Word: cello
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...jazzy, almost sultry feel to Sheets’s composition. Written as “a classically inspired piece with a sense of harmony rooted in jazz,” Sheets delegated the roles of the jazz band’s walking bass, tenor saxophone, and trumpet to the cello, viola, and violin, respectively. Tying the piece together was pianist Jennifer Chen ’11, whose performance evoked the mysterious sophistication of a nightclub. Sheets enraptured his musicians and audience alike, with the orchestra coming alive as they played his work...
While most songs are similarly aggressive, “Four Score and Seven” proceeds at a much slower pace. Over sparse guitar and cello, Sickles cries out against the divisions the narrator of the album encounters—“This is a war we can’t win / After 10,000 years it’s still us against them.” The song slowly crescendos into a restrained chorus followed by a battered-sounding yet triumphant brass band and an exultant guitar solo, as Sickles continues to scream “It?...
Lead singer and songwriter Jamie Stewart arranges his music to prod and engage listeners. Underneath Stewart’s vocals—which alternatively whimper, sing, and shout—layers of instrumentation and programming juxtapose guitars, drums, a banjo, a cello, and synthesizers, among other noisemakers. “Apple for a Brain” is composed particularly with provocation in mind, its bouncing beats and chirping drums suddenly giving away after two minutes into what seems like a completely different song. This is far from an isolated example of the group disregarding musical conventions—just...
...Down,” follow in the title track’s motley footsteps. Sharp winds and crashes of a thunderstorm give way to flamenco guitar strumming and maracas, mixing with the quirky tinkle of a glockenspiel, hand claps and a spirited jazz flute. The somber growling of a cello intimates the lyrics Staples croons (“She rode me like a storm / Like a soaking brooding storm”), while the clear, brassy peals of the horn section end the track on a vigorous note. It’s easy to ignore the significant compositional skill required...
...pathos and surrealism. Ishiguro examines the absurdity of how humans protect themselves from the outside world and the moment in which this protection begins to wear down. Eloise McCormack, the self-professed virtuoso cellist who coaches young Tibor on his technique, eventually confesses that she cannot play the cello. She justifies this by claiming that other, less-gifted teachers would have destroyed her innate gift if she had taken lessons with them: “I knew I had to protect my gift against people who, however well-intentioned they were, could completely destroy it.” Yet this...