Join us for our 2023 year-end celebration, featuring 8 DAYS OF GIVEAWAYS! December is the month of giving, and CelloBello is joining in that spirit with a fun countdown of gifts! We are ringing in the New Year by awarding daily prizes all throughout this last week of 2023, as well as releasing new videos for our beloved CelloBello community.
Join us for our 2022 year-end celebration, featuring 8 DAYS OF GIVEAWAYS! December is the month of giving, and CelloBello is joining in that spirit with a fun countdown of gifts! We are ringing in the New Year by awarding daily prizes all throughout this last week of 2022, as well as releasing new videos for our beloved CelloBello community.
"Doing in your case is so 'overdoing' that you are practically paralysing the parts you want to work." —F.M. Alexander As an Alexander Technique teacher, I work with many cellists who are in distress—the kind of distress that means they can't play for the time being. Their conditions vary from tendinitis to De Quervain syndrome to back pain to focal dystonia. The list is long but one thing most of them share is the habit of 'holding on to themselves.' What do I mean by this? When they are in a position of rest on my teaching table—lying on their backs with their heads also resting on a small pillow—they remain gripped by tension in their necks, backs, arms and legs that may take us many months to undo. [...]
Dear signatories of the FIM petition, This message is to thank you for supporting our campaign 'Fair treatment for musicians traveling on planes with their instruments'. A draft amended regulation has been published by the EU Commission on March 20th, 2013, which includes specific provisions about musical instruments carried on planes, which is exactly what our petition was about (you can access the full document here: http://www.tinyurl.com/ctmddxe and go directly to page 28, article 6e). Of course, there is still some work to be done in order to make sure that the EU Parliament supports - or even improves - the Commission's proposal. But this is already a big success for all of us. I wish to extend our thanks to the EU Commissions' officials who have been carefully listening [...]
By self-imposed annual tradition, recent weeks have been crunch time, when a year’s worth of planning comes to fruition. My pet project, the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival, held sway in early June where, for the past several years, it has settled in the form of four concerts. I thought it might serve as a useful case study to explore various behind-the-scenes topics. This is the season when myriad music festivals around the country are in full bloom. What is the take-away experience from any one of these that makes it unique? Even traditional chamber music festivals have their own trademark DNA that set them apart, from big issues (BUDGET, LOCATION) to small (I’m playing in a festival this summer that offers a cookbook featuring the players’ signature recipes—cool!). Festival X [...]
It is a remarkable thing that just as our vibratos show our individual expression, so ultimately does our “cello voice” as we develop our sound with the bow on the cello. What are the elements which make up this search? It is a given that we can’t make a beautiful sound unless our bow arms are free and we are finding our energies all the way from the back, with none to the various joints or muscles adding physical tension or tightness. We need to have in our imagination, the qualities of sound we respond to. Perhaps we have heard a wonderful cellist who has inspired us, or perhaps there is a tone quality in our inner ear which we strive for. We are so fortunate, the cello is capable [...]
My love for string quartets drew me to the cello, or rather, it motivated me to practice. It isn’t just the repertoire—I was hooked by the music the first time I ever heard the early Guarneri recording of the Cavatina and Grosse Fuge. I love the idealist concept of a quartet, and the feeling of playing an individual voice that joins together with three other voices to form a single interdependent expression. I also love the cellist’s role in a quartet, as it requires a multitude of skills. At once the quartet cellist is the anchor, sometimes quietly without notice, sometimes with declarative strength, sometimes a supportive counterpart, yet at other times is the prominent, docile melody. I have taken great pride in seeking the seemingly unattainable perfection of [...]