‘A defining statement in modern cello-playing’ Sinfini *****

My new CD is out – of course it is centred around Britten (the 3rd solo suite), and also features beautiful solo works by John Tavener and Gavin Bryars (this last one is the first recording of the piece), and an improvisation, all recorded in Canterbury Cathedral. I’ve also put on some arrangements of Britten songs that I made for multiple cellos, multi-tracked in my home studio including Since She Whom I Loved which is from Britten song cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. It’s got to be one of the most intimate and moving songs ever written and I think it works really well on cello. I’m happy with it – more so than usual for my recordings, which are sometimes hard to listen to! And it’s great to have the disc out to coincide with my tour – here are a few reviews…on the new Sinfini website and on Amazon (where you can also buy it) and Presto News

Watch the making of my Around Britten CD below, recording in the dead of night in Canterbury Cathedral (super-exciting!), and multi-tracking Britten songs at home. Alternatively, click here to watch it on YouTube.

The tour, Around Britten, is my biggest ever project, and one that could not be more of an all-consuming passion! The 50 concerts and 50 workshops will feature Bach, Tavener, commissions from James MacMillan, Dai Fujikura and Norwegian DJ Jan Bang, and the piece with the visuals: Britten’s Third suite for solo cello.
Please, if you can, just donate £10 and if enough people chip in, we’ll get there (of course, if you feel like giving lots more, don’t let me stop you!).

You can see lots of details by going to the Around Britten page (top left), but concert performances will include South Forland Lighthouse, Peak Cavern (The Devil’s Arse), Bodiam Castle, Manchester Victoria Baths, the Wigmore Hall, Canterbury Cathedral, Shetland Arts Centre and many more.
Workshops will take place in schools, hospices for children, prisons, schools for autistic children, universities and homes for the elderly.

EVERY DONOR WILL BE LISTED BY NAME ON SCREEN AT THE END OF THE PERFORMANCE  (LIKE ‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS’, BUT PROBABLY A BIT SHORTER), SO THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO BE ON SCREEN!

Click here to join the crowd!

And PLEASE, help spread the word – the campaign has started well, but we have a long way to go!

And this week I’ve been in Madrid playing Brett Dean’s extraordinary score to Jiri Kylian’s equally profound ballet, and as the first notes of the electronic accompaniment to my on-stage solo cello begin to sound it is as though I sink into a dream world, that is, I suppose, art. It is a world that gives such strength, meaning and beauty that is sustains you back into ‘real’ life. It truly inspires. All the problems of trying to get cellos on aeroplanes, of being given a hotel room smaller than a hamster cage with a window that doesn’t open looking out on to a concrete wall (managed to get upgraded to a suite! Joy!), and of having taxi drivers interrogate you (I must have answered the question about how long I’ve been playing the cello 1000s of times – I really understand why Van Morrison has on his rider that his driver must be able to speak English, but must not do so unless addressed!).

And this is why live performance is so wonderful – this kind of experience is so much harder to get with recorded music. It’s why we must always be working to get the message across that live music is a necessity, not a luxury.

Then at City Airport (8am, already need to lie down) they weigh my luggage and it’s too heavy so they want to charge £70 (there goes that cab fare I saved), and I ask them to be kind because my cello only weighs 6kg and doesn’t have a suitcase (a normal ticket easily creates a weight of 100kg: 80kg for a person + 20kg for the suitcase, and my cello ticket creates a weight of 6kg, saving them on fuel costs)….but can they? Of course they can’t! Even though they say they totally agree with me, the computer will say no…. So they offer that I can wait 30′ to speak to the supervisor, but it’s too late – I’ll miss the flight. So I take out the Siegfried score to make it a bit lighter (now my hand luggage is SO heavy), and pay £55 and off I go. Half way through the security queue and I suddenly realise that I’ve forgotten to ask them to check my luggage all the way to Madrid, with all the fuss about the overweight. So I have to struggle contraflow through the queue to the check-in desk, where, miraculously, my case is still on the carousel, and re-check it to Madrid. The supervisor then turns up, and even she doesn’t let me get a refund as she also has no power! Insects the lot of them. By this point my stomach is in knots, and I hate the world. At security they try and put my cello in one of the plastic trays. A 140cm cello in a 40cm tray? That’s not going to work. I complain, he insists threateningly, I stand back, satisfied, and watch him fail. Further down (and unrelated: she didn’t see my complaint and want revenge, it is simply my karma today), the dear lady decides to check my hand baggage for a random check on the laptop. Surprisingly they discover that it isn’t an atomic weapon.

So I wait for the flight feeling totally depressed, and bitterly regretting being so nice to Bonn festival as to offer to save them money and go via Frankfurt from City. Yes, I could have avoided all this by being tougher on a change of travel arrangements… What the fuck? I need help! Hopeless, hopeless idiot.

And guess what, the flight is delayed, and I have only 70′ to change flights in one of Europe’s biggest airport. Great. Finally we get going, and they tell me that we will make up time…but we don’t. I check my (unfriendly, ugly, impersonal – where’s my wallpaper gone?) iPhone as we get into the terminal building, and it’s 12.05. My flight is at 12.45 and the moronic aphids at City couldn’t check me in all the way to Madrid, so I even have to check-in. In a bit of a panic I go to the transit desk where a nice chap explains that it’s OK, I can just go straight to gate A30 and they’ll take care of me – I presume it’s a new efficient German way of doing things. Phew, I think, not remembering that the whole world is against me, and scurry off, cello banging on my back, Siegried jogging on my shoulder, sweating, wondering what is the meaning of life. I am stressed, but determined to get this flight: I go through passport control, run past all the shops selling essential travel accessories, and get to the security queue for the A part of the terminal. They tell me that the worm on the transit desk gave me the wrong information, that I do have to check-in, and it’s very unlikely I will make the flight. So I run to first class check in, and they check me in superfast telling me I should be OK. I reward the lady with my first smile of the day, and run off again. Manage to get through security (although apparently I stood too close to the man in front of me in my hurry: “Are you together?” me: “No” “Well stand back please” “I’m really late for my flight” “It’s not my problem” “That’s nice”.) and head down to A30, approximately 7km walk, to find a giant queue and total chaos – the Madrid flight is also delayed. At least that gives me time to make some phone calls, as my daughter has texted me, desperate to know if she is going to Totnes tomorrow for treatment. I call the physio, and he still has the 4pm slot. So I call school to make the appropriate arrangements for Nadia to travel (while I’m on the phone someone taps me on the shoulder – I’m about to turn around and glare, fiercely, and a nice man hands me my passport that had fallen on the floor. Well of course it would, wouldn’t it?), and he’s happy for Nadia to go tomorrow. I just need to make all the arrangements. I can’t book the tickets from my phone because I can’t get online, so it will have to wait until I get to the Madrid hotel. In order to buy the tickets that Nadia can pick up, I have had to leave my credit card at home on my desk, so Nadia will have to go home to pick that up first to use it to retrieve the tickets at Paddington, and then off she goes. That’s not at all complicated is it?

So now I’m on the flight to Madrid, just halfway through the day – oh, the glamour of international travel. Apart from all that, it’s been a lovely day so far.

It was part of a project of Alex’s that went over some time, recording free improvisations with different duo partners, and now the result is out on a CD. Alex’s other partners are Riuichi Sakamoto, Tunde Jegede, Yasmin Levy, Regina Spektor and Kawesi, and I think the results are beautiful. More info here. Alex is still young for a composer, winning awards all over the place and getting bigger and bigger films to score – it’s an exciting career to watch.

But next week I’m back in London with two new programmes for the Kings Place Festival on Friday 14th. First, at 12.30pm I’m playing with an extraordinary musician – Adrian Freedman – an Englishman who lived in Japan for 7 years studying the Japanese flute, the Shakuhachi. It’s one of the most beautiful instruments I know, a haunting, totally human sound that goes straight to your soul. We’re going to be presenting a programme that will be built around silence (sounds like an easy gig?). It takes enormous concentration, and is deeply meditative…the silence begins to have a musical quality of its own, and each phrase of music that pierces that silence sounds so full . Adrian’s CD, Music on the Edge of Silence is an inspiration for it.

Then at 1.45pm I’m with my old running mate (equally wonderful!) Julian Joseph, and the one-and-only Paul Clarvis on percussion for a new collection of Brazilian songs including Beatriz (I think it’s one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, based on a true story about an Austrian medical student’s hopeless love for a ballerina), and Aguas de Marco, the song some considered Jobim’s greatest.