Melodies at Melrose Market, hosted by Greenfire Loft

Free Event

Spencer Hoveskeland – Spencer’s parents reminisce about his never ending drum solos on anything, especially pots and pans, that he could get a hold of prior to walking. After achieving socially acceptable walking skills he graduated to cardboard boxes and pencil drumsticks. Although not the original discoverer of the rubber band, much like Christopher Columbus was not the original discoverer of the new world, Spencer’s discovery of the rubber band inspired him to string everything he could find to hear what plucking them would sound like. Eventually, Spencer became aware that musical instruments had already been invented and, much to his relief, he could simply procure one and grow from there.

He started with the ukulele at about 7 years old and by nine began public school cello study. As the years went by he also taught himself enough guitar that he found it necessary to teach others to play the bass so that he could improvise freely. By high school his need to control everything and everyone had grown to such a degree that his opinions about how to play the bass had become so overtly passionate that only he alone seemed to care. Thus, he became a bass player, and a soloist no less!

Currently, much older, Spencer looks back at twenty years as a soloist and bassist in many ensembles and has stayed in more hotels in North America than any one who has stayed in fewer. With the Bottom Line Duo, a bass and cello duo, he wore the hats of arranger, multi-instrumentalist, composer, humorist, and orchestrator. The duo toured internationally and in the United States. The duo performed for over a quarter of a million students nationwide and was presented in every imaginable way and a few unimaginable ones.

Spencer has served the board for the Gene Nastri School of the Arts in Mulkilteo, WA and helped produce a chamber music festival in Spain. He has also served the boards of the Seattle Musicians Union, Montana Performing Arts Consortium, and Arts Northwest.

Today, when not performing, Spencer resides in south Seattle with his son. Spencer has three string orchestras, a ukulele ensemble, a choir, and is the eurythmy pianist at Seattle Waldorf School’s Three Cedars campus Bellevue, WA.