A Cellists Life

David Teie is a year-old cellist who also happens to do scientific research. Quiet, deliberate of speech, with ideas visibly percolating before.
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Being a cellist is my life despite the challenges - Mirror Online

It has gained a certain amount of traction; Charles Dutoit, who led its premiere in Tokyo in , has conducted it a number of times since, and Eschenbach conducted it in Paris. Like other European modernists who were once uncompromising, Penderecki appears to have mellowed and relaxed in his later work. This six-movement piece, more than 30 minutes long, incorporates baroque forms and romantic expressiveness. Teie, Honigberg and Lee are hardly strangers to performing solos together. In , Rostropovich offered Honigberg and Teie solos in a Vivaldi piece; they asked whether they could commission a new work instead.

List of cellists

Lee is a sunny, easygoing presence in an often competitive music world. He, too, has a musical refuge: The project took shape in when he was touring a spiffy new concert hall at Episcopal High School in Alexandria. Lee is particularly committed to keeping a balance between the orchestra and his personal life because his wife, Teri, a violinist, also is with the NSO.

Negotiating child care for their three children — now 22, 20 and 20 — was complicated when both parents had the same unorthodox schedule of daytime rehearsals, nighttime concerts and the occasional tour.


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More than once, one parent simply had to stay home. Honigberg has two children, now grown; Teie has four.

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Violinists and cellists are not created equal. The first violin has so much more to play. Teie, a third-generation musician who started out as a singer and once swore he would never play in an orchestra, has a lot of music, too — even apart from the cat opus.

The cat music is well and good, and eventually there probably will be a CD for dogs as well. Hold the cello and the bow in your right hand and turn the page with your left hand.


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Once you hit the bottom of the page, be alert. Recreate the audition scene. Set up a tripod with a camcorder. Make a grid of excerpts. Practice them systematically only 20 minutes. Sometimes practicing each one for 2 hours will just make it works. Come up with trigger words.

Make yourself think of them each time so that they become habit. Play for other people. Especially people you respect a lot. Think of auditions as a privilege. You are playing for people who have earned the right to sit behind the screen. Consider auditions as a mini-recital. Each one has to be musical; instead of thinking about the things not to do, think about the things to do! Generally, auditions are only 6 minutes long.

2CELLOS - Love Story [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

There are generally different sets of excerpts. Recorded music is also being used in the pre-operative stage of surgery to enhance the effects of anaesthesia. Researchers are also exploring the positive effects of music for the older generation. A study of healthy older adults showed that learning and performing music is an ideal way to maintain and extend mental ability in the older brain, as well as providing social and health benefits.

Knocking bookshelf dust from my sleeves, I embarked on some fresh research of my own, asking a wide variety of players to express the benefits they derive from being a cellist. Their responses were overwhelmingly positive and often deeply moving. Extended versions can be found below this article. Playing the cello is a therapeutic experience for everyone I spoke to. The profound integration of mind and body which is required to play well is not only absorbing and stimulating at the time of playing, but also positively influences the rest of life.

One Jungian analyst says that she feels psychologically and spiritually uplifted after playing her cello. John Blood is a composer and studies the cello with Judith Mitchell: If you loosen your shoulders and release tension whilst playing the cello then, suddenly, your tone improves.

Do the same whilst walking down the road and the world becomes an altogether different place. Break down a seemingly insurmountable musical problem into smaller components, work on those and soon there is no problem at all! The same technique works in everyday life. Judith Mitchell believes that the cello is an especially therapeutic instrument: I have talked to various therapists about this, and it seems that people who have music as part of their lives seem to survive much better than those without musical involvement.

One principal cellist of a symphony orchestra always feels at her best when she is playing: I enjoy feeling small joints and muscles that I am normally not aware of. The feeling of transferring the weight of body onto the instrument is fulfilling and pleasurable. I feel the instrument as being part of me. During playing, the mind and concentration become so sharp and elevated to a different level that it is not easily compared to any other activity.

It really has added another dimension to life. It is neither my inner world nor the outside reality. I am conscious of it when I engage in all sorts of activities: Love of the cello. Cellists are particularly passionate about the physical qualities of their instruments. Many believe that people are drawn to the cello because its range is so similar to that of the human voice from bass to soprano, male to female. Financial Times interview, John Blood was inspired to become a composer when he started playing in the cello section of a youth symphony orchestra.

There is a wonderful feeling of calm that surrounds me. Most cellists feel that the cello provides them with the sounds they need for self-expression which words just cannot provide. A student of the Croatian cellist and teacher Dobrila Bercovic-Magdalenic writes: There do appear to be particularly profound rewards to be gained from starting the cello in later life, especially during retirement.

Sue Hadley started learning the cello at the age of 58 after working as a nanny all her life. She had no experience of classical music or instrumental playing before this, but the cello has become one of her major sources of happiness and self confidence in retirement.

Being a cellist is my life despite the challenges

I feel as high as a kite after playing. In a world of rising life-expectancy, music is likely to become a more important source of fulfilment and wellbeing than ever before. Pat Legg has taught late starters for the last 15 years and is convinced that it is never too late to start. She observes that it takes considerable courage for a highly accomplished retired professional to learn a completely new skill but, as scientific studies and the reports of players indicate, it would be hard to find a more inspiring and rewarding activity for anyone wishing to enrich and stimulate their mind and life.

Warm thanks to Judith Mitchell for her generous reading list and kind support; to Dobrila Bercovic-Magdalenic for encouraging so many of her students to participate; to Gordana Jevic for her beautiful translation from Croatian to English; to Danish brain scientist Kjeld Fredens for his valuable references and to all the many cellists who inspired this article.

Philip Ball The Music Instinct: Susan Hallam The power of music: Robert Jourdain Music, the Brain and Ecstasy: How music captures our imagination NY The cognitive neuroscience of music, pp Psychological Science , 15 8 , Excellent brief summary of research into the effect of music on the brain recommended by Danish brain scientist Kjeld Freddens: Music as an Intervention in Hospitals: I started playing the cello in , aged I had never even touched an instrument before and had no experience of classical music. Right from the start, I have always loved to hold my cello.