Cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello, cello.

Cellos!

Last night I saw TEN of them, and ten of the best cellists in St. Petersburg -- probably THE best ten cellists in St. Petersburg, as they were the Mariinsky Orchestra's own cello ensemble.

A few weeks ago I bought one ticket for myself (one of my alone excursions to the Mariinsky that I have written about before, you know, pulling a Puppy going to the Lexington Flick) to go to something described as simply a "Soirée of Cello Music" with the only thing listed in the description: "Details TBA." Only yesterday morning, the morning of the concert, did they put up specifics of what would be in the performance that night. So, I bought the ticket on a whim, simply thinking hey, I like cello music, sure, and I went.

BEST 300R EVER SPENT.

As I said before it was just ten cellos, with one trumpet soloist and one vocal soloist, and god, I love cellists so much (not to be egotistical). They all seemed like such cool, laid back people, and it was not one of those concerts where you feel like you are there simply to stroke some virtuoso's ego for a couple hours. They all were having so much damn FUN, especially in the second act where they played mostly modern, fun, almost silly pieces -- they exchanged looks and clearly had inside jokes about things and because they were having fun everyone who was listening had fun to.

This was the program they played:

Arcangelo Corelli, Variations on the theme La Folia
arranged for 4 cellos by Nikolai Vasilev

Johann Sebastian Bach, Pastoral
arranged for 5 cellos by Vyacheslav Kruglik

Henry Purcell, Sonata in D Major
arranged for 4 cellos by Nikolai Vasilev

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras № 5

George Bizet, Fantasy on the Themes of the Opera Carmen
arranged for 5 cellos

Sergei Rakhmaninov, Vocalise
arranged for 8 cellos by Svetlana Nesterova

Antonín Dvořák, Humoresque
arranged for 8 cellos by Vyacheslav Kruglik

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Prelude from Bachianas Brasileiras № 1

Svetlana Nesterova, Invasion of the Tamagotchi from the suite In A World of High Technology, piece for 8 cellos

Duke Ellington, Creole Love Call
arranged for 4 cellos by Vernera Thomas-Mifunye

Vyacheslav Kruglik, Joke and Small Rondo
pieces for 8 cellos

Henry Mancini, Moon River
arranged for 8 cellos by Svetlana Nesterova

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Introduction from Bachianas Brasileiras № 1


The performers were:
Oleg Sendetsky
Oxana Moroz
Tamara Sakar
Yekaterina Travkina
Fyodor Kirillov
Daniil Bryskin
Vladimir Yunovich
Mikhail Shkolyarov
Alexander Peresypkin
Yekaterina Lebedeva

One of the women -- I think it was Yekaterina Travkina, by process of elimination -- was also pregnant, and all I could think of was Mom giving recitals back in the day, oh, about 21 years and nine months ago, and was so impressed by this cellist's level of skill despite her big belly vaguely interfering with how her cello rested.

Oh, god, I enjoyed it so much. My favorite pieces were probably Humoresque, because I have such a soft spot for that piece having played it on Suzuki violin, double bass and cello, and the Duke Ellington which was so cool on 4 cellos. I also loved the very first piece they played, the Corelli, because I was just flooded with an overwhelming feeling of joy of being at that concert and hearing that many cellos play together. That very first moment, and listening to the whole concert in general, made me ache with longing to have music in my life again. I know I severely neglected cello during my first two years of college, frustrated because it is so hard to be part of any casual music group at Wellesley if you are not a music major, feeling I had to make decisions about what things I was really going to focus my time on.... but the thing was even during all those two years, the cello was there if I wanted it. It was always in my closet, just waiting, every now and then taken out and played around with, a couple of variations of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, some scales, an attempt to remember the Ashokan Farewell..... I always had it if I wanted it. Now this year, my cello is still in my closet, but my closet is 3000 miles away from me. Suddenly physically not being able to have that if I want it has made me miss cello an ubelievably huge amount. Not only that, it makes me really sad to realize that people do not associate me with any musical instruments here. In high school my identity was solidly made up of four main things: writing, theatre, photography and music. At Wellesley, I switched my main focus to photography and writing, but analyical, literature-reading kind of writing.... I did some theatre last year, and even though I didn't really play cello in any public way at Wellesley, all my friends still knew that was a part of my identity. But here, the other day in conversation class, our teacher asked us if we played on any musical instruments, and when I said I used to play violin and double bass, and now I play cello, all the girls in my class were completely surprised and said afterwards that they hadn't ever thought of me as a musician type. This basically broke my heart, as it has been a huge part of my identity for my entire life, and all of this, plus being inspired by that beautiful, wonderful, amazing concert last night has made me really want to take up private lessons with Shay again next year when I'm back at Wellesley.