Music

Gig of the week: Spike – Dublin Alternative Cello Festival

The festival lures diverse audiences by mining this most sublime of instruments

Yocella, a yoga with cello event

Siobhán Long's face
Siobhán Long
Sat Feb 2 2019 - 05:00

Where else could you go to find yoga lovers, gamers, traditional musicians and jazz improvisers all gathered for a weekend of musical adventures that bear kinship in one way or another to the cello? This year’s Spike Cello Festival embraces its toddlerhood with gusto as it enters its third year. This is a festival that pricks pins in the conventional wisdom that sometimes consigns the cello to the confines of a baroque ensemble or to the deep places where mood music is made.

The folks behind this festival are hell-bent on luring diverse audiences to their myriad events by mining the core of this most sublime instrument. It’s a sound that can lull and lambaste, soothe and startle, depending on the company it keeps.

Spike Cello Festival’s tone will be set by the opener on Friday, a Yocella (yoga) session with Kitty Maguire in the Elbow Room. Yoga performed in the company of live cello: what could be more zen? Later the festival takes its cellos to the Workman’s Club, where composer Claire Fitch will premiere an interactive gaming piece for cellos and big screen, commissioned by the festival. Mirroring the experience of playing a game, two cellists will respond to on-screen movements, and in the process create a new piece of music. Fitch’s premiere will be followed by an open-mic session: a chance for visiting and local cellists to perform their own works in five 15-minute slots. An intriguing chance to see just how fluent or jagged-edged such quirky musical conversations can be. Who knew the cello had gaming chops?

Lovers of experimentalism might be tempted to investigate the concert on Saturday night, when Cello Ireland (led by Una Ní Chanainn) collaborate with west Kerry concertina master Cormac Begley and fiddler Liam O’Connor, melding contemporary and traditional pieces in brand new ways. Begley’s cache of concertinas (piccolo, treble, bass and baritone) are likely to revel in the space created by the cello, as we’ve seen previously when he’s toured with the cellist and clown, Rushad Eggleston. When it comes to playful yet highly elaborate concertina/cello couplings, Begley’s got form.

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Sublime sounds

On the same bill on Saturday is Dutch cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger whose comfort zones stretch from soundtrack (Werner Herzog) to baroque composition and jazz minimalism. This promises to be an evening for musical adventurers with an appetite for the sublime.

Finally, on Sunday night, The Devil's Violin present Stolen, which they describe as "a journey through a kaleidoscopic world of giant poppies, frozen horses and shimmering forests of silver and gold". This trio of voice, cello and violin promise to bring a touch of the surreal to Spike. Later that evening, upstairs in the Vintage Room, composer, media artist, cellist and performer Semay Wu will present her idiosyncratic electronic and visual world. Spike are encouraging punters to move between both performances, sampling these two very different soundscapes at their own pace.

Younger cello enthusiasts can discover The Curious Cello at The Ark, while Malachy Robinson’s original song compositions will be performed by the Dublin Viols in the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday at noon, followed by a free Cellinstallation of eight improvising cellists performing throughout the afternoon in the gallery foyer.

Bach’s sublime cello suites, and the playing of Stephen Isserlis and Yo-Yo Ma, have introduced the oceanic breadth and depth of this instrument to so many. Now Spike leads it on many more merry dances this weekend.