists are still few and far between. Her interesting use of open tunings, claw hammer, Piedmont and Travis picking, along with harmonics and drumbeats on the guitar, kept the audience totally absorbed and enchanted,” writes the Devonport Folk Club from Auckland, New Zealand.
Ruth has amassed a collection of more than 50 guitars, several of which were built especially for her. How much fun it must be the ponder the choices, “Shall I play my 1932 Dobro or my National Steel today?” There are favorites of course, like her 1947 Gibson LG2 and her Morning Star crafted by the world-renowned Richard Mermer.
From a Scott Joplin rag on acoustic guitar to a smoking Dwayne Allman lead on electric, Ruth embraces history. Her finger picking style of guitar playing and songwriting is heavily influenced by swing, ragtime, country, folk, and blues genres.
“Ruth’s knowledge of traditional song and various styles of music is what takes her beyond the realm of most singer/songwriters. Her vocal range is nearly limitless.” Angelina Scioll wrote of her in the Philadelphia Music Forum.
Reaching into past styles is a satisfying way to teach music and gives her great satisfaction.
“My interest is not in just teaching music, but giving a historical and cultural perspective to my students so that they will gain a sense of relevance and reverence for American music,” Ruth said.
Ruth moved to the Outer Banks with her husband Chris almost two years ago and they reside in Colington Harbor. The happy transplants have been busy remodeling their house to include a new recording studio for Ruth and a workshop for Chris’ where he repairs, restores and builds guitars. She continues to tour and teach, as many as 150 days out of the year, but when Ruth is home, she also gives herself to community events such as the wildly successful production of the Vagina Monologues last February. In her capacity as Music Director, she assembled a group of women guitarists, “Chicks with Picks” for the performance and wrote four songs for the event. In July, Ruth will join the Independence Day festivities at the new amphitheater in the Town of Duck.
“I love the way people on the Outer Banks embrace music and art. I feel right at home here,” Ruth said earnestly.
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