Victoria Theodoremeets V Collection
Victoria Theodore is a jack of all musical trades. As well as being an acclaimed pianist, who’s toured extensively with artists like Stevie Wonder and Beyonce, she’s also a composer, singer-songwriter, producer and music instructor.
Though she comes from a classically trained background, Victoria moved into the world of digital instruments during her stints touring: V Collection has helped provide her with the best of both worlds. She walks us through her illustrious career and the freedom that the V Collection instruments have given her.
A classical background
Music has been part of Victoria’s life since an early age. As a teenager she studied piano and voice at UC Berkeley Young Musicians Program (YMP), where she was primarily tutored by Eugene Gash, a student of E. Robert Schmitz, who in turn was a student of composer Claude Debussy. She went on to receive Bachelor degrees in Classical Piano Performance and Computer Music from Oberlin College / Conservatory of Music, before earning a Master of Arts degree in Classical Piano Performance at Stanford University.
This extensive training served her well and has led her to work with a string of legendary artists. On top of her stints touring the globe with Stevie Wonder and Beyonce, she’s played with the likes of Sting, Prince, B.B. King, Tony Bennett and John Mayer, and has performed in front of President Obama, Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family.
When Victoria’s not collaborating with other musicians she’s creating her own music. Her debut album ‘Grateful’ was released in 2015 and showcases the breadth of her musical tastes and abilities; piano remains the central focus, though her compositions weave together the various worlds of music she’s found herself immersed in as a touring musician.
I’ve been a classical pianist my entire life but I made a major change in 2007 when I was hired to play keyboards with Stevie Wonder. I played with Stevie for almost seven years and traveled around the world and now I tour the world with Beyonce. I shifted from playing acoustic pianos to playing synthesizers and electric keyboards.
Versatility and adaptability
Versatility is Victoria’s calling card. Working with musicians from across the musical spectrum, whether it’s R&B, soul, jazz or classical, she’s had to adapt and adjust her style, approach and her choice of instrument. V Collection gives her the freedom to control, manipulate and experiment with her sound, while giving her access to both classic emulations of traditional keyboards and a range of virtual instruments.
The Arturia Stage-73 V instrument really captures the essence and the feel of an actual Rhodes, so I can play an actual Rhodes keyboard and then go to the Stage-73 V and not feel much change. With the virtual instrument I can make tweaks and adjustments and it really serves the needs of creating a really killer Rhodes sound.
The Piano V instruments have all kinds of components that can be tweaked and adjusted so that you can have traditional sounding pianos and completely fantastical pianos.
The B-3 V emulates an actual B3 organ incredibly well. It’s got all kinds of parameters that can be adjusted such as the Leslie, the drawbars, all of which can also be assigned to the faders and the knobs on the Keylab 88. You can’t complain about that.
On V Collection
V Collection features over 30 virtual instruments that emulate hard-to-source synthesizers and classic keyboards - some that feature heavily in Victoria’s repertoire. With icons like ARP 2600 V, Jup-8 V, Mini V and Prophet-5 V to name but a few, V Collection’s mission is to bridge the gap between past and the present, and provide artists with the tools to (re)invent the music of tomorrow.
I’ve always wanted to have a Rhodes, a Prophet, a Moog in my house, and with the Arturia V Collection I do, and that’s pretty amazing.
To access the plethora of instruments available to her in the V Collection, Victoria uses Arturia’s KeyLab 88 controller, which emulates the feel of a traditional piano through its fully-weighted, expressive keybed. It’s the perfect companion for a performer in demand.
The Keylab 88 as a controller is beautiful. I love the action on it, it has really good resistance to the fingers. Sometimes controllers are just very light and as a classical pianist I love to have some heft behind the notes. I just love it.
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