CelloBello’s Celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Cello Suites of J.S. Bach

CelloBello

The six solo suites of J.S. Bach (composed 1717–1723) are so central to the life of every cellist, young and old, amateur and professional, that we don’t really need an anniversary year to celebrate them. Yet, while historians are unable to tell us in precisely which years they were written, many feel it’s possible that Bach began composing them exactly 300 years ago, in the year 1717.

The wildest science fiction of Bach’s day could never have predicted the Internet, that the music of this modest composer in the little German town of Cöthen would be revered and celebrated worldwide with livestreamed concerts, CelloChats, master classes and blogs.

But that is exactly what we are doing on CelloBello! Nothing could be more central to a website devoted to the cello, than the celebration and substantive discussion of these enduring masterpieces.

LAURENCE LESSER STREAMED MASTER CLASS ON BACH
Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 4 pm
on Facebook Live

Lesser has devoted much of his artistic life to the study, teaching, performing and recording of Bach. He approaches performance with reverence, intelligence, life-long inquiry, and an innate musical talent. You don’t want to miss his streamed master class and CelloChat sessions this week.

A few of his thoughts on Bach:

“When anyone approaches the Bach Cello Suites, it’s natural to begin thinking about a “correct” way to play them. My teacher, Gregor Piatigorsky, used to say: “Never play for the cellists in the audience – they always have a different idea.” Start that instead with “Never play Bach for . . .” and life gets even harder! Like every young cellist of my generation, I was very influenced by the recordings of Pablo Casals. How could I not be? He was considered the “greatest” cellist of his day. And how could one deny the performances of an artist who always convinced you, at least as long as his sounds were in your ears. I was lucky enough to play the d minor suite for him in 1961 and his ideas made a big impression on me. But as I became a professional musician, there was a wonderful new and fresh voice speaking through his playing about the Suites – Anner Bylsma. I am very lucky to have become his friend – and his ideas continue to stimulate me immeasurably. The Suites haunt me and are astonishingly deep and wonderful messages from a great master.”

CELLOCHATS AND BLOGS ON BACH
Each of our Chat Hosts – Laurence Lesser, Colin Carr, Antonio Lysy and Inbal Segev – are also contributing in the week of their chat, companion articles on Bach – be sure to read them in CelloBlog!

FIVE SPECIAL CHATS CELEBRATING THE CELLO SUITES OF J.S. BACH
Sundays, 8pm ET

January 29
“Bowings in Bach – A Topic That Never Goes Away!”
LAURENCE LESSER
New England Conservatory

February 5
“Decision Making in Bach, What’s Important?”
COLIN CARR
Stony Brook University, St. John’s College Oxford

February 12
“If It Ain’t Baroque, Don’t Break It”
INBAL SEGEV
Amerigo Trio

February 19
“The Bach Suites as You Have Never SEEN Them Before”
ANTONIO LYSY
University of California, Los Angeles

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AUTHOR

CelloBello

CelloBello founder Paul Katz is known to concertgoers the world over as cellist of the Cleveland Quartet, which during an international career of 26 years made more than 2500 appearances on four continents, in all of the music capitals, great concert halls and music festivals of the world. As a member of this celebrated ensemble from 1969-1995, he performed at the White House and on many television shows including “CBS Sunday Morning,” NBC’s “Today Show,” “The Grammy Awards” (in 1973, the first classical musicians ever to appear on that show,) and was seen in “In The Mainstream: The Cleveland Quartet,” a one hour documentary televised across the U.S. and Canada.

Mr. Katz has received many honors, including the American String Teacher’s Association “Artist-Teacher of the Year 2003;” Indiana University’s “Chevalier du Violoncelle,” awarded for distinguished achievements and contributions to the world of cello playing and teaching; Chamber Music America’s highest honor, The Richard M. Bogomolny National Service Award, awarded for a lifetime of distinguished service in the field of chamber music; and an Honorary Doctorate of Musical Arts from Albright College. Mr. Katz served for six years as President of Chamber Music America, the national service organization in the United States that has in its membership virtually all of the country’s 600 professional chamber music ensembles, as well as hundreds of presenting organizations, music festivals and managers. As an author, he has appeared in numerous publications and wrote the liner notes for the Cleveland Quartet’s three-volume set of the complete Beethoven Quartets on RCA Red Seal.

Mr. Katz has appeared as soloist in New York, Cleveland, Toronto, Detroit, Los Angeles, and other cities throughout North America. He was a student of Gregor Piatigorsky, Janos Starker, Bernard Greenhouse, Gabor Rejto and Leonard Rose. In 1962 he was selected nationally to play in the historic Pablo Casals Master Class in Berkeley, California and was a prizewinner in the Munich and Geneva Competitions. Of special interest to cellists are his recordings of the Dohnanyi Cello Sonata for ProArte Records and the Cleveland Quartet’s recording on Sony Classical of the Schubert two-cello quintet with Yo-Yo Ma. The Cleveland Quartet has nearly 70 recordings to its credit on RCA Victor, Telarc International, Sony, Philips and ProArte. These recording have earned many distinctions including the all-time best selling chamber music release of Japan, 11 Grammy nominations, Grammy Awards for Best Chamber Music Recording and Best Recorded Contemporary Composition in 1996, and “Best of the Year” awards from Time Magazine and Stereo Review.

In September of 2001, Mr. Katz joined the faculty of The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, following five years at Rice University in Houston and twenty years (1976-1996) of teaching at the Eastman School of Music. He has mentored many of the fine young string quartets on the world’s stages today including the Ariel, Biava, Cavani, Chester, Harlem, Jupiter, Kuss, Lafayette, Maia, Meliora, Omer, Parker, T’ang and Ying Quartets. One of America’s most sought after cello teachers, his cello students, in addition to membership in many of the above quartets, have achieved international careers with solo CD’s on Decca, EMI, Channel Classics and Sony Classical. They occupy positions in many of the world’s major orchestras including principal chairs of orchestras such as Detroit, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Oslo, Norway and Osaka, Japan, and are members of many American symphony orchestras such as Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, National Symphony, Pittsburgh, Rochester and St. Louis.

Mr. Katz has been a participant at many of the world’s major summer music festivals and schools including twenty years at the Aspen Festival, Marlboro Festival, the Yale Summer School of Chamber Music, the Perlman Music Program, Yellow Barn, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Germany, ProQuartet in France, Domaine Forget, Orford, Toronto Summer Music, and the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada, the Steans Institute of The Ravinia Festival, The Heifetz Institute, and is a Director of the Shouse Artist Institute of the Great Lakes Chamber Festival. His hundreds of master classes worldwide include many of the major music schools of North and South America, Europe, Israel, Japan and China. Mr. Katz frequently sits on the juries of international cello and chamber music competitions, including the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition, the Gyeongnam International Cello Competition in Korea, and the international string quartet competitions of Banff, London, Munich, Graz and Geneva.

Paul Katz currently resides in Boston, MA with his wife, pianist Pei-Shan Lee.

Mr. Katz plays an Andrea Guarneri cello dated 1669.

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