Recording: Elinor Frey

Artist: Elinor Frey

Song: With concord of sweet sounds [composer: Isiah Ceccrelli]

Recorded at The Canadian Music Centre (CMC Presents/Riparian Acoustics Presents), October 3, 2018.

Elinor Frey - With concord of sweet sounds

This first instalment in a new season of CMC presentations at Chalmers House celebrated new music for an old instrument, bringing together a series of compositions commissioned for Elinor Frey's 4- and 5-string baroque-style cellos. These pieces (including a première of a piece by David Jaeger at this performance) have been accumulating over the past few years, and Frey was sharing them here before heading into the studio to record them. The results of conversations and exchanges with her composers, the pieces both work within and against the instruments' traditions, sometimes hinting at "baroque" music, but just as often finding new ways to explore their unique qualities. This beautiful offering, for example, explores open strings and shifting fields of overtones, heading into a hypnotizing drone zone.

[There's plenty more in store in this series at the CMC, curated by the dependably-curious ears of Nick Storring. All the events are recommended, and you should definitely have the next couple — with Thin Edge New Music Collective (on November 8th) and Germaine Liu & Sarah Hennies (on December 6th) marked down in your calendars.]