PREVIEW
VC2 Cello Duo
Professional Series
Thursday, March 12 at 2 p.m.
St. Albert Community Hall
5 St. Anne Street
Tickets: $15 Call 780-459-1542 or ticketmaster.ca
Cellists Amahl Arulanandam and Bryan Holt are more than highly trained musicians who enjoy interpreting the world’s great classical masterpieces.
Dressed in eye-popping plaid shirts standing in front of an ice arena holding the cellos like hockey sticks, their latest photos suggest this streetwise, high tech duo is about to show the world all the amazing and wild things a cello can do.
“We’re both avid hockey fans. That photo was taken at a hockey rink. We were trying to convey a tie between grand works in music and hockey,” said Holt.
”What we do is hard to sell. It’s not your typical trio or quartet. We play things more outside the box and that’s exciting.”
Now on an 11-day tour of western Canada, VC2 Cello Duo, hopes to catch an Oilers game right around the time of their regional debut at St. Albert Community Hall on Thursday, March 12.
The heart of the afternoon concert is Beethoven – but with a twist.
“In researching cellists, we discovered Beethoven was highly influenced with the cello. That was the reason why he wrote five cello sonatas and they are at the core of his repertoire,” Holt explained.
Having shown the world their ability to breathe new life into classical master works (both studied under Matt Haimovitz at McGill and Shauna Rolston in Toronto), the Toronto-based twosome opted for a fresh approach with the 2018 release of Beethoven’s Cellists.
Passionate about supporting Canadian composers and new works, the duo commissioned five extremely varied composers to find inspiration in Beethoven’s sonatas and create new pieces.
Four of the inspired works that shed new light on Beethoven’s compositional signature will be played on Thursday.
The duo picked Sonata in G minor for composer Rafael Weinroth-Browne.
“The sonata has a dark and heavy signature. It’s a brooding story and we gave it to a heavy metal cellist, and he wrote Triumvirate based on that piece.”
Andrew Downing adapted the first sonata into Five Little Pieces, a set of short works that Holt describes as joyful and light of character.
Fjola Evans transformed Beethoven’s third sonata into Ridge and Furrow.
“Furrowing was an ancient farming practice and it explores the idea of retracing steps.”
And finally jazz cellist Matt Brubeck “takes a fragment of Sonata No. 4 and throws it into the blender. All types of conversation erupt between the two cellos. It has a lively, fun character.”
VC2 also zeroes in three cellist-composers of Beethoven’s inner circle – Anton Kraft, Bernhard Romberg and Jean-Louis Duport. And for variety, the pair may toss in a rock number or two.
“We’re extremely excited to come out and share our music. Prepare for something out of the ordinary and a few cello acrobatics.”
