‘A Scary Move, A Necessary Move’
“When it was announced that I was leaving Kronos,” says cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, “half the people I spoke to said, ‘Wow, you’re really brave.’ And the other half said, ‘Wow, you’re really crazy.’”
If anything, Zeigler’s bravery arrives with a bravura that can make you crazy: Something of Life is a debut solo album fromInnova Records that will remind listeners of how intensely valuable Zeigler’s work was to the Kronos Quartet for eight years.
We now know: the first half was right.
And Zeigler now hands us one of the most intelligently varied, coolly parsed selections this season of music for writerly consideration.
His choices of material not only demand more from him than even the acclaimed Kronos repertoire did, but they also demonstrate a gutsy willingness to move in and out of what some might consider a soloist’s domain.
Thanks to our colleagues at Q2 Music, the 24-hour free contemporary classical stream from New York Public Radio’s WQXR, we can give you a chance to hear Zeigler’s entire album as you read, during its tenure as Album of the Week.
In my favorite work on the album – Listen, Quiet by his wife, composer Paola Prestini — Zeigler operates as a chatty buddy of sorts to master percussionistJason Treuting of Sō Percussion, a composer in his own right.
As Treuting delivers Prestini’s syncopated swagger in tropical tones, all soft mallets and pinging bells, Zeigler becomes what Carol Ann Cheung calls a “cello narrator.” Read More
There’s more: Read the full story at Thought Catalog
By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
Writing on the Ether: Music For Writers: Something Of Jeffrey Zeigler’s Life
Originally published by Thought Catalog at www.ThoughtCatalog.com
