Alisa Weilerstein, a former Aspen Music Festival student and winner last year of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, has been pushing the cello repertoire outward by embarking on adventurous projects with young, alternative-thinking composers. Yo-Yo Ma, the most recognizable face in classical music, has occasionally teamed with pickers from the string-band world to make folk-oriented sounds.

“I was into that as a third-grader – there were all kinds of funky noises I could make to be annoying.”The cello has gone through some fairly interesting developments in recent times. She got to the cello, played it clumsily, and something resonated with Sollee.”When the teachers showed us all the instruments, paraded them, the teacher tried to bow it, getting all these scratchy sounds,” Sollee recalled. He was a 9-year-old in a public school music class and the instructor was educating the class in the instruments of the orchestra. Glint StudiosCellist Ben Sollee leads his trio to a gig Friday at Belly Up Aspen.ĪSPEN – Like a lot of kids, Ben Sollee heard an instrument played in a certain way and thought, “Cool – won’t that get under people’s skin.”But most kids have, historically, had such thoughts regarding an electric guitar or maybe a drum kit.

Ben sollee lexington opera house