Unfashionably tardy and back by no demand at all, yet here we go again. Let's see what happens this time around with In a Perfect World...
I first became acquainted with cellist Maya Beiser's playing through her work with the Bang on a Can All Stars (she is a founding member of the group). A very non-traditional band of classical and jazz musicians, I discovered them through their magnificent re-imagining of Brian Eno's classic piece "Music for Airports," a recording that I've loved for decades. Eno's work was composed and performed on acoustic and electric pianos, synthesizers and some wordless vocals sung by three female vocalists and Eno himself. This all was then processed and manipulated through a variety tape loops and recorded. As I understand it, Eno has said that "Music For Airports" was never intended to be performed in a live setting, since it was conceived as a composition to be presented in recorded form as opposed to a performance.
The All Stars changed that, developing an arrangement that used traditional acoustic instruments typically reserved for classical and jazz performances. And it was brilliant. Maya Beiser's playing in particular was beautiful. Now she has a new recording out, Uncovered, and she covers songs by AC/DC, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin and many others. Here is a recent NPR interview with Beiser where she details her fascination with different styles of music that she grew to love and that inspired her to detour from her strict classical music training. In discussing her new recording she says this: "If you look at the trajectory of all the things I've done, this is very much within line, because my whole kind of career mission has been to re-introduce new ideas and new sounds for the cello."
In a perfect world, breaking down barriers between different styles and approaches to music would be the rule and not the exception. In the meantime, take a trip or two outside your musical comfort zone sometime soon. You might enjoy what you find. Take it from a practiced traveler...I've never regretted a single trip.
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