ECHOES OF BACH

Release Date: November 9th, 2018

MIKE BLOCK

"Breathless ... Half dance, half dare."
-The New York Times

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About Echoes of Bach:

The origin of this album can to be can be traced to a soundcheck with the Silkroad Ensemble. Yo-Yo Ma, our founder, often plays the Allemande from Bach’s Suite No. 2 to test his microphone. We are usually situated next to each other onstage, so I often check my microphone immediately after him. In a moment of mischievousness, I decided to test my microphone with the same movement of Bach, to see if I could get a laugh out of the ensemble. Later in the soundcheck, Yo-Yo leaned over and whispered, “You should play more Bach!” He knew it had been years since I performed Bach, and went on to say that it would be valuable to return to the music I knew most intimately, in order to have something deep to share from stage. Needless to say, I listened to him, and began to explore Bach again in my practice sessions. I would often wander around my apartment while practicing it, with the aid of the Block Strap, and repeatedly found myself playing Bach in the bathroom, where the acoustic are so great. I eventually started performing Bach in my solo shows, and found it incredibly satisfying to phrase them in different ways each night. I consistently programmed them as a moment of elegance in a set otherwise filled with groovy original songs and folk music of various kinds. I also started adding in some 20th-Century pieces for contrast, to show the full range of what can be considered “classical”, and draw on the contemporary music that defined much of my college years. For this album, I’ve included the first movement from the Ligeti Sonata for Solo Cello, a movement from Ahmed Adnan Saygun's Partita and, finally, the world premiere recording of Citarruni, from the Taranta Project, by Giovanni Sollima (Commissioned by Silkroad). The music on this album is the result of my journey, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I do playing! 

Track list:

1.) JS Bach: Prelude in G major from Cello Suite 1 BWV 1007 02:55

2.) Ligeti: Sonata for Solo Cello, Movement 1

3.) JS Bach: Allemande in D minor from Cello Suite 2 BWV 1008

4.) Ligeti: Sonata for Solo Cello, Movement 2

5.) JS Bach: Courante in C major from Cello Suite 3 BWV 1009

6.) Saygun: Partita for Solo Cello, Movement 4

7.) JS Bach: Sarabande in D major, from Cello suite 6 BWV 1012

8.) Gabrielli: Ricercar No. 1, Movement 1

9.) JS Bach: Bourees from Cello Suites 4, 5 BWV 1010, 1011

10.) JS Bach: Gigue in D major from Cello Suite 6 BWV 1012

11.) Sollima: Citarruni, from Silkroad's Taranta Project

12.) JS Bach: Sarabande in G major from Cello Suite 1 BWV 1007

About Mike Block:

MIKE BLOCK is a pioneering multi-style cellist, singer, composer, and educator,hailed by Yo-Yo Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st-Century”, and acclaimed by the NY Times for his “vital rich-hued solo playing.” While still studying at the Juilliard School, Mike joined Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, with which he has toured extensively throughout the world, and won a 2017 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.

Credits:

Cello- Mike Block 

Cover artwork: Kevork Mourad
Album design - LeeAna Benson
Producer: Mike Block
Engineered by Dan Cardinal
Mixed by Dan Cardinal
Mastered by Mike Mermagen
Recorded at Dimension Sound Studios, Boston, MA 

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