cellists | MEMETERIA by Thomas May

October 21, 2025 • 4:33 am Comments Off on Gabriella Smith’s “Lost Coast” at Seattle Symphony

Gabriella Smith’s “Lost Coast” at Seattle Symphony

*Gabriella Smith recording “Lost Coast” with cellist Gabriel Cabezas at Greenhouse Studios in Iceland. (Sandro Manzon)*

Here’s my Seattle Times profile of the remarkable young composer Gabriella Smith. This week’s Seattle Symphony concerts will feature her innovative cello concerto Lost Coast, with Gabriel Cabezas as the soloist:

Her official bio reads like a manifesto: “Gabriella Smith is a composer whose work invites listeners to find joy in climate action.” The 33-year-old has built a creative world around that idea — one where music and environmentalism are inseparable…

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Filed under: American music, cellists, cello, Seattle Symphony, Seattle Times

September 10, 2025 • 5:37 am Comments Off on Touching Eternity: Matthew Barley’s Dialogue with Pärt and Bach

Touching Eternity: Matthew Barley’s Dialogue with Pärt and Bach

As Arvo Pärt turns 90, British cellist Matthew Barley speaks about creating ’Touching Eternity’, a candlelit program that weaves Bach, Pärt and Tavener into a shared ritual of sound and silence.

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Filed under: Arvo Pärt, Bach, cellists, The Strad

March 1, 2025 • 3:09 pm Comments Off on Cellist Abel Selaocoe Continues to Redefine His Approach to the Instrument

Cellist Abel Selaocoe Continues to Redefine His Approach to the Instrument

I had the privilege of speaking with the unclassifiable musical phenomenon Abel Selaocoe for this month’s Strings magazine cover story.

Any attempt to label Abel Selaocoe’s artistry is bound to fall short. While many of today’s young musicians defy easy categorization, Selaocoe ventures even further into uncharted realms. His expansive philosophy of communication views the cello as the extension of a larger voice—a storytelling device to navigate multiple dimensions of identity and community. Selaocoe uses his cello in tandem with singing, improvisation, body percussion, and ensemble energy to amplify a fundamental impulse to express, to connect, to belong.
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Filed under: cellists, Strings

October 16, 2024 • 3:55 pm Comments Off on Nietzschean Virtuosity: Salonen’s Cello Concerto

Nietzschean Virtuosity: Salonen’s Cello Concerto

Rainer Eudeikis; photo (c) Kristen Loken

For The Strad, I interviewed San Francisco Symphony principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis about his upcoming performances of the Cello Concerto by his orchestra’s music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen:

Now in his third full season as the San Francisco Symphony’s principal cello, Rainer Eudeikis makes his solo debut with the orchestra on 18-20 October in a work by the orchestra’s music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen: the Cello Concerto written by the Finnish composer-conductor for Yo-Yo Ma, who gave the world premiere in 2017. …

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Filed under: cellists, Esa-Pekka Salonen, San Francisco Symphony

July 31, 2024 • 2:57 pm Comments Off on Ani Aznavoorian’s Family-Made Cello

Ani Aznavoorian’s Family-Made Cello

*Ani Aznavoorian and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet at Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival; photo (c) Carlin Ma*

A new post for The Strad on this month’s just-concluded Summer Festival presented by Seattle Chamber Music Society:

With its roster of several dozen internationally prominent musicians, the just-concluded 2024 edition of the Summer Festival presented by the Seattle Chamber Music Society involved a de facto summit of priceless string instruments in action….

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Filed under: cellists, luthier, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Strad

November 1, 2022 • 8:53 am 1

Zlatomir Fung: Musical America’s New Artist of the Month

Congratulations to cellist Zlatomir Fung, Musica; America’s New Artist focus for November. I had the pleasure of hearing his New York Philharmonic debut last summer at the Bravo! Vail Festival. Here’s my profile:

Competing with nature’s own surround-sound orchestra, open-air performances aren’t the optimal context in which a soloist can shine. But Zlatomir Fung kept me riveted at this past summer’s Bravo! Vail Festival, eager not to miss a single nuance from the moment…

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Filed under: artist profile, cellists, Musical America