Video interview and performance: North Texas thereminist Robert Froehner

by John P. Meyer

As Mike Orren mentioned via outburst, Pegasus News World HQ hosted a thereminist on Monday.

What's a thereminist, you might ask? Well, using deductive reasoning, a thereminist must be a person who operates a theremin. And though you might not know what a theremin looks like, if you're a fan of '50s-era science fiction cinema you have undoubtedly heard one.

The biggest disappointment (of several such, it must be said) stemming from last year's remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still was the blatant omission of the eerie Bernard Herrmann score from the 1951 original, which employed a theremin front-and-aural-center. The theremin also featured prominently in 1953's It Came From Outer Space, among other film scores.

So when we found out that thereminist Robert Froehner would be opening for the Dallas Producers Association's It Came From Dallas event, we just had to get him in for a preview.

The history of the theremin and its creator -- who was a Russian spy in pre-WWII America, it turns out -- is fascinating, but somebody else has already written about it, so we'll leave it alone and direct our focus instead on Robert Froehner and his personal instrument.

(I refer to his theremin, of course.)

Robert is a University of Texas alumnus (pre-med) who worked as a medico for many years before eventually discovering his musical muse. His first theremin was a kit project, but while attending a workshop put on by Bob Moog (creator of the Moog synthesizer) he got a glimpse of a newly-designed professional model which he eventually purchased. Only 50 of these wood-cabinet units were produced, as opposed to about 500 of the original theremin designs made by RCA back in 1929.

As you'll hear in our interview (and in the demo video), Robert is not some kind of rank novelty act; he's performed with the likes of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and is quite partial to classical music. But that doesn't stop him from busting loose with some faux-Hendrix Star Spangled Banner licks (or whatever you call 'em on the theremin).

The performance video ends with two bonus segments: one of film guy attempting to "play" the theremin (which ends up sounding like sick cats), and one with Robert breaking out his other favored instrument: a Craftsman saw he picked up several years ago at Irving Mall.

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