Cello Fest

A distinct lack of posts lately, caused mostly by the fact that my birthday spilled over into a second weekend. One some time after my actual birthday weekend, but nevertheless quite birthdayish.

The lovely Sarah bought tickets for one of the big concerts at the cello festival in Manchester. It’s like a big cello conference except without the lectures, suits, comic-book ties, meandering lunches comprising on salads, PowerPoint presentations and geeks. In fact not much like a conference at all. The best part of 40 international soloists from all parts of the world dropped in on the festival, and hundreds of cellists like me. It’s not often as a musician you get to go to a non-conference conference (if you see what I mean), so we also watched another couple of concerts and a masterclass or two.

I’m just starting to get a little more inspired in my playing at the moment, and with concerts galore coming up it was an amazing weekend. Colin Carr, Natalia Gutman, Ralph Kirshbaum and Yo-Yo Ma all in one concert was a once in a lifetime thing to see – particular as it’s been announced that was to be the last cello geek-fest festival.

I also fell in love over the weekend. Don’t tell my cello, but for the first time ever I actually liked playing a modern cello. I love having an old cello, and wondering about its former owners and where in the world it’s been. Wondering who else has played each piece I play on it, and feeling like it’s a transient thing and I’m only a small stop-off on it’s history. But I liked a lovely cello by Jacop von der Lippe, who just happens to be in Oslo. All ideas for how to raise enough funds to buy one by the time we go there in July gratefully recieved, although thankfully the one I played already has an owner waiting for it.

I have my new strings bought at the festival to encourage my playing, but most importantly I have the memory of the weekend to inspire me. It’s not often you get to see Micha Maisky (currently playing the Shostakovich Sonata on my stereo) swaggering around outside the concert hall. There’s a kind of warm fuzzy glow you get from being part of a cello community, and sometimes you lose sight of that. For now I can see that, and all is well.

Reviews of the festival can be seen here.