Right now I’m in sunny Lyon, rehearsing Brett Dean’s amazing score for cello and electronics for the genius ballet of Jiri Kylian: One of a Kind. It’s such a privilege to be a part of.
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.