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[Editor’s note: Jordan Ellis plays with The Betties on Thursday at The Waiting Room with Pokey LaFarge and this Saturday at The Zoo Bar with The Bottle Tops and Jack Hotel. She also plays with Classes this Monday at The Bourbon. All concerts start at 9 p.m.]
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Briefly living together in Lincoln and playing in neighboring genres wasn’t enough to bring Jordan Ellis and Amy Schmidt together musically. Sometimes, it takes an ocean.
In the early days of 2013, Schmidt, a well-traveled singer/songwriter, began an extended tour of Europe and her fourth time touring through Germany. That same month, Ellis, who plays viola for Lincoln’s The Betties and Classes, began her University of Nebraska-Lincoln study abroad education at the did deutsch institut in Berlin.
While they initially had no intention of collaborating, they were aware of each other’s presence in Germany. Luckily, when Schmidt came calling for a violist, Ellis had packed her instrument simply to keep up her playing during the four months abroad.
“I was getting kind of tired of playing by myself,” Schmidt said.
After an email exchange, the pair met up for a show at White Trash, a fast food restaurant in Berlin that doubles as a music venue.
“It used to be a Chinese restaurant and an Irishman bought it, I think, and turned into something like a Hard Rock Cafe,” Schmidt said.
It was a spur-of-the-moment meeting, and though the pair had never rehearsed, Ellis’ classical training on viola allowed her to pick up the keys to Schmidt’s songs and dive in by ear at the White Trash show.
“Yep, she’s pretty good,” Schmidt said.
“Their cheeseburgers were really good,” Ellis added.
And while Schmidt said it was nice to play on stage with a familiar face after months of booking clubs and playing open mics by herself, the coincidence of the moment didn’t feel much like a coincidence.
“It seemed pretty normal actually,” Schmidt said. “We just had to meet up a few thousand miles away.”
The voice of Ellis’ viola was an immediately important supplement for Schmidt’s more folk-oriented music — songs that at this point, Schmidt said she expects to play solo.
“In my mind, I can see the (viola) part weaving through and it’s kinda nice,” Schmidt said. “Adding another moving part is another dimension.”
Teaming up made for an appealing cultural tradeoff for the musicians, as well. Ellis became acquainted with Berliners outside the small international community of her language institute. And Schmidt found someone who could speak with audiences in their native tongue.
“It was really funny the first time Jordan turned to the crowd and started speaking in German,” Schmidt said. “I was not expecting that.”
Through two and a half shows — a long train trip from the opposite side of Berlin deprived Ellis of a full third show with Schmidt — the pair reveled in the quiet politeness of German audiences. Those in-concert customs are part of what keep Schmidt coming back to the country.
“I’m not really an entertainer,” she said. “I tell a lot of stories along with the songs, so it would be weird if I was trying to tell a personal story to a loud bar crowd.”
“Audiences are really attentive,” Ellis said. “Even in a bar, they kind of treat it like a classical concert. If you talk during a performance, people are like, ‘Shut up, I’m listening to this.’”
In addition, German audiences engaged with Schmidt’s lyrics in a very vocal way.
“I’ll finish a song and someone will respond right away,” she said. “They’ll ask — if it’s a story about two people — ‘Which one are you in the story?’ or they’ll say, ‘Thanks for sharing that.’ It’s pretty heartwarming.”
Their German connection has ushered Ellis and Schmidt into a partnership that persists now that both have returned to Lincoln. On May 13, Schmidt and a full band performed at Duffy’s Tavern when Ellis was still jet-lagged from her flight back.
In the Lincoln scene, Ellis is no stranger to playing viola alongside singer/songwriters. She plays with both Heather Berney of The Betties and Daniel Dorner of Classes.
Ellis said she finds Schmidt’s writing particularly special for its narrative qualities.
“I really like the stories,” Ellis said. “I like that (Amy) explains the stories to the crowd and it’s like a movie.
“Amy and Dan and Heather are all very different,” she added.
Just a couple months after returning, Schmidt has turned straight around and begun planning her fifth German tour. And while Ellis has planned to accompany her at Schmidt’s upcoming Lincoln gigs, a return to German stages is a more expensive proposition.
“If (Amy) could underwrite my traveling, I’d definitely go back,” Ellis said.
“We’ll work on that for next summer,” Schmidt added.
Ellis will play this Thursday and Saturday with the Betties at The Waiting Room and Zoo Bar, respectively. She’ll perform with Classes on Monday at The Bourbon.
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Chance Solem-Pfeifer is a Hear Nebraska intern. On the streets of Berlin, girls once made fun of him for listening to Coldplay. But Americans do that, too. It’s the international language. Reach him at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.