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Cellogy Cello Duo


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Natasha Jaffe full profile / Cello Duo / 2 musicians

Other players: Frederico Malverde


Full program notes

What is better than one cello? Two cellos!
Tonight's program will feature some classical cello duo favorites and a couple of cello "ensemble" pieces of my own.
We'll be featuring some Vivaldi - our own arrangement of his double cello concerto for just the two of us, as well a movement of his two mandolin concerto arranged for two cellos. We'll play a Boccherini sonata especially for two cellists and a Barriere sonata also just for two cellists - both of these composers were cellists themselves.
Then we'll have a few originals of my own arranged for cello duo and sometimes cello duo and loop pedal, since they ask for some extra harmonies from the rest of the "cello ensemble". Following in Boccherini and Barriere's footsteps, I am composing classically based yet modern music for groups of cellists.
Lastly there might be one or two little extras from movie soundtracks ;)


Historical context

Cellist-composers have been a long standing tradition in the classical world, we're always keen to play in cello groups and since most composers don't write much for us, we write our own! Vivaldi was a bit of an exception in that case - he was not himself a cellist, but he was teaching music at an orphanage and since he was such a good teacher and had such motivated students, he wrote a lot of music for his students to play which was challenging but fit the requirements of their somewhat non-traditional ensemble - for example two cello soloists plus chamber string orchestra. His double cello concerto is a staple in cellists repertoire, featuring that almost heavy metal sounding excitement echoing to us straight from the Baroque time period (yes I mean that, heavy metal from the 1700s!)

Jean-Baptiste Barrière was another Baroque composer, but also a cellist himself. Searching for new ways to feature his instrument (which had been relegated to bass lines in most compositions), he create this two cello sonata that challenges both players with virtuosic lines. Following in his footsteps was Luigi Boccherini, who lived near the end of the 1700s and therefore was a Classical era composer, but who was also a very ambitious cellist who composed incredibly difficult sonatas and concertos of all sorts that challenge cellists till today. This sonata for two cellists again demands technical proficiency and celebrates all that the cello can do.
My music continues that tradition of showing the variety of roles the cello can take. I use it to tell stories of my past and our collective past as well as to show how we can incorporate more modern pop/rock and folk sounds into classical contexts, making a new kind of classical music that sounds more familiar to our modern ears.


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