Antonio Lysy, Author at CelloBello

About Antonio Lysy

Antonio Lysy, an artist of international stature and dedicated pedagogue, has performed as a soloist in major concert halls worldwide. He has collaborated with distinguished conductors including Yuri Temirkanov, Charles Dutoit, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Sandor Vegh, and Kees Bakels, and continues to perform regularly both as a solo, and chamber music artist. Lysy has recorded extensively for CBC Radio, BBC Radio, Classic FM, and other European radio networks. His love and commitment to chamber music is demonstrated by his musical directorship and founding in 1989, of the annual Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music Festival in Tuscany, Italy (www.itslafoce.org). Lysy enjoys exploring the versatility of the cello’s voice, from Baroque to electric, and is committed to projects which enrich his diverse interests in music. The touring show, “Te Amo, Argentina”, a personal journey through the heart and soul of Argentina’s fascinating culture, featuring solo cello and chamber works, dance, film, and spoken word, has met with widespread acclaim. In the summer of 2003 Lysy accepted the position of Professor of Cello at University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to moving to the United States, he held a professorship at McGill University in Montréal. For more detailed information, please visit www.AntonioLysy.com.

The Bach Suites as You Have Never Seen Them Before — by Antonio Lysy

Hundreds of scholars have studied and written about the Bach Suites, yet we can only speculate about how or when they were first performed. The original manuscript is lost, leaving us with various facsimiles to decipher, and there are no written accounts by Bach’s contemporaries. The one advantage of this predicament is the wide spectrum of artistic decisions on which a cellist is compelled to ruminate, in order to make them “their own.” Apparently the suites were not intended to be performed as a cycle, although this approach has become increasingly common in the last couple of decades. My current perspective, developed over many years of performing and teaching the suites, is that each of the six tells a distinctive story. And, like a series of books or films, each [...]