Fred Calvert is a former Walt Disney staff artist, who has written and directed full-length motion pictures, documentaries, as well as hundreds of hours of both Public and Commercial television.
He served as a consultant in the creation of the Children’s Television Workshop, and has created and produced hundreds of “Sesame Street” and “Electric Company” segments.
His first novel, The Balladeer, was published in 2017. His second novel, Maestro! Maestro! is coming summer 2023.
In conversation with Fred Calvert
TBE: Your novel Maestro! Maestro! has an incredibly imaginative and fantastical premise involving deals with the devil, celestial beings, and avant-garde music. What was the inspiration behind this wildly creative story?
Fred Calvert: Thirty-one years ago, I was sitting at a sidewalk café in Vienna, listening to a talented young man playing a violin on the street. A what-if moment came to me. What if, say in 1900 waltzy Vienna, a young composer creates a music form far ahead of its time, outrageously radical, something like boogie-woogie? It suggested a lot of fun conflict. It wasn’t until a few years ago, after a number of false starts along the way, that it finally came together as the novel.
TBE: The protagonist Anton Becker is a struggling young composer whose radical music alienates the aristocratic elite but attracts the attentions of both a beautiful noblewoman and Satan himself. How did you develop and flesh out this central character?
Fred Calvert: To counter the outrage his radical music evokes from the stuffed shirts of tradition, he needed to believe in his art and in himself, to consider his soul and his music one and the same. I wanted him likeable and relatable. His major flaw is one with which many of us can relate—impatience for recognition and the inability to accept rejection. His lady love and her belief in him was not enough, whereas with Satan’s help, he could rise to the ‘dizzying pinnacle of success.
TBE: The book features some wonderfully outrageous characters like the gargoyle demon Villi. Can you discuss your process for creating these memorable metaphysical figures?
Fred Calvert: In one way or another good and evil are forever fighting all around us and oftentimes inside us. I imagined that Villi and Angel Beethoven as opposite moral extremes inside Anton. I simply pulled them out and embodied them into characters.
TBE: Your descriptions of Anton’s avant-garde compositions and their cosmic impacts are incredibly vivid and synesthetic. As an author, how did you approach conveying music and its transcendent powers through prose?
Fred Calvert: That I struggled with. It did help that in my first novel, The Balladeer, I had written a number of ballads. They taught me to appreciate how syllables and words can mimic the rhythm and beats of music. And the attitude and actions of the characters in the story also helped. For example in one scene, ‘Anton stood at his piano raining impromptu fury down on the keyboard.’
TBE: The romantic relationship between Anton and Lisa seems to serve as an emotional anchor amid all the fantastical chaos. What made you decide to interweave a more conventional love story within such an unconventional narrative?
Fred Calvert: An emotional anchor says it very well. Lisa represents truth and integrity, while Anton is lured away from reality by the glorious dreams of gain via Satan. Throughout the story, Lisa is never part of Anton’s insane world of demons and heavenly angels.
TBE: The novel goes to some extremely surreal and abstract places, particularly when portraying the metaphysical impacts of Anton’s music. Was it challenging to strike a balance between imaginative freedom and coherence?
Fred Calvert: Not so much. After I came to believe in the reality of this crazy story, the abstract became actual with its own set of boundaries and rules.
TBE: Your collaborator A.B. Dance’s illustrations play a huge role in visualizing the book’s delirious phantasmagoria. How did your partnership with the illustrator evolve and influence the novel’s creation?
Fred Calvert: B. Dance and I have been friends for years. The day after he read Maestro! Maestro! became one of the luckiest days of my life. He asked if he could illustrate it. He was a joy to work with. He understood the purpose and nuance of every page, and he brought the story so much more alive than just my words did.
TBE: For readers who might balk at the book’s defiantly avant-garde proclivities, how would you make a case for engaging with such uncompromising artistic visions?
Fred Calvert: I wouldn’t. They can balk till the cows come home. To each his own.
TBE: This is your second published novel after The Balladeer in 2017. How has your approach to storytelling and writing evolved or changed between these two works?
Fred Calvert: It’s not changed much, if at all. The basic elements of most of my stories percolate in the back of my mind for long periods of time. Each one, when it comes time to write it, always seems best told in a particular way or in a genre that best fits.
TBE: You have such an fascinating creative background, having worked at Disney as an animator on films like Sleeping Beauty before moving into television, movies, and novels. How have these varied mediums impacted your style and perspective as a storyteller?
Fred Calvert: At Disney, when I was drawing Briar Rose in Sleeping Beauty, each drawing took an hour to complete, which was one frame of film, which in turn was 1/24th of a second. That gave me an appreciation for the importance of detail. The many television programs, even the hundreds of Sesame St. segments I worked on, gave me a sense character and story structure. I leaned what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes, I regret that I spent so much of my life doing those things, since now I enjoy writing so much. On the upside, if I hadn’t had those experiences, I probably wouldn’t be writing at all.
TBE: While incredibly imaginative, the story does seem to operate as a profound meditation on artistic integrity and the existential struggle of the radical creative spirit. What kind of philosophical statements were you hoping to make?
Fred Calvert: That while it’s admirable to be creatively new, it’s not good to attach your ego with it. Ego is illusion, and very powerful. It can make you believe you are someone you’re not. To believe in your true self is liberating, and as an artist, it can allow you to do your best without concern what others think.
TBE: For aspiring writers looking to imbue their own works with such an audacious and uninhibited imagination, what advice might you offer about tapping into those kinds of creative wellsprings?
Fred Calvert: Search for those feelings and memories that keep hanging with you and won’t go away. Turn them into stories, and try to find their truth in an allegory. If it helps, don’t be afraid to shore up any weaknesses with big lies.
TBE: You’ve had such a prolific career spanning animation, television, film, and now multiple novels. What continues to drive and motivate you to keep creating new artistic works at this stage?
Fred Calvert: A sense of fun, a need to report, a confession, a few insights of what I’ve learned in my life, hopefully interesting enough to be considered by whomever after I’m gone. Mostly, it’s just how I best enjoy myself every day from daylight to dark.
TBE: Can you share any insights into what you might be turning your creative talents towards next after Maestro! Maestro!? More novels, a return to screenwriting, something else entirely?
Fred Calvert: I want my novel, Maestro! Maestro!, transformed into a movie, either a fully-animated movie or live-action movie combined with CGI (computer generated imagery) for characters like gargoyle Villi. In the meantime, I’m having fun writing a science fiction novel. I got about a year to go on it.
