Musician and her ‘drainpipe’ unite 2 worlds

By Eric Bartels

The Portland Tribune, Jul 22, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Tessa Brinckman says her earliest memories of exotic music include the sound of the sitar employed in the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album.

“I was absolutely entranced by the sound of it,” she says.

Brinckman, 41, grew up on the outer edges of the English-speaking world, a New Zealander whose father was South African.

After her parents separated, she once spent six months in Mauritius en route to visit her father. She remembers vividly the sights and sounds of the Indian Ocean island, maintaining that they remain in her blood to this day.

“I knew I had to bring together Western classical and non-Western music,” she says. “There are distinct ways of thinking about music. It’s fun to experiment with that and see what works and what doesn’t.”

Brinckman and members of her ensemble, East West Continuo, will do just that for two days at the Portland Wine and Arts Festival. Relying heavily on the atmospheric soundscapes on her new CD, “Glass Sky,” the Southeast Portland resident will appear as part of a quartet on Saturday and a trio on Sunday.

Trained as a classical flutist before leaving New Zealand, Brinckman pursued opportunities for her musical explorations in New York, Ohio and Seattle before moving to Portland in 1995.

She says the flute, which she has played on occasion with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, is perfect for her purposes.

“Flute players have been very creative about getting new repertoire,” she says. “The flute lends itself to an enormous amount of creativity. You can do anything with it. It’s a glorified drainpipe.”

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