Music: Zoe Keating Cellist & A Voice in the Wilderness

In expanding my work this past week into music, I kept seeing the body of the cello in my mind’s eye, yet I did not know what it was saying to me. That is, until today when I was replying to one of James Radcliffe’s blog posts. His post features an image of him playing the cello (Be sure to check out his music and writing!). I recognize now that for me, the cello represents the freeing of the ranges of my voice, even physically representing the shape and curves of my body. Then, just now as I was typing, I heard this prayer by St. Francis of Assisi.

Since New Year’s, I have returned to listening to Zoe Keating’s work. She is an amazing cellist. I can feel her music move throughout my body, moving my spirit. While many compositions include the cello primarily for establishing the rhythm, the cello can quite easily carry the melody as you will see in Keating’s work. The series above is a great taste test, of the sweetness and boldness of her work. I love this particular series as it starts with two of my favorite songs and I hope you like them!

The range of the cello’s voice has always called to me. At age 10, I easily chose the cello over voice and every musical instrument. Musicians that include the cello draw me in repeatedly. Sia, PJ Harvey, Apocalyptica and Tori Amos are some of my favorites, when the mood calls 

My Favorites:
#1 Forest Keating seems to tune her cello at the beginning, a requisite prior to any performance. This sets the stage for the rest of the album. Tuning is such a sweet sound for me, bringing back many lovely memories of performing.

#2 Escape Artist When I listen, I can feel myself running, heart pounding through the forest. It is not until today that I see the correlation to my experiences in middle school, as mentioned below. No wonder it’s one of my favorites…

The cello was instrumental in my escape & survival in middle school. Feeling ostracized, I practiced the cello during school lunch breaks to avoid interactions with others.

Learning to play solo on the orchestra stage while the sounds reverberated, unfettered, throughout the empty auditorium was initially incredibly intimidating.

With practice, I learned to be bold in my playing and valuing the critiques of my performance by my music teacher. This experience pushed me to a higher level of playing; often being uncontested in being rst chair. I draw from this now where I have continually expanded my voice here on WP, “spiral out, keep going.”

– Thank you for being a witness to this emergence!

I hope you enjoy Keating’s work. Please feel free to comment, I love the input including critiques!

Cover Photo
Final Photo
Prayer of St. Francis