Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Andrew Bonci Jr. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
My work ethic definitely comes from my parents, the classic super team. As I was growing up my dad was building his chiropractic practice from the ground up in Kansas City and I had the privilege of watching the business develop and learning things passively hanging out in the background. Mom took care of the house and my older brother and me, but she was very much involved in the success of the business day-to-day. I had amazing models for balancing work with home life, while still striving to learn more and be a better version of oneself. Watching my parents work together to balance all the things life throws at them showed me how much of life is teamwork and how important it is to find your team. I can remember many days of going to school, coming home to do homework, practicing my instruments, and then dad would come home from working at the office, do some quick infrastructural work on the business, and then we usually ended the day as a family eating dinner and whatever recreation the night held for us. This routine instilled in me the importance of working in your business, working on your business, and working on/for yourself and your family.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Like many modern musicians, I have a wide range of hats that I wear on any given day. One of the best things about working in music is the variety of jobs and opportunities that arise. I freelance on viola and guitar (and related fretted/ bowed instruments) in the greater Kansas City area where I have the joy of being all sorts of things! I started playing viola in elementary school and two years later picked up the guitar and each instrument has been fighting for my attention ever since! I participated in my school’s music programs throughout primary and secondary education I ended up playing in my high school’s orchestra and jazz ensemble where I met many life-long friends and colleagues. Side note, my orchestra had a “strolling strings” component where we had a 45ish minute set that we were to memorize, walk around, and perform. I think that I decent amount of my “show biz” sensibilities started there because upon arriving at any venue on the bus, 10 minutes later we were all smiling and playing for the clients – all 50 of us! After high school, I went on to study at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance where I earned a BA in Music and a Master’s in Viola Performance. Although I did not study guitar in college, you bet I was still playing and applying what I was learning across instruments. I think one of the things that I loved about my undergrad was that the BA degree structure enabled me to study so many things at once. In addition to all the same lessons, orchestra, and coursework I took many courses about education, literacy, music composition/arranging, and instrumental techniques. After playing in chamber music ensembles I fell in love more with classical music and went on further in my masters with viola. Bringing us to the present day, I am finding my path with a “portfolio career” doing the classic combination of wedding string quartets, playing in rock/indie bands, playing for musical pit orchestras, being the section leader for a church orchestra, and teaching privately. I have composed/arranged a few pieces for string quartet and performed them at my church job when we get tired of the older classic arrangements. It makes me feel like a modern-day Handel/Haydn! Along the freelance path, I have been lucky enough to perform with bands as they tour through the country. Thanks to the many amazing people in KC contract those type of opportunities I have played with Evanescence, Lindsey Sterling, The Hanson Brothers, and most recently The Eagles. Truly a blessing to have been on stage with so many colleagues AND such world-renowned musicians at the same time for those shows. Otherwise, there is of course a string player’s never-ending journey with Symphonic Excerpts and Orchestral Auditions.
To neatly combine all of my goals into one place I have started a business “Magnolia Tree Studios.” In a nutshell, my goal for the studio is to be a place for in-person and virtual private lessons as well as a small-scale recording studio. Magnolia Tree Studios (MTS) is located in the historic West Bottoms of KCMO in the Livestock Exchange Building where I have a nice one-suite, two-room set up where I have a lesson room and a waiting room that can be melded for whatever purpose I need! The space has a lot of possibilities and there are many artists of all types in the building – and a lot of lawyers. An interesting combo, but we all get along just fine. I have spent much of last year accumulating gear and equipment for use in the studio. Guitar and bass amps, music stands, chairs, and other various recording equipment. And now because I can’t help myself I am building a desk and rack side-car from scratch. MTS has served as a great rehearsal space for smaller ensembles and I have even recorded some string quartets in the space! Being a small business comes with many challenges but I am excited for what the future holds.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think if I had to choose three things to live by as an artist and a person they would be to keep an open mind, question everything, and don’t stop. As a teacher and performer, I think that it is incredibly important to “be open to the experience” because not everything that we do is going to make sense at first but so much can be gained by traversing our personal unknown. Question everything, in every way. I think this keeps the curiosity alive in life and our crafts as we push to understand ourselves – and it certainly doesn’t hurt to keep your head on a swivel in this regard. Lastly, and probably the hardest, is to persevere. Don’t stop, don’t give up, and take stock of all of your very real progress, and allow yourself to breathe. Record yourself often so that you can have benchmarks to look back on. And along the way if you fall off the horse, true perseverance lies in getting back on the horse, not in how you do it.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I think that it is inordinately important to be a well-rounded individual, I like the full Shakespeare line about being a jack of all trades. It is important to have one’s area of expertise and to fully hone that craft to the best of your ability, but giving your best in some side quests enriches your main story. I am classically trained in viola but have spent time in recording studios as a session guitarist, and I have goals of recording and producing my own music so I have worked at learning as much as I can about that craft – which I have been able to put to use in my performing and teaching life. This was extremely helpful when COVID lockdowns were happening and much of life moved to be “virtual.” So the audio/video tech world that we were stepping into as educators was somewhat familiar to me and I was able to provide a lot of value to my students despite the circumstances. But I do believe that even completely unrelated fields have the ability to help inform my musical work. For instance, I am very much a DIY kind of person so when I start to find things I can feasibly make with some amount of learning or practice I take to the internet and my friends to see what can be done. I recently finished making a basic studio desk for myself and learned how to do some really basic woodworking stuff like sanding, staining, and finishing along the way. My old roommate and I used to go fishing as often as we could in this really cool campground in Kansas I learned about maneuvering canoes and various casting techniques. Sports are another great skill to have. I used to swim competitively, and remember reaching and emerging from plateaus, and learning what it means to work with yourself. Not only are all these random skills great for their own sake but they can inform my artistic endeavors. Having a diverse background is essential to understanding each other and connecting as human beings, and with this connection, one can make better and more impactful music and art.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MagnoliaTreeStudios
- Other: bonci.music@gmail.com
Image Credits
J Morris Photography KC
