Jake Armerding brings music and stories to new role as YourClassical host

Music is a fundamental human need, on par with air and water. So asserts musician and storyteller Jake Armerding, who will share further thoughts on this philosophy as YourClassical’s new evening host.

“I think without self-expression, we wind up not terribly human,” Armerding said. “I don’t think it is a thriving existence. I would put music and the arts in a category of a basic need; I’m not comfortable with relegating those kinds of activities to the fringes of life.

“There comes a time in every day when to lift ourselves to our full humanity, we need to exercise our minds and emotions.”

Armerding, who calls himself “an incorrigible creative,” is adding broadcasting to a vast and accomplished resumé that includes playing the violin, mandolin and acoustic guitar; songwriting; teaching; and storytelling.

The notion that music is essential was ingrained in Armerding at 1, when his musician father, Taylor Armerding, put headphones on him at their home in Ipswich, Mass — listening to an album by guitarist Russ Barenberg.

“The story goes I was entranced enough not to make a fuss,” Armerding said. “I guess I had it in the blood right from the start.”

His father “had an inkling early on that I was tuned to sound and music and melody and all those beautiful things.”

His musical aptitude led to Suzuki violin training at 4, which was “a huge influence.” The method of learning music by ear was, well, instrumental to his musical development.

“To this day, I don’t read music terribly well, but thanks to [Suzuki], I have a great ear,” he said.

Alongside this classical training, his father pivoted musically, starting a bluegrass band, Northern Lights. Suddenly young Jake had “Suzuki in one ear and bluegrass in the other,” making him, as he calls it, “musically bilingual.”  

He discovered yet more musical possibilities when, as a youngster in the 1980s, he tuned in to pop music, devouring bands such as Guns N’ Roses and Def Leppard — and Paul Simon’s album Graceland, which married lyrics and melodies to a fusion of styles (pop, classical, bluegrass, world).

“Whatever he did with that, it resonated with me; I was drawn toward that album,” Armerding said. “I played it a thousand times — I know every inch of it.”

Simon and Armerding’s other musical influences, including “newgrass” revivalist Sam Bush and guitarist Béla Fleck, “kind of launched me,” he said.

“I had gotten quite good at the fiddle and saw no reason not to strike out on my own in a music career.”

After earning a degree in English literature from Wheaton College in Illinois, he headed back to Massachusetts and the Boston music scene, where he met “anyone who had anything to do with folk, American, bluegrass, Celtic,” he said.

“We all hung out, played on each other’s albums, toured together — it was like a big party.”

In his solo gigs, he leaned into the singer-songwriter track, but realized that audiences responded more to his fiddle and mandolin playing.

“I had a small audience that I thought might follow me wherever I go — my whole career I’ve thrown caution to the wind,” he said. “I’ve always taken liberties with mixing genres and putting things together that I found exciting — adding kick drum to a concerto, things that aren’t terribly legal.

“But I was asking myself, ‘Why not?’ That’s always been my mantra.”

That anything-goes outlook has served him well. He was named best new artist in 2001 by Boston folk radio station WUMB, and the Boston Globe called him “the most gifted and promising songwriter to emerge from the Boston folk scene in years.”

Armerding has alternated solo gigs with cooperative ventures, including the Boston bluegrass ensemble Barnstar! — described by various publications as “ridiculously high-testosterone,” “bombastic” and “raucus.” The band includes his father, “so we had a generational thing going on.”

He also is a founding member of the neoclassical string quartet Rosin, born after he connected with classically trained violinist and violist Annie Bartlett, who had sought him out for lessons on improvisation. They immediately hit it off, playing in house and acoustic shows together and eventually inviting bassist Zack Hickman and cellist Mina Kim to join them. The ensemble, whose mission statement proclaims “We know what the rules are. We just like breaking them,” fits with Armerding’s guiding musical principles.

As a soloist and ensemble member, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and at the Newport Folk Festival, and he has made many recordings. Fans of the Current’s Radio Heartland might also be familiar with his work; here is a 2019 in-studio performance and interview with host Mike Pengra, who Armerding calls instrumental in bringing him into the Minnesota Public Radio fold.

So Armerding was not unfamiliar with the Twin Cities music scene. With his wife, Jennifer, a Minnesota native, he had bounced back and forth from Boston to the Twin Cities area before settling in River Falls, Wis., with their three boys. They appreciate the small-town feel and the proximity to the Twin Cities, especially its vibrant food culture.

After the pandemic sharply curtailed live performances, Armerding concentrated on local music and his love of storytelling.

“I just love stories. I can’t get enough of them,” he said.

And in his new job at YourClassical, where he’ll be on the air 7 p.m.-midnight central Thursdays through Saturdays, he’ll apply his love of both stories and music.

“In this position, I wonder if that overlap will help me come into a new chapter. Finally, I’ll have an opportunity where my job is to tell stories, but the stories are about music and composers and the arts.

“I’ve been gently but firmly pushed into a new role of weaving those things together. I’m excited to see what sparks fly,” he said.

He also is looking forward to having his own sensibilities stretched. As a musician influenced by such disparate wellsprings as Graceland and the Mozart-centric movie Amadeus, which he watched on videotape so often “it got into my bloodstream,” he’s excited at the thought of “having my ears taken in some new directions.”

He’ll flavor his shows with some of his personal doctrines, tying back to that primal requirement for music.

“We need to be taken out of ourselves. There’s so much noise, conflict, chaos,” he said. “Unhooking ourselves from real life and going to a place where we can allow a piece of music to pour into us, change us, calm us down — that’s so necessary. It’s the purest and healthiest form of self-medication.

“The whole time, there’s music just sitting there ready to make life better. That’s why we listen to MPR.”