Last night performing on Baroque cello with The CSM Baroque Strings for a lovely final Masters concert of Countertenor Graham J. Norton. It was wonderful to work with Jory Vinikour who directed and played harpsichord. Also soprano Laura Gilsenan sang beautifully a couple of duos including the gorgeous Monteverdi, Pur ti mio. We also played a Handel Concerto, Vivaldi: Longe Mala umbrae Terrores, Handel: Vo far guerra And Cara Sposa and Monteverdi: L’incoronatione di Poppea

I played the Cork School of Music baroque cello as my own bought online from China is not brilliant! I was playing a beautiful very old borrowed one for a few years and miss its sweet sound. The CSM one started to sound ok after playing it a few days, but as always with gut strings and Baroque cello, it’s really hard to play in tune! You can’t relax concentration for even a split second or the finger hits out of tune. I find the best way to approach it is keeping arms low and relaxed, the body as grounded as possible, and snapping fingers down crisply where possible. Also keeping the left arm very light in shifts as the thick strings can make shifts tricky.
And then of course playing musically, listening, following…