“These Allemandes are, to me, depictions of profound inner journeys and internal conversation, and in this project, they are in dialogue with the thoughts and musical expressions of living composers."
— Nancy Ives
Composers Kenji Bunch, Nancy Ives, David Schiff, and Michael Johanson…
at the premiere of the complete Allemandes at The Old Church Concert Hall, June 2018.
The Allemandes - commissioning & recording project
Nancy Ives had a vision to pair the six Allemandes from the Suites for solo cello by J.S. Bach with newly commissioned works written in response to them. With funding from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Ives commissioned six leading Oregon composers -- David Schiff, Robert Kyr, Bonnie Miksch, Michael Johanson, Kenji Bunch and herself -- to write the new works, and premiered them, alternating with Bach’s Allemandes, in June 2018. Since then, she has presented parts of the project in a variety of venues, including the 2018 Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.
Ives is in the process of recording the 12-piece cycle as a groundbreaking debut solo album. She says, "There's a gentle subversiveness in the choice of the Allemandes as the focal point. Out of all the dance forms in the Bach Suites, they are something of an underdog. Many players find the Allemandes interpretively vexing — neither slow nor fast, ornate but a bit square, and not particularly dance-like. I used to feel that way, too, but over the years have had some very special experiences with them that opened my eyes to their deep potential.”
Although the individual pieces stand on their own, the full album will offer a delightful and soul-nourishing listening experience. The full collection of works represents "an in-depth exploration of a very particular mood, disposition and spirit - something elegantly discursive, contemplative," Ives says. "I want to add to the literature for solo cello and to be part of the conversation that resonates through time between musicians and the composers who write for them. After all, without the efforts of cellists before me, many of the pieces I love wouldn’t have been written!"
“A collection of new pieces for solo cello by top-notch composers is a worthy goal in itself, but I’m particularly excited at the potential for the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts. There are dozens of recordings of the Bach Suites, but none that I’m aware of that focus on one of the dance forms exclusively. The idea of alternating Baroque movements with modern ones is not new, although it hasn’t been done to excess, and rarely (if ever) with multiple modern composers. The interpretations of them that I present in this context are different than I would do as part of the performance of a full Suite, from tempo to the use (or not) of the printed repeats.”
— Nancy Ives
