Pierre Fontenelle, the cellist on this album, is a Belgian-American who spent his childhood and adolescence as an immigrant in Seattle, USA, before returning to Belgium for university.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Reena Esmail, an American composer of Hindustani heritage, aims to create an artistic meeting point between her Hindustani musical culture and her Western classical musical culture.
Compositional Technique
Caroline Shaw's 'Boris Kerner' features an unusual instrumentation of cello and flowerpots, with the score meticulously specifying the size and number of pots and how they should be handled.
Composition History
Andrea Casarrubios's 'Seven' for solo cello was written during the spring 2020 quarantine, exploring the emotional paradox of mourning and the fierce energy of survival during that time.
Compositional Technique
Caroline Shaw's work 'in manus tuas' for solo cello, inspired by a motet by Thomas Tallis, offers the performer significant freedom in sound textures and the malleability of time, allowing harmonic sequences to be repeated as often as desired.
Interpretation
In Andrea Casarrubios's 'Seven', the cellist is instructed to play a melody on the C string "singing with a husky flamenco-like sound," reminiscent of Kodály's Sonata for Solo Cello.
Album & Artwork
This album, focusing on contemporary American music, is the first volume of a double project by Pierre Fontenelle dedicated to his cultural roots; the second volume will feature Belgian music.
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