Guided by Voices: New Music for Baroque Cello Elinor Frey

• Scott Edward Godin (b. 1970):
• 1guided by voices11:44
• Lisa Streich (b. 1985):
• 2Minerva09:23
• 3Cortile di Pilato09:59
• Isaiah Ceccarelli (b. 1978):
• 4With concord of sweet sounds11:34
• Linda Catlin Smith (b. 1957):
• 5Ricercar12:07
• Ken Ueno (b. 1970): Chimera:
• 6Chimera: I. “Night opening its black flower”04:27
• 7Chimera: II. “in the shadow of my sorrow”05:46
• 8Chimera: III. “we are resurrected”03:44
• 9Chimera: IV. “the sky will be lavender”05:58
• 10Chimera: V. “an ocean bell sounding”06:25
• Total Runtime01:21:07

Info for Guided by Voices: New Music for Baroque Cello

This project of commissioning new music for Baroque cello began with the birth of a new instrument. I had commissioned a five-string cello – made in Montréal in 2012 by Francis Beaulieu – and wanted to expand my use of the five- string instrument beyond its few famous pieces (J.S. Bach’s sixth suite, for example). This led to a new work by Scott Godin and then to pieces from Isaiah Ceccarelli and Ken Ueno. In a sense, I had the same desire to expand my use of the (now more standard) four-string Baroque cello, an instrument that I was using to perform mostly Early Music until this commissioning project took flight. When modern composers write a new piece for “Baroque” cello (whether four- or five-string) it becomes an instrument of today, helping to expand the sound worlds of both the cello and new music audiences. For the works written for four-string Baroque cello by Linda Smith, Maxime McKinley, and Lisa Streich, I also used a new instrument, made by Karl Dennis in 2018, and on both cellos a bow by Pieter Affourtit made in 2016. The project showcases the cello’s non-standard sizes and non-standard tuning of the strings, as well as the instruments themselves, made by living artists. Indeed, playing new music on new instruments were the norms for 17th- and 18th- century performers. Each work reveals the cello’s incredible versatility and remarkable colours, capable of inspiring some of today’s outstanding composers. An article about this six-work commissioning project can be found in the journal Circuit – musiques contemporaines, published September, 2018 (vol. 28, no. 2).

Dedicated to Maxime McKinley with gratitude for your humour and kindness. (Elinor Frey)

Elinor Frey, cello
Mélisande McNabney,

Elinor Frey
Fascinated by the cello’s origins and the creative process of new music, Elinor Frey plays both period and modern instruments. Her recent release on the Belgian label Passacaille, Berlin Sonatas with Lorenzo Ghielmi on fortepiano, was nominated for a Juno award for Best Classical CD, Solo & Chamber Music and won the 2015 Québec Opus Prize for Early Music CD of the year. Her first Baroque CD, La voce del violoncello, was praised for its “careful scholarship and brilliant layering of moods and tempos” (Toronto Star) and for the “honest, reflective beauty of her music making” (Strings). Her performance of this program was the winner of the public prize at the 2013 Utrecht Early Music Festival Fringe. In May 2017, she released Fiorè, the world premiere recording of the sonatas of Angelo Maria Fiorè and various unknown Italian arias the, performed alongside Lorenzo Ghielmi and Suzie LeBlanc.

Frey’s debut album, Dialoghi, is titled for the solo piece written for her by Steven Stucky, and her CD of new works for Baroque cello, titled Guided By Voices, will be released on the Analekta label in March 2019. These works are by Scott Godin, Linda Catlin Smith, Ken Ueno, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Maxime McKinley, and Lisa Streich. She also recently performed Lutoslawski’s cello concerto and a new concerto by Colin Labadie with the Laurier Symphony, as well as a concerto by Keiko Devaux with Ensemble Arkea and conductor Dina Gilbert.

Frey’s honours include a US-Italy Fulbright Fellowship where she studied baroque cello with Paolo Beschi, the SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, American Musicological Society, and Canada Council for the Arts grants facilitating her work on Italian cello music. In recent seasons she has performed with Il Gardellino, Constantinople, Clavecin en concert, Ensemble Caprice, SMAM, Les Idées heureuses, Arion, Les Boréades, and Theatre of Early Music, as well as with her quartet, Pallade Musica, grand prize winners of the 2012 Early Music America Baroque Performance Competition and second prize winners in the 2014 International Van Wassenaer Competition in Utrecht. Frey holds degrees from McGill, Mannes, and Juilliard.

This album contains no booklet.