The Way Appears

The Way Appears is a CD by cellist duo Leah Plave and India Gailey. It consists of seven commissioned pieces by young(ish) Canadian composers who were asked to create pieces in which the two instruments function as equal partners rather than, say, as soloist and continuo. It’s a really varied and interesting collection providing a little over forty minutes of music.

Right up front there’s an interesting contrast between Emily Kennedy’s conversational but rather busy Triptych and Adam Vincent Clarke’s Voix Lointaines which is much more elegiac with some vocalisation thrown in.

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Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth

India Gailey — Butterfly Lightning Shakes The EarthButterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth is a new miniature album of her own compositions by cellist India Gailey.  Back in the day we would probably have called this an EP as there is about 20 minutes of music in all.

The first piece; Mountainweeps, consists of three sixty second pieces for solo cello.  This was written for Arlen Hlusko for Instagram performance when that platform limited videos to sixty seconds!  It’s a sort of meditation on the impact of climate change on alpine environments.  It’s quite complex for such a short piece and quite beguiling. Continue reading →

Doing different things with a cello

India Gailey — Problematica (cover)Problematica is an upcoming solo CD with some interesting twists from Canadian cellist+ India Gailey.  I can’t call it a solo cello CD because Gailey contributes vocals as well as some truly virtuosic cello playing and there’s lots of electronics and electronic processing involved.  There are also some unusual presentation options.  There are seven works by younger Canadian composers on the disk and recording engineer John DS Adams of Stonehouse Sound makes a major contribution.

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