James Oesi / Maya Fridman at HCMF

James Oesi / Maya Fridman at St Paul's Hall, Huddersfield, 21 November 2019, free entry - Visit now

Double bassist James Oesi has transformed his instrument into a mainstay of solo performance, taking apart its tradition as a band tool. In a concert of virtuoso workouts, he premieres a series of new works that highlight his intricate understanding of the bass – drawing on different worlds and converting them to his.

Cellist Maya Fridman has spent the last couple of years going from emerging to accomplished, becoming one of music’s most in-demand soloists. Well-versed in playing demanding and imaginative new music, she will perform Canti d’Inizio e Fine, the overwhelming new work by composer Maxim Shalygin. A song cycle in six parts, each movement of Canti d’Inizio e Fine represents a different ‘imaginary folder in the Holocaust victims directory, called after a segment of the German alphabet, and assigned to one out of six Angels of Death’. The music – at times rhythmic, at others sober and meditative – is an attempt to depict the horrors experienced in the concentration camps.