We Alaskans

Meet the Anchorage violinist who went electric - and launched an international career

 

Even as a child, seasoned musicians recognized Bryson Andres' talent. The 25-year-old Anchorage violinist found support early on from his community, and as a teenager, Andres set out to the Lower 48 to chase his dreams.

But no straight path awaited him. Andres' career has been punctuated with crushing defeats, wells of depression, and unexpected successes as he sought to carve out his own voice, using a traditionally classical instrument in a contemporary way.

Now a recognized musician with a solid internet following — 160,000 YouTube subscribers, with many of his videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views — Andres is known for original interpretations of popular songs, using his electric violin and loop pedal.

"In my professional opinion, I would say he's one out of at least 10,000 who takes up violin and has a natural gift. What he's done with his loop pedal and his music, not everybody has (that talent)," said Petr Bucinsky of Petr's Violin Shop, who first saw Andres play when he was just 12 years old.

He's known failure, and he's known success — but Andres hesitates to dish out advice.

"Everybody's story of success is just a tad bit different," Andres said. "Persevere. But perseverance is really hard. You have to trust yourself," he said at an Anchorage coffee shop in late October.

'I just knew it had to be'

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Andres is quick to point out that he's shy. Sometimes, he feels like he's still in high school.

"That's one reason I wear glasses," he said, referring to his preference for wearing sunglasses whenever he plays or has his picture taken.

But he's still recognizable. While sitting at the coffee shop, a couple approached. They had seen him play at a recent Anchorage event and gushed over his performance. He stood up, shook their hands and thanked them.

Born in Hawaii, Andres moved with his mother to Alaska when he was 2. The pair hopped to Chicago, then Alabama, and back again, before settling in to live with his grandparents in the Anchorage neighborhood of Fairview when he was 9.

Growing up, money was tight in the family. At age 12, Andres met his birth father, who lives in Hawaii, for the first time. When his father asked if he needed anything for school, his answer was quick: a violin.

Andres wanted the instrument for a simple reason: a girl. She was playing in orchestra, and he wanted to be right there with her.

She quit a few months later, Andres said. He didn't.

The violin quickly became a driving force in his life. "It was something that I did without anybody telling me what to practice, what to play," Andres said. Lacking money for private lessons, he studied other kids who were privy to classical training — copying how they held their hands, how they played.

Soon, Bucinsky saw Andres play, and his reaction was immediate and powerful. "I was blown away," he said. In eighth grade, Bucinsky sponsored Andres to take private lessons with a classical violinist and the two men remain close. Last Christmas, Bucinsky gifted Andres an electric violin with a custom carbon bridge that Bucinsky crafted himself.

[Related: Anchorage violin shop brims with old and unusual instruments]

At first, Andres' grandmother treated the instrument as a burden, Andres said. "There was a lot of money going into it," Andres explained, and the family was "barely making it" day to day.

But as Andres aged, his grandmother softened. "I don't know where she found it, but she found a book of songs from the '80s and '90s," Andres said. Soon, she started asking him to play "My Heart Will Go On," Celine Dion's title track from the blockbuster movie "Titanic." Her request came at weddings, birthdays, gatherings. It was all "Titanic," all the time.

"Sometimes it would just be a lunch at her friend's house, and she would be like, 'bring your violin and play 'Titanic,'" Andres laughed.

In high school, Andres received a second, anonymous sponsorship for private lessons. Andres credits his teacher, Nina Bingham, a principal violinist with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, with bringing him into his own.

"She didn't try to change my sound, she tried to build upon it," Andres said. "I think that's why I thrived."

Thrive he did, Bingham said. "He was like a sponge. There wasn't anything that he wasn't willing to try."

Bingham would go on to teach Andres for free, when the original sponsor quit paying for lessons, Bingham said. She also bought him his first looping pedal, which launched him on his current trajectory.

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"Somewhere, deep down, I knew it just had to be," Bingham said when asked what spurred her acts of generosity.

The scam and the stranger

Andres looked up to contemporary violinists like Lucia Micarelli, Bond, and Vanessa Mae. But the loop pedal quickly became his trademark.

Andres started building his sound around the pedal, where musical phrases repeat and build upon each other to create layers of sound. Inspired by the artist Imogen Heap, who uses the technique with her voice, Andres' first cover song was "Poker Face," by Lady Gaga. To this day, his main repertoire is creating compositions of pop songs, using the loop pedal to layer the beat, melody and harmonies.

In high school, Andres began playing at the Anchorage Market and Festival on weekends. CDs of his music sold well, allowing him to earn $1,000 some weekends, hopping from venue to venue, playing at every Anchorage spot he could.

After he graduated from high school, tragedy struck. His cousin, Anton Cox, who'd been Andres' biggest supporter, died. "I really wanted to make it, for him," Andres said.

So he decided to go out in search of greater things. He moved to Spokane, where he has family.

While playing on the street one day, a man approached the then-19-year-old Andres, describing himself as a big-time producer. He showed photos of himself posing with celebrities.

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He'd drive Andres to Los Angeles to sign onto a major label, the man told him. He'd just need $3,000.

But once they got on the road, the man's demeanor quickly devolved. He became angry, unstable. The car broke down, and the man seemed to be unraveling, yelling on the phone, whispering about the money Andres had given him.

"I was terrified," Andres said. After an overnight in a hotel, they were back in Spokane. Andres took his violin, left everything else in the car, promising to start up again the next day. He'd never see the man, or the rest of his belongings, again.

Andres learned a big lesson: "If somebody wants you, you don't have to pay a thing," he said.

After that, Andres moved to Los Angeles, where he played on the streets. He hoped for a warm reception similar to what he got in Anchorage. It never materialized.

In three months, he didn't sell a single CD. "It was like getting beat and beat again," Andres said.

Defeated, he moved back to Spokane. He heard a national talent-based television show would be in Alaska, and he planned a return trip. The show canceled, but Andres had already bought his ticket. Too broke to afford the luggage fees, Andres again took to the streets to busk for money.

On a cold winter day in January 2012, a stranger filmed Andres' street performance in Portland and posted it on YouTube.

 

By the time Andres landed in Alaska the next day, the video had gone viral.

'I took another leap and it paid off'

In an instant, his career changed. Inquiries poured in, but Andres was cautious — after all, he'd just been scammed.

But finally he accepted a gig with Resorts World Manila in the Philippines' capital about four years ago. The huge resort bills itself online as "a one-stop, non-stop entertainment and leisure destination that features gaming thrills, world-class entertainment, unique events, and exciting lifestyle options." For Andres, it was the perfect move.

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"I took another leap and it paid off," he said. "It was the best decision I made of my life."

For three years, Andres lived in Manila, periodically flying off to play other gigs. Gradually, he learned the tricks of the trade — how to wear makeup, how to perform choreography in elaborate costumes, how to position himself on stage as dancers twirled around him.

"You probably do learn that in college, but I didn't have to pay for it," Andres joked.

Flipping through photos on his smartphone, Andres paused on pictures of him in a white, glittering stage costume, flanked by dancers. In another, he stands in front of a massive image of himself, poised with the violin, sunglasses and all, in an advertisement for the resort.

The gig was good — and lengthy. He spent eight months on a Resort World cruise ship, honing his craft. But eventually he found himself in a messy breakup with a dancer who worked for the same company, and his contract was canceled. Come April 2015, he was unemployed and back in Alaska.

"I fell into a big depression," Andres said.

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Getting back on his feet

Andres refused to work. For a few months, he seldom left his bed. His hair had been a big part of his stage performance, so he shaved his head. "I don't think people really understood how bad it was," Andres said of his depression.

But his hair grew back. And in June 2015, he played at a wedding in Palmer, where he felt himself moving past the dark spot in his life.

He started playing gigs again throughout the summer and the spring of 2016. Then, he took a few months off, heading back to Spokane, a luxury he hadn't ever given himself.

He's back in Alaska now — at least for a while.

He's got gigs lined up in November in Las Vegas, New York, Hawaii.

Sometimes, gigs fall into place just weeks beforehand. That was the case with a Nov. 10 booking, where he'll be performing at the opening of the South Shore Market in Honolulu — a multimillion-dollar building project in Hawaii's capital city.

And he's hoping that 2017 brings a new contract aboard a cruise ship — where room and board is provided, and there are fewer places to spend money.

Bingham says they keep in touch. Her current students know about Andres, and some idolize his work. Last year, he came by the studio, and one student in particular was starstruck.

"I couldn't even describe the look on the kid's face," she said.

Andres has carved out a niche for himself in a demanding, competitive and sometimes brutal world.

"You don't have to be the best pop star," Andres said of his progress. "Find the right pocket to fit into."

Contact Alaska Dispatch News reporter Laurel Andrews at laurel@alaskadispatch.com

Laurel Andrews

Laurel Andrews was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in October 2018.

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