Suuvi Bacelar: Defying Expectations through Music, Business, and Beyond

29:25And I was the only cellist when I was there. And basically, once a year, they give one of those students a prize and the award is basically part of the award is to have a Carnegie Hall debut. So I did that. It was supposed to be in 2019, but because of the pandemic, it ended up being pushed all the way to 2021. And that was actually the final performance I gave in New York before moving to California. You answered the question at one level about the three times you got to Carnegie Hall. The question I'm really asking is, what does it take to get to Carnegie Hall? Is it talent? Is it practice? Is it luck?

30:09Luck is a tricky concept because obviously there's an element of luck in everyone's life. There was luck in the sense that I was born into a household where there were instruments everywhere. Of course, that's the first thing. I was definitely set up for success in that sense. I always think of that story about how Bill Gates, he went to one of the only high schools at the time that had access to a computer. And so that's how he ended up going down that path. So I had luck from the beginning that I had access to all of this. And then I had parents who fostered that education. But the thing about luck also is I think you can make your luck.

30:46And I think luck without preparation doesn't become luck. So, for example, certain things in my life can appear very lucky. I remember when I had my Berlin Philharmonie debut, which was in 2017, I believe. I was 20 years old at the time, and I definitely got that performance in a sense because I was lucky. What had happened was I had happened to move into an apartment building and the landlord was also an artist manager. And we realized that she was from Shanghai. My mother was from Shanghai and we got to know each other. And she had an artist cancel their Berlin Philharmonie recital on six weeks notice.

31:29So she called me and asked me if I wanted to do it instead. That was definitely lucky. but if I hadn't practiced cello for 6 to 12 hours a day since childhood, I would absolutely not have been equipped to prepare for that kind of performance in six weeks. Ultimately, there is a lot of hard work that goes into results and I do recognize that I definitely did not have a typical childhood. I didn't have many friends. I was definitely not the cool kid. I was definitely the nerd. People did not want to be hanging out with me. I was the weird kid who was very immersed in books and not very social. But all of that did pay off later in life because all those hours I spent studying or practicing, they definitely resulted in me being prepared for all the opportunities that seemingly luckily appeared in my life in later years.

32:22I don't want you to think I'm obsessed with this topic, but I don't know. I don't know many people who have made it to Carnegie Hall. So my last Carnegie Hall question is this. So let's say you are going to go perform. Walk me through. You get to Carnegie Hall and is there this entourage of people with you? Are there people making sure that the M &Ms are the right color? Are they like just all kissing your ring and is this like superstar Tom Brady walks into the Super Bowl and Suvi walks into Carnegie Hall? You know, the funny thing is actually for my last Carnegie Hall recital, something I realized by my 20s, by my mid-20s, definitely.

33:08I'm 27 now and I had that recital when I was 25. I realized that I actually really love sharing experiences with people. So I'm very known for being very collaborative. So for my Carnegie Hall recital, the last one, I actually had, I think, about seven guest artists with me. So the first half of the performance, I played solo, which is the traditional kind of classical recital structure. But for the second half, I wanted to do something really fun. And I essentially just invited all of my favorite collaborators and people with whom I enjoyed working over the last couple years. And we did a very varied program.

33:47I had a jazz pianist, a good friend of mine, we did an improv jazz piece. I had a trio that kind of operates in the classical crossover scene called Time for Three. We did a very, very fun piece for two violins, double bass and cello. I had a friend of mine and I, we did an arrangement of Moon River, which is one of my favorite songs. We did a lot of really fun things. And what I really loved about that performance is that it somehow took the pressure off in the sense of, I think in a lot of high stakes, high pressure environments, you do have people kind of catering to you, opening doors, bringing food, making sure everything's okay.

34:32But then you feel all this pressure that everything's on you. And I, bizarrely enough, actually, it's funny because my profession does put me in the center of attention quite often, but I don't like being the center of attention. I'm actually naturally very shy and introverted. I've had to train myself to be comfortable being in spotlights. So I love actually, it's, I guess I'm revealing one of my secrets, but part of why I do so many collaborations is to diffuse the attention off of me. I like having, I think that particular performance was really, really fun just because it really felt like I was hanging out with all my friends and there happened to be an audience.

35:07and do you just like get off the subway with your cello or get out of a uber car and you walk to the backstage you ring the bell and somebody lets you in and that's it yeah they have a very beautiful backstage it's definitely there's a lot of it's a beautiful hall it's very gilded and ornate as many concert halls are i actually took the subway because i remember that morning with your The traffic. Yeah, I remember looking at the traffic and I was staying on the Upper East Side and I realized that the fastest way to get there was the Q train. I actually just took the subway down and it was very casual.

35:43And in a way, I'm a very casual person. I don't like overhyping things. And I think I studied a lot of sports psychology when I was younger because there was a period during which I dealt with a lot of stage fright. And at the time, there was virtually no literature or resources available in terms of stage performance for musicians. Nowadays, there's much more, but there was a lot available for athletes. And I just read all of those books and listened to those interviews and applied them to performance because it's really the same thing. You're under pressure, you're in front of an audience. But I remember one of the things I read in a sports psychology book years ago that I never forgot was this tennis player.

36:26team galloway on it was not him i don't remember if it was that i have read that book but anyway the story was that this tennis player was saying that on when they were competing they would try to have as normal of a day as possible because if they started psyching themselves up by suddenly changing things and making it like this special day where everything has to be perfect it would put them into a state that wasn't relaxed. So I actually try to have as normal of an environment as possible whenever I do anything high pressure. Even this morning, I mean, this is a little bit nerve-wracking being on a podcast potentially.

37:06And I just had a very, no, I mean, it's not nerve-wracking because of you. But of course, some people I think would put pressure on themselves to prepare for a podcast because they would want to make sure that it goes really well because it's going out into the public, I'll admit I did no preparation because I figured the story that I'm telling was going to be my own and that should be the story I know the best. If I have to prepare to tell my own story, then I don't even know what kind of pressure I'll be putting on myself to talk about anything else in life because this is the topic I should know well.

37:42Let me just make it very clear to you, if you ever go on other podcasts, the burden is on the podcaster, not the guest. It's our problem to prepare for you, not your problem to prepare for me. Oh, that's very sweet. And you can quote them. I will. If NPR ever, maybe you have been on NPR, but if NPR calls you up and says, come on our podcast or Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics, you just tell them, okay, you guys prepare. I hope you're ready for me. Yeah, well, I mean, I just try to be prepared for life every day. I'm very big on optimizing wellness, I mentioned earlier. So I practice transcendental meditation twice a day.

38:22I make sure no matter what I'm doing, I get that session in the morning before I do anything else. because I just find that setting yourself up mentally in the best headspace for whatever you're going to do, whether it's going to the gym or being on a podcast or playing in Carnegie Hall or taking a trip or going on a date, anything that might be out of the realm of your normal daily activities. I think it's just good to have that routine. I really believe in the power of routine and habits. I just read Atomic Habits and The Power of Habits. It's something very much on my mind at the moment. And I think there's a reason why people who have good routines and have good habits get better results out of life because you just train yourself to be in this consistently optimized state.

39:09Well, yesterday, Madison and I interviewed Julia Cameron, and she is the queen of habits and her habit is morning pages to handwrite three pages. It sounds like your TM in the morning. There is no more remarkable and lovely person than Julia Cameron in the world. Maybe she's tied with Jane Goodall. Those are the two. Oh, gosh. I love Jane Goodall so much. I remember I watched her Masterclass series during the pandemic, and it was so inspiring to see someone so dedicated to something in such a selfless way. And when you see her talk about her work and see what she does, it's just incredibly inspiring.

39:52Up next on Remarkable People. And I was studying film there and Hugh Jackman was actually in one of my film classes. So it was this full circle moment. And I remember thinking about that interview and just being so truly impressed and first surprised, but then just really so much respect for Hugh Jackman. At that point, I think now he's probably in his 50s. He's definitely he's an A-list actor. He does not need to be going to film class, but he still goes to class because he's still developing his craft. If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend.

40:31A big mahalo to you for doing this. Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. It's interesting, Suvi, because in a sense, you are the opposite end of the spectrum from Jane. Because Jane started with animals at, I don't know, probably two, like you with the cello. And she stuck with animals for 90 years. You have done art and music and cello and piano and composing. Madison and I have just written a book called Think Remarkable. There is no single path. I'm very interested in this break you had from your, quote, cello days, including changing your name. So what brought that on? I interestingly took a couple breaks from cello.

41:18It first happened at age 18. So I had my undergrad at age 18, which is typically when people start their conservatory studies. And I remember moving back from Paris to New York for about nine months and just having no idea what I was going to do. because I had this degree, but I didn't quite feel ready to embark on a performance career. I actually, interestingly, felt that I needed to do a lot of work on myself before I could prepare for any sort of public-facing profession. I was very shy at the time. People nowadays can't believe this, but at the time, people thought I was autistic because I literally wouldn't speak to anyone.

42:01I remember my whole time in my undergrad, a lot of my fellow students probably never heard me say anything more than hello, goodbye, thank you. I was very shy. So I actually went back to New York and became obsessed with behavioral psychology, of all things. And for a while, I was literally just studying behavioral psychology and trying to sort of reinvent my personality in a way that would make it possible for me to have a performance career. Because we live in an era now where I think 100 years ago, as a classically trained instrumentalist, you could make a career and be very successful purely based off of your playing.

42:43That's not the era we live in now, especially with media, social media and everything. It's very much about having a quote unquote complete package where you're also a persona and typically a personable persona does better professionally. And whether that's a good or bad thing, I know musicians feel they all feel differently about that. But I accepted that it was the reality and that I couldn't behave like this antisocial, angsty, shy, dressed in black and hiding in the shadows teenager. So I really spent some time just working on myself and trying to get better at being around people. And so I did that with a vengeance.

43:27And then I decided to go to Europe to essentially pursue a bunch of renowned cello teachers. I always joke that I stalked all the major European cello teachers for the next couple years of my life because I basically just went over to Europe one summer and went to every single master class, sought out professors, asked them for private lessons, followed them to whatever city they were in and traveled around for basically about a year doing this. And so I learned a lot and I really wanted to not necessarily, typically after you do your undergrad as a cellist, you would go and do a postgrad. But when you are in a degree program, you are assigned one primary cello teacher and you're in that cello teacher's studio.

44:13And I really thought that there would be a lot of value in getting a lot of different perspectives. I probably took lessons with maybe about a dozen professors over those few years when I lived in Germany. And then eventually I did end up doing a postgrad in Berlin. And I did also do a residency with Gautier Capuçon, who is an incredible, very renowned French soloist. I just tried to soak up all those experiences. And it's funny, I actually heard this once from Hugh Jackman, I think on Tim Ferriss's podcast about how when I think he was 26 or 27, and he had already been in a couple films, but I think he decided to go back to school to just continue working on his craft.

45:00And a lot of people at the time didn't understand it. And I think a lot of people with me also wondered why I kept going back and studying more because I ended up then doing a postgrad at Juilliard. But ironically enough, when I was doing my artist diploma at Juilliard, they had a kind of a double exchange program with Columbia University. And I was studying film there and Hugh Jackman was actually in one of my film classes. So it was this full circle moment. And I remember thinking about that interview, and just being so truly impressed and first surprised, but then just really so much respect for Hugh Jackman.

45:34At that point, I think now he's probably in his 50s. He's definitely he's an A-list actor, he does not need to be going to film class. But he still goes to class because he's still developing his craft. And I think, for me, it was really important to actually not rush my career. I actually paced it with a lot of breaks in between so that I could pursue more deeper kind of paths within the realm of cello education. But also, parallel to that, I also took time completely away from the cello when I did things like work in tech and start businesses that did not go very well, but taught me a lot about entrepreneurship and risk mitigation and people skills.

46:19I remember my first business was selling candles and jewelry, which at the time I thought was such a great idea. And then I just ended up with tons of boxes of wax and empty glass bottles in my apartment trying to make candles. And I also worked for a tech company based in Switzerland for about a year. Through a random series of events, I ended up running their marketing department, despite having no formal background in marketing. But again, all those marketing books that my mother was giving me as a child and a teenager paid off because when I met the CEO, she liked my ideas and put me in charge.

46:59And all of those things taught me a lot about the business side of the arts, because the tech company was a company that basically used AI, but it was within the realm of the art and music world. and I learned a lot from being on that side of things. I also took some time off last year from performing and I was on the board of a performing arts company in Los Angeles which taught me a tremendous amount about what the state of the performing arts are now post-pandemic because they have been very difficult for a lot of organizations and artists. So I think something that's been very valuable for me is having these other perspectives because one of the things I've observed in a lot of instrumentalists is that they often end up kind of spending their whole lives in the practice room and then have a lot of difficulty integrating into the world at large when they leave school.

47:54And I think I'm very grateful that with the experiences I had and the interests I had outside of purely just playing the cello, I was able to prepare myself better to be adaptable and understand how the arts play into society at large. So that's the breaks in cello. But in terms of the name change, that was an interesting thing that happened this year. It actually, funny enough, was only about six or seven months ago that I decided to change my name. But it was actually a very long process of planning and thinking. Basically, I had realized for a long time that I wanted to do something beyond strictly traditional classical music.

48:34And I had been experimenting with a lot of different genres of music, but not releasing anything and not really knowing how to do it because my reputation and what people expected of me was classical cello. And it finally got to the point where I realized that I couldn't actually do anything under my old name that was different because people, it's not that they wouldn't accept it, but they would always compare it against what they expected from me. And it wouldn't be judged as its own project or as its own product. And I really thought about branding when I was going through this process. For example, a company that makes boxed wine, if they suddenly decide to make high-end wine and sell it under the same name, that's going to be a very, very confusing transition and people just won't consumers wouldn't that's toyota and lexus right exactly yeah i thought about it for a long time and at first i thought about creating a second entity that would be suvi and just releasing everything else under that name but then ultimately i realized that everything i do is so personal and comes from such a an authentic place that it really is me and It ended up being, I thought about it for probably about a year.

49:55And then one day I just woke up and changed all my social media handles and website and email and became Suvi. And I thought it was going to just be an artist name, but everyone started calling me that. And the funny thing now is that it's gotten to the point in about seven months that I don't even remember being called Sophia. And when people occasionally call me Sophia, whom I haven't seen in a while, it actually confuses me because for a split second, I don't know who they're talking about. Pardon my ignorance, but what does Suvi come from? What's the name? So when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I was obsessed with Tumblr.

50:33And I was on Tumblr all the time. And I think at some point, I came across the name Suvi, and I just loved it. And I always said that my firstborn daughter, if I had one, would be named Suvi. So when I was thinking about names, Suvi obviously came to mind. And I Googled it, and miraculously, no one was really using it. And it's very hard, I think, to pick an artist's name nowadays that isn't already in use, just purely from an SEO optimization. standpoint, Subi was a great choice. And I always loved the name. So it felt very natural. And it's not so different from Sophia that it felt like a huge change.

51:15I think if I'd gone from Sophia to something like, I don't know, Krista or something with a different letter, it might have felt a little bit more drastic. But everyone seemed to accept it very quickly. And the funny thing is, Obviously, I'd never changed my name before, but before you do it, you think it's going to be this huge, confusing thing for people to adjust to. And then once I did it, I realized it's actually incredibly easy. Everyone just, you just tell them and then they call you Suvi. Okay. You've obviously been hyper multidisciplinary, but what's your advice to other people? Should you go broad or should you go deep?

51:58I think you should go deep and broad. which is I think there are certain things obviously my concentration was cello predominantly but I didn't concentrate it on it to the point where I sacrificed having interests and a life outside of cello so I think it is important obviously you can't achieve mastery without a certain amount of focus and dedication to whatever the craft or practice or endeavor is but I think people who discount other interests and other activities as irrelevant when they're focused on just the thing that they are focused on I don't think that's a healthy approach because so much of what I've done that had seemingly no relationship to music ended up deeply informing a lot of my work and really helping my career one of the funniest stories people always ask me how I ended up as artist in residence at the San Francisco Conservatory.

53:00It started out because I did martial arts and it was the most random story. I was doing martial arts and practicing at a gym close to the conservatory and I used to walk by the conservatory every day and look at it. So I became aware that it existed when I lived there and looked a little bit into their technology and applied composition department because I was interested in their work. completely forgot about it and then randomly one day after training I was sitting in a restaurant and a guy who worked at the conservatory who was coming out of work saw me recognized me and started telling me about how they would love to have me involved and then that was route number one through the martial arts kind of connection and then the other side of it was I am a huge foodie.

53:51I love restaurants. So during the pandemic, when I was living in San Francisco, I was going to all these different restaurants. And there was one in particular, where I became really friendly with the chef and the owner. I would eat there all the time. And they started giving me tons of free food. So at one point, I told them, I feel like I should do something to give back. Why don't I do a performance here in your space? Because I had like a stage setup. I did that. And one of the people in the audience happened to be a board member of the conservatory and we started talking and I mentioned that I had met this employee and I knew about their department and one thing led to another and I ended up artist in residence for two years.

54:31Things like that, you know, if I spent my whole life just locked in a practice room, I wouldn't be out in all these places meeting all these people and so I always say things are very random in my life. I am on one hand someone who very much has a plan. And on the other hand, someone who's very flexible with uncertainty. I'm very comfortable with uncertainty and very flexible with going with the flow and changes to the plan. And I think that's how I've ended up in pretty much every situation I've ever ended up in. Is because you are in so many disciplines and arts, is there a special way that you catalyze getting the muse?

55:12I think ultimately what I've realized from working in so many, that they all come from the same place. I always think of it as translating thoughts and emotions because all of us are going through this human experience and we all actually share quite similar thoughts and emotions you start to realize over time. But I think what artists do, whether it's through painting or through film or through music or through literature, is that they are capturing those feelings and translating them into a form where other people can see them reflected back towards them. And that I think helps society and helps people as individuals understand themselves better because they see themselves in other people and they see those experiences that they're having in other people.

56:02And so I think art in many ways is one of the great community builders and it also transcends pretty much every boundary. Good art, I think, can be understood by everyone and should be accessible to everyone. And I've always felt that for me, ultimately, what I'm trying to do is bring people together. So, whatever project I'm doing, I want it to touch people and that's kind of the impetus for me. Anything else you want to add? Thank you. No, I just want to thank you again for the socks. I was actually thinking that I needed to get more fun socks because I'm the kind of person who just has standard black socks.

56:42And the other day I saw someone with fun socks and then you sent me two pairs. And so I am very, very thankful. I'm an investor in a company just to be transparent, but we'll send you socks. They are great socks. If this is the company you're investing in, it's a great choice. They have not only fun designs, but excellent support. Maybe someday you can take a picture of you playing the cello wearing the socks. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Okay. Madison, I will take care of that for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Suvi Basselor. If nothing else, you learned that when you change your name, one of the first things you should do is check Google to see how common that name is and how things will work out for optimizing SEO.

57:33S-U-U-V-I is how you spell Suvi. Anyway, if there's a person who personifies the concept that to those who are given much, much is expected, it's probably Suvi Basilar. I hope you learned about parenting and about grit and luck and talent and trying a lot of things, sampling, as Angela Duckworth describes it. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. The first person I need to thank for this episode is the one and only Halim Flowers. Halim is an artist. Some say he is the next Jean-Michel Basquat. And he introduced me to Suvi. So, remarkable people, introduce me to more remarkable people. That's how this podcast works.

58:25More thanks. Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez. Prodigies in sound design. The Nismar sisters. Madison and Tessa. Prodigies in research, producing, co-authoring, transcription, all that good stuff. And then of course, there is Fallon Yates, Louise Magana, and the one and only Alexis Nishimura, currently dominating Santa Clara University. This is the Remarkable People team. We're on a mission to make you remarkable. Oh yeah, Madison and I finished a book. It's called Think Remarkable. And the goal of that book is to help you make a difference and be remarkable. Please check it out. Think remarkable.

59:12And to end, here's more Suvi playing the cello. Until next time, mahalo and aloha.

1:00:03This is Remarkable People.