Jerry Fjerkenstad: Bio

Jerry Fjerkenstad

I was born a pig farmer’s son in Lac Qui Parle County in Western Minnesota (the same county as Robert Bly, Minnesota’s Poet Laureate) – in a village called Boyd, known for the longest continuous celebration in the United States – Boyd Good Time Days – and, as the birthplace of Tippi Hedren’s mother (Melanie Griffith’s grandmother).
I learned how to wield a machete at an early age – going up and down bean rows, chopping out corn and weeds, swatting at deer flies and fending off the hot sun. Eventually I headed off to college as a music major – keyboards and strings – but that didn’t last long. I couldn’t stand the regimented approach of Counterpoint, Composition, etc., so I switched to Psychology and discovered Carl Jung & Hermann Hesse.
The world of mythology, dreams and mental illness beckoned and I was off in passionate pursuit. Degrees in Religious Studies, Human Services and Human Development followed – 8 years of college, punctuated by independent studies that allowed me to spend time with the writers and thinkers I admired most – James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, John Weir Perry, Mary Watkins, Robbie Bosnack.
In the meantime I played in Rock and Country Rock bands as a drummer, wandering Minnesota, the Dakotas & Canada, making a couple records (one of which made it to #1 somewhere in New York State) and sleeping in lots of cheap motels. Along the way I functioned as Assistant Manager of the Great Plains Supply Lumber Co. in Stanley, North Dakota, as #2 man on a 3,000-acre wheat & cattle ranch south of Minot, and as a grunt making bean bag chairs in a mattress factory near the Monte Carlo Bar in the warehouse district of Minneapolis.
I also studied voice at the Roy Hart Theatre in Southern France and dance and theatre in Minneapolis and Madrid – ballet, modern, jazz, tango, flamenco. My own theatre, The Dream Guild, started in my third floor studio on Portland Avenue – a space that packed in 130 people for the shows held at halftime of legendary parties. The theatre finally went official at the Pillsbury House – a company-in-residence. I ended up producing and acting in more than two dozen plays.

Jerry Fjerkenstad

THE MUSIC

The piano is my instrument in the truest sense. My music develops through living my life, taking on the tasks I seem fated to tackle. The piano is where I express that journey. I hear the music deep in my body and try to be free enough, cleared out enough, to recreate that music on the keyboard.

I do not practice daily. I can’t perform classical music in public – my hands freeze solid. Being an introverted feeling type, I play from my core and tell the story of my journey, its beauty and its horrors. It has taken decades for this music to finally appear on the surface of life. It is atmospheric music that, like scented oil, creeps into the corners of a room, just as the sound of rain surrounds one while reading a special book.

I record in Amsterdam because, in order to be ready to play, I need to be away from my ordinary life. It takes several days there before I can clear out the dross and find the joie de vivre again. Amsterdam is a place I feel at home, have my own haunts, a favorite place to stay, rituals that help restore me.

When it is finally time to record, I darken the studio lights and sit before the keyboard, waiting for the wave to ride and then just set forth, following the sounds. Sometimes it is as though I can not play a wrong note, the sounds like drops falling in a vast, clear, smooth moving river – nothing but shimmering beauty. Other times I am drawn into deep ravines and dilemmas where the music works out the conundrums that have my soul tied in knots and I feel taut with the drama.