Cellist Gautier Capuçon, speaking with supporter of the arts Michèle Corash in San Francisco during the pandemic, was inspired to create a musical celebration of the Earth.
Amid an engagement with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, while dining after a concert with his “dear longtime” friend Corash, they talked about small pieces for cello and nature. At the “fascinating” discussion, Capuçon says, “That’s when we decided to go further with this idea. Everything starts with an idea, and Michèle offered her help for me to realize this project.”
Collaborating with San Francisco Symphony, Capuçon commissioned 16 contemporary composers of varied backgrounds to create works for cello. On a new album called “Gaia,” the pieces premiere in recital in Davies Symphony Hall on Nov. 16, with pianist Jerôme Ducros, composers Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Quenton Xavier Blache and cellists from the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra joining Capuçon.
Creating “Gaia” has been a thoughtful, long process.
Capuçon says, “I love to always go further with my cello, and I really wanted to have 16 different composers coming from those different routes, so selecting them took lots of time. Some of them I knew, a few of them I had worked with, and then many others, I either didn’t work with them and knew the music, or some of them, I didn’t know the music. I selected them simply with my heart and emotions.”
Blache, 24, who wrote “Of Wind and Rain” for “Gaia,” was anonymously chosen from a pool of 49 applicants for the Emerging Black Composers Project, a partnership between the symphony and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to commission 10 works over 10 years.
Capuçon initially did not know that Blache, a graduate of University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, is a cellist as well as composer.
Blache says, “I believe he saw or heard some of my music and said something in the sense of it’s very ‘cello-istic,’ or it seemed like this certain person would write well for the cello … but I do believe he just didn’t know until actually hearing my name and looking me up.”
Blache, a member of Sphinx Virtuosi, a string ensemble of Black and Latino players, composed a piece called “Hobart Gani,” which premiered at Carnegie Hall with the ensemble. He also composed a work for the Resilience Project, a USC-hosted climate change performance series.
Describing “Of Wind and Rain” as “contemplative,“ Blache adds, “I started it with a bunch of quick notes to represent wind, and then there was oftentimes repetition of these patterns representing wind swirling, as well as rain. There was a more stormy section, like going from raindrops and the pizzicatos to now more arco with the bow, and it’s more of a downpour in places. Then I have a cadenza-like section for Gautier using a lot of the same motifs that have been stated earlier. There’s something a little both melancholy and individual about the piece—I almost envision somebody walking through these conditions solo.”
Blache’s degree in cello performance and music composition with a minor in East Asian languages and cultures comes through in “Of Wind and Rain,” which has harmonies that lend themselves to an Eastern tradition.
“There’s perhaps an Asian quality to it of meditation,” he says. “Chinese with nature, and it’s emphasized in Buddhism to be one with nature.”
Meanwhile, Capuçon, who grew up in the alpine Savoy region of France, says he learned to ski soon after he walked. Long dear to him, mountains are where he finds peace and serenity.
Hoping that audiences listening to “Gaia” are similarly inspired by nature, he says, “The world is full of magical places, and we should take care of them, and we should all be inspired by the Earth.”
In addition to “Of Wind and Rain,” compositions on “Gaia” are: “Sequence for “Gaia” by Max Richter; “Boreas” by Armand Amar; “Wake” by JB Dunckel; “Sur le lac du Bourget” by Gabriela Montero; “Tàmâr Mĕtūshelāḥ” by Olivia Belli; “The Usual Illusion” by Missy Mazzoli; “Prelude pour violoncello et piano” by Joe Hisaichi; “Air” by Ludovico Einaudi; “Ambition” by Xavier Foley; “Side Piece” by Nico Muhly; “Towards the Forest” and “Towards the Light” by Bryce Dessner; “Toro Tsa Kwa” by Abel Selaocoe; “Never Say Never” by Michael Canitrot; “Life in Sunshine” by Jasmine Barnes; and “Forever Home” by Witter-Johnson.
San Francisco Symphony presents “Gaia” at 7 p.m. Nov. 16 in Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Tickets are $30-$129 at sfsymphony.org.