featuring cellist Richard Narroway (other links below)

One of the people I’d been hoping to catch up with when I first planned to start the podcast was a gentleman I’d kind of stumbled upon online almost a year ago. More specifically, I stumbled upon his Kickstarter campaign while doing some research for a campaign I was hoping to run, which never got off the ground. Narroway’s, on the other hand, was a success, and we talk about that experience as well as another project he has coming up.

Narroway is both talented and articulate, and needless to say knows a thing or two about the Bach cello suites. I posted articles about the first two suites this past weekend, and I thought it’d be nice to ask a professional about the pieces and his experience with them.

While we didn’t talk about the works in depth (analyses like this one can be found in lots of places), I was more interested to hear some personal thoughts from someone who’s recently spent a significant amount of time with them in both studio and concert settings, no less halfway around the world (for lots of people) in his homeland of Australia.

What was more compelling than just a tour through Australia was the purpose behind it. Check out the Bringing Music to Life official website or Kickstarter campaign for info about the project. He also has his official Facebook page and a YouTube channel. Oh, and go listen to the podcast!

I appreciated the straightforward way in which he explained the pieces. There are surely performers, listeners, musicologists who talk about these (granted, incredibly lofty) works in complicated, pedantic terms, and I’m sure they lend themselves to being dissected in such a way, if that’s what you’re into, but (I paraphrase) ‘they’re just dance suites.’

That’s not to diminish their importance or depth in any way, because Narroway speaks of them throughout the episode as a pinnacle of music, an ‘Everest’ of performance. I actually got a little worried during our conversation because I had absolutely no idea how much time had gone by and didn’t want to keep someone answering my questions for hours on end, but I could have kept listening.

Anyway, go check that out! I’m very excited about it. Like all the other podcasts say, check us out on Facebook, and get the podcast from iTunes and leave a comment! You can also find it from PodBean. While I’m so excited after recording and editing every episode to share it immediately, I’m trying to pace myself. If I did even two episodes a month, I’d probably upload everything faster than I could record, but if things change, I might make adjustments. So for now, each new episode will come out around the middle of each month. There’s still part two to come of my very long conversation with Viktor Hartobanu; you can find part one here.

Leave a comment here and/or in iTunes, or send me an email! Chat soon!