Overture Magazine: 2016-2017 Season May-June 2017 | Page 46

{ impromptu
44 O v ertur e |
L aura F armer
Fei Xie
BSO Principal Bassoon
He likes meat and music seasoned to taste.
For BSO Principal Bassoon Fei Xie, making music
and cooking have a lot in common. And he’s
passionate about both.
“It’s a similar approach: With music, everyone gets
the same notes on a page, but you put your own
interpretation into it and the piece sounds different
from person to person. For cooking, you may get
the same recipe and ingredients as another per-
son, but your food still comes out tasting different.
That’s what I like. You can infuse both music and
cooking with your own personal style.”
Unsurprisingly, Xie’s personal cooking style is
influenced by his Chinese heritage.
“When I was growing up in China, my dad always
cooked a lot. He became a parent early because
his parents died in the 1976 earthquake. At age
19, he had to go to work, cook, and care for his
younger siblings, who were 15 and 11 at the time,”
explains Xie.
Despite these tough circumstances, Xie’s father,
Zhengang Xie, rose to become the concertmas-
ter of the Peking Opera, performing on the huqin,
a fiddle-like instrument. Young Fei followed in his
father’s footsteps, training as a musician at the
Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing—the
same elite music boarding school that Lang Lang
also attended.
Today, the wonderfully aromatic concoctions
simmering in Xie’s kitchen include an array of
traditional Chinese dishes.
“I’m into meat. So one of my favorite things to make
is slow-cooked meat,” he says. “I caramelize sugar,
then add the meat, cover it with water and cooking
wines, and let it simmer for hours.”
Xie’s two sons Kevin, 6, and Colin, 3, are big fans
of dad’s cooking. His wife, a freelance flute player,
whose name is also Fei, appreciates the food but
has reservations about the accompanying mess.
“I’m a messy cook! I cook like a real chef!” jokes
Xie. “If I weren’t a musician, my dream would be to
have my own cooking show.”
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