For the first episode of Collectors Edition, we talk with Fred Lonberg-Holm. You may know Fred from his work as a musician, predominantly a cellist, composer, and improviser. He has led bands like the Valentine Trio, Terminal Four, and Lightbox Orchestra. Fred logged many hours in studios and on the road with the Vandermark 5, Ballister, and various bands with sax legend Peter Brotzmann.

We talked with Fred over Zoom about his love of collecting small objects — metal lapel pins and small books. We also touch on a few deeper topics like the difference between collecting for an institutional archive and personal collecting. Fred talks about the joy that collecting can bring but also how sometimes an administrative task like creating a catalog of your collection can remove that joy and make it feel like more of a “job.”

With Collectors Edition, we are testing a theory, the theory that learning more about the objects people keep can help us understand more about the world and our places in it, like how we tend to associate objects with certain memories and histories.