The art of the classical cover song with the Vitamin String Quartet ahead of their Kauffman gig

Vitamin String Quartet. // image courtesy the artist

Instrumental interpreters of popular music Vitamin String Quartet have been making music for 25 years. Their classical versions of pop hits have not only sold a million copies, but also found their way onto the soundtracks of shows like Bridgerton, Gossip Girl, and Westworld. VSQ’s versions of songs feel timeless and, given the sheer variety of artists they’ve covered, demonstrate the versatility of classical instrumentation.

We hopped on Zoom with VSQ cellist Derek Stein and James Curtiss, director of A&R for VSQ’s label, CMH Records and co-creative director for Vitamin String Quartet to discuss live performances, picking and choosing just what gets covered, and the audience response to classically taking on the likes of Billie Eilish—ahead of their show Thursday at Kauffman.

The Pitch: James, how has CMH Records leaned into the idea of these different interpretations and styles of popular song, with the likes of Vitamin String Quartet, as well as the Pickin’ On series?

James Curtiss: Well, it’s funny because throughout the years, CMH did so many, but we honed it all down to these very specific series of music that were far more successful, both with an audience, but also just for our own interest. I mean, that’s how you wind up with so much of the time and energy that’s been put into Vitamin String Quartet.

A lot of the things that we’ve done before, we always approached them with a real sense of curiosity and trying to find something that was going to engage an audience, but the most engaging thing, the most curious thing at the end of the day was, was the Vitamin String Quartet work.

I think you’re always just approaching this kind of music with a sense of like, “What would I want to hear?” It’d be very easy to make string quartet music that is a cliché that people assume when you think of that kind of music–something that’s very passive, that people don’t engage with in a very intimate and visceral way–and we wanted to make sure that that was not the way that this was done.

We wanted to put something on the stage that still sounds and looks like a string quartet, but feels like you’re at a rock or pop show–and that’s not just the repertoire. That’s the way it’s arranged. That’s putting incredibly dynamic performers like Derrick on the stage, who’s engaging with the music, engaging with the other players, engaging with the audience. What you want to lean into with everything is, “What do you want to hear?”

Derek, how did you come to be part of this?

Derek Stein: Sometime in the late ’90s, I was a big fan of No Doubt. Anytime I went to a record store, I would look through the No Doubt to see if there was anything in there that I’d never seen before. One day, I saw The String Quartet Tribute to No Doubt. It was one of the early CMH VSQ releases. That was my first time I discovered the group, and any time I had the chance, I would find new stuff that I hadn’t seen before by them, and I was a big fan.

In 2008, I moved to Southern California to go to grad school at the California Institute of the Arts. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, if I’m down here, it’d be cool if I got hooked up with Vitamin String Quartet.” Then, I was playing in a different group that I still play with called Wild Up, which is a modern music chamber and we were performing at UCLA.

Our personnel manager at the time came into the green room and said, “I just got an email from a guy who got an email from a guy saying that the Vitamin String Quartet is looking for new players and I’m just looking to see if anyone here is interested,” and of course my hand shot straight up and I got the contact email. I emailed, I set up an audition, and the rest is history.

Over the years, Vitamin String Quartet’s music has been placed in so much pop culture, most notably Bridgerton. Does the label try to do a lot of placement with this sort of stuff and Derek, what it is like for you to hear your playing in so many different pieces of pop culture?

Derek Stein: I was just gonna specify that Vitamin String Quartet is kind of an interesting animal that has lots of shapes and sizes and the people who perform live aren’t always the people who are on the recording. That being said, I know that I’m on at least one or two of those tracks that was featured in Bridgerton.

I’ve played on big records, I’ve played on little records, so it’s just really fun to hear something that I’ve done be played on a big hit thing like that on Bridgerton or any other place that it’s used.

A quick side story: I had a really funny experience recently, where I was just listening to some random radio station on Spotify and a song came on that had some strings and I remember thinking to myself, “Gosh, that sounds like my playing. That sounds like me,” and so I looked up the track and lo and behold, that was me playing on that track

James Curtiss: Yeah the placement thing’s interesting. We’ve never actually sought out placements. Well, let me qualify that. We’ve definitely done the legwork, where we’ve tried to work with agencies or representatives to try to get our music out there–especially people who get pitches coming to them left and right–but we’ve actually had the pretty good fortune of a lot of creatives either in the process of making the shows or the ones licensing for the shows, know who we are, what we do. We have this established history and deep catalog.

A lot of times shows come to us. I mean, the same thing happened with Bridgerton. Bridgerton was a show that initially was being supervised by someone working at Netflix named Alexandra Patsavas, who’s very well known in the music licensing world. She had licensed music from us for previous television shows, so there’s a bit of a history in a relationship there but even beyond that, there are definitely a lot of people who knew who know who we are and what we do, so I think that’s how we get a lot of the work that we’ve gotten is people just seeking us out.

There are two different kinds of Vitamin String Quartet releases. There are the themed ones based around a particular artist, and then there are compilations, which are basically Now That’s What I Call Vitamin String Quartet when they perform the hits of a given year. What are the rubrics that let you decide like what each release is going to be like?

James Curtiss: That really comes down to the conversations that happen at the label between myself and the larger team, but really, it’s been me and Leo Flynn, the co-creative director and brand manager doing this for 15-plus years, and a lot of times it’s the things we want to hear.

There are a few different lanes that these things fall into. There are obviously the hits things that you’re talking about, where you hear something, you know it’s having a moment, but you’re also hoping that it’s going to be evergreen. It’s kind of like a classic case of like, you hear Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and you go, “This is really fun. This is really great. I want to play this now,” but you also have the thing where you’re like, “I think this song is going to be played for the next 10 to 20 years.” You’re making a good educated guess at that point, but that usually pays off.

Then there are the artists that we just love and we want to make records of their music–Bjork, Lana Del Rey, some of the things that are a little bit more not necessarily right there in the middle lane of popular music, but people know who they are, and things that fascinate us.

Then there’s sort of the unusual things where we’re doing stuff that’s more pop culture-based. We just actually released the first single today from an album of anime music. I’m a big fan of anime. I’ve been a fan of anime since I was a little kid. There are 40 to 50 years worth of music you can pull from to make an album of anime music, so it’s it’s an interesting place to be in with the kind of culture we’ve created with vitamin string quartet, where you can kind of do anything you want, as long as it makes sense to you and and hopefully that makes sense to the audience.

Speaking of audience–Derek, given the breadth and depth of what Vitamin String Quartet has put out as releases, how does that live show take form?

Derek Stein: Well, that is a very good question. Our set lists are mostly curated by James and Leo.

How do you prepare for that?

Derek Stein: Lots of individual practice and then we have rehearsals with the the whole string quartet that go very well. We generally have three to four full days of rehearsal. I’ve been playing with the group for–this fall is like 12 years for me. November, I think, is 12 years that I’ve been playing with the Vitamin String Quartet and the setlist that we play now, most of the songs I’ve been playing for years. There’s a handful of songs on this tour that we’re doing that are brand new, specifically for this tour, but a lot of the songs that we’re doing, I’ve been playing for a long time and that is almost second nature to me at this point.

Derek, as someone who is from Salina, so kind of from the area, what’s it like for you to get to play on the stage of the Kauffman Center?

Derek Stein: I have to say I’m very excited. I know that Kansas City isn’t really my hometown, but I feel like that area is kind of my home. I have a whole bunch of people from Salina coming to the show, and I’m really excited about that. It’s just gonna be kind of fun to, in a real significant way, be in that area and show off what I get to do and what I love to do for a bunch of people who saw me growing up and working towards something like this.

As this tour kicks off, what does the setlist look like for this? What are some of those new songs? What are some of the classics? What songs will be on every Vitamin String Quartet setlist from the beginning to the end of time?

James Curtiss: Look, there’s no two ways around it: there will always be a performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” in this show. That just is a given. I think it’s also a given, no matter what happens with our audience and how we grow in the future, there’s always going to be some part of Bridgerton. That’s our history now.

Us not playing something like “Bad Guy” or “Thank U, Next,” or something from Bridgerton is kind of like the classic joke about if the Rolling Stones show up and they don’t play “Satisfaction.” I think there’s that. Those are some of the key ones, there, and then there’s just also just a handful of perennial favorites in the mix, there. But without giving too much away, that’s a good chunk of it, and then, obviously, with this tour and probably tours moving forward, there’s always going to be a little Taylor Swift in the mix there. That’s been a very successful record for us.

Derek, what’s your favorite song to play?

Derek Stein: Oh man, probably “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. That one is a lot of fun. We’ve been playing it for a very long time and it’s gone through different stages, variations, and different iterations, and a lot of how we perform it is not only part of what the arrangement is, but also our own creative choices that we make. It’s just become a really special arrangement.

The Vitamin String Quartet plays the Kauffman Center on Thursday, November 7. Details on that show here.