Johnny Gandelsmann, Photography by Demetrius Freeman
6:00pm Pre-concert talk | 7:00pm Concert
Art of Elan returned to the JAI cabaret space at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla to present Johnny Gandelsman in an epic 2-hour performance of the complete cello suites by J. S. Bach, remarkably performed on violin. This opportunity to “fall in love with Bach,” rescheduled twice due to Covid, was part of Art of Elan’s BaCH (Beyond a Concert Hall) Initiative and includeed a pre-concert talk given by cellist and Baroque specialist Alex Greenbaum in the Wu Tsai Courtyard.
“To write clinically of Gandelsman’s phraseology, his cadenza-like approach to tempos, or even to mention that he played the Sixth Suite, remarkably, on a five-string violin, would not relay the spell this performance cast. Weight turned into weightlessness. The music re-discovered its own origins in dance. And it seemed to speak with the naturalness of a folk song. This was an exquisitely personal vision of Bach, all radical sincerity and glinting light. The audience sat rapt for nearly two hours, until it rose as one.”
—Boston Globe
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