two star symphony
Local string quartet Two Star Symphony, which consists of Jo Bird (viola), Jerry Ochoa (violin), Margaret Lejeune (cello) and Debra Brown (violin), have a lot going on in 2012, their 10th year as a band. They recently completed a score for local filmmaker Mel House (with plans for another), next month they’ll make their 3rd straight appearance at SXSW and they’re planning a tour for this summer. Debra Brown talks 2012 and a bit of their process.
When Two Star Symphony is scoring something, do you practice together in the studio?
We have a projector, and we just project it on the wall in front of us and watch it over and over and over again.
So you don’t really discuss what you’ll do, you just let it kind of come out, kind of flow?
Well, sometimes … or if we’ve written something and one of us is questioning it … we’ll stop and be like ‘is that really the feeling of what’s happening?’
What happens if you’re scoring something like Harold Lloyd and you start laughing while you’re playing?
We love that. We’re kind of known as a little macabre or dark by some people, but there’s always humor in our music as well. Our main composer is our cellist – most music starts from the cello or the viola, like the lower ends come up with a lot of the bass lines, and then we write on top of that. But her dream from a little kid was writing cartoon music for spooky stories, so that’s basically what we’re doing.
How about when you score a dance piece?
We still watch everything, luckily. Dancers were in the studio as they’re choreographing the pieces, so sometimes, just like with the Fat Tony project, which I really like, sometimes they’ll ask us to play a piece that they’ve heard before, and we’ll play section by section, and they’ll stop us as they’re choreographing. And then other times, we’ll see the movement, and we have to write on the spot to the movement as it’s happening. But so far, with us scoring new films instead of old silent films, we score by the scene, which is a little bizarre, because there’s no pretext for what’s happening. [In Psychic Experiment], we score a scene where this man is walking into his apartment, and there’re clothes strung about, and you can tell he’s concerned about why there’re clothes everywhere … he’s saying this girl’s name over and over again, he’s following the clothing down to the bathroom, and there’s a girl and a boy in the bathtub together and it’s full of blood, and they’re making out. And obviously, the guy that’s standing there, it’s his girlfriend in the bathtub, but then you find out through the scene that it’s her brother that she’s in the bathtub with, making out. And she’s like ‘isn’t this how you always pictured it?’ or something, and then their flesh starts melting together, and then their heads explode, and that’s the end of the scene.
And you’re like ‘oh! I’ve got the perfect idea for what this sounds like!’ Speaking of the collaboration with Fat Tony last year – any more plans for that sort of thing?
I really love hip-hop music. Three out of the four of us really enjoy hip-hop music. Our violist is more metal and punk rock, but she did enjoy the project as well. I hope that some more will come from it. We actually got to meet – we’ve been a big fan of Devin the Dude for a long time and we were playing at a festival in Bergen, Norway, and Devin was playing around the corner and our cellist talked our way into a sold-out show by saying we were from Houston, and through everything getting lost in translation, they thought that we were friends of Devin The Dude because we were from Houston, so they let us in! Then, a good friend of mine, Matt Sonzala, was his DJ for the night … so we got to hang out. We haven’t gotten to collaborate with Devin the Dude, but we’re kind of stalking him.
Get him one of your tattoos.
We’re pretty sure we’re the only string quartet that has matching tattoos, and that now has 26 fans with our tattoo on their bodies (laughs).
That was for your Titus Andronicus record release last year, right? That all happened on that night?
No, I think maybe 15 people happened on that night?
That’s a lot of people to get a tattoo of your band.
Yeah! There were still people signed up, but we ran out of time that night, actually. There was a mother and daughter – a 17-year-old with her mother, who was like ‘okay, we’ll get it.’ It was her mother’s first tattoo, and then she agreed to let her 17-year-old daughter get her a tattoo also!
Two Star Symphony performs at Leon’s Lounge
(1006 McGowen) on February 28, from 8-10pm.















