Today we’d like to introduce you to Marc Anderson.
Marc, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve been playing music professionally as a percussionist for almost 50 years. I began in my late teens in Austin MN where I grew up. I came to the Twin Cities in 1977, originally thinking I would study music at the University of Minnesota but I didn’t have the requisite music reading skills and wasn’t admitted in the program. I started playing in groups around town and immediately fell into a pretty wide variety of musical environments, everything from pop music cover bands to free improvisational groups. Within the first year that I was here, I received a letter from Steve Tibbetts who was at the time beginning work on his second record. We met, hit it off and I ended up playing a lot on that record. On the strength of that record, we got invited to make a record in Oslo Norway for the very prestigious record company ECM. Steve and I spent the next 15 years making records and touring in the US, Canada, and Europe mostly. I did eventually go to school at the U but not until the mid-eighties. There I met a guy from Ghana called Sowah Mensah. We immediately struck up a deep friendship. He was studying musicology and had a great knowledge of Ghanaian music traditions so I began studying with him. That influenced my academic interests and I ended up with a degree in cultural anthropology and over the years, I studied drumming in Ghanan, Kenya, Brazil and China as well as studies of Haitian ritual drumming and middle eastern frame drumming with teachers in New York City.
While all of this was going on, I also became very interested in meditation and gradually became a serious student of Zen Buddhism. The two paths have been co-existing for many years and over the past couple of years, they have come together in beautiful and unexpected ways in the work that I do with the non-profit organization I started called M2 Foundation. These days I spend my time leading meditation sessions and retreats, giving sound bath meditations, leading an improvisational orchestra called Not Always So, and doing live performances with a wide variety of local artists.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Of course, there have been struggles but I feel really fortunate to have lived a life doing what I enjoy and believe in. Money has always been a challenge but I have never gone hungry or slept on the street. I have never been without an idea or project that I was excited about. I have never had enough time to pursue all of my interests and passions and I think that’s been a good thing. My biggest struggles have been in healing wounds from childhood and I was fortunate to have been found by Zen. Both music and meditation have saved me thousand times over.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
People know me primarily as a percussionist. I am also a composer, a poet, and a meditation teacher. For the most part, I see them all as different aspects of the same thing. I have specialized in non-western percussion. That is not so much the case anymore. Musically I have been unique in the range of instruments and styles that I am familiar with. I am comfortable and I play regularly with musicians and groups from a wide variety of styles. I am also well known for and am really proud of the records I made with Steve Tibbetts. he and I made a handful of records together that are unique and very high quality. Another thing that sets me apart is that in addition to being a well-respected and highly accomplished musician, I made a strong commitment to my spiritual life and was ordained as a priest in the Zen tradition. And, I have also been an academic for many years working at both Hamline University and Macalester College.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was popular, well-liked, and happy. I was interested in sports and eventually music. My family life sort of blew up as I was entering adolescence so things were shaky after that and into my early teens.
Contact Info:
- Website: marcanderson.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marc.fathands/
- Youtube: @marcanderson3353
