Sony Classical Presents Cellist Anastasia Kobekina and the Mysteries of Venice – New Single Abendserenade Out Today
Sony Classical Presents
Cellist Anastasia Kobekina and the Mysteries of Venice
From the Renaissance of Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland
to the twenty-first-century with Brian Eno and Caroline Shaw
New Single “Abendserenade”
Out Today
Album Trailer - Watch Here
Album Release Date: February 2, 2024
Preorder Now
“My ultimate goal in making music is getting beyond cello technique and instead attempting to reach for that feeling when I sing in my most expressive, private and personal moments. Music at its most direct.” – Anastasia Kobekina
“She is the embodiment of grace.” – Le Monde
“Kobekina plays with gorgeous elegance and effortlessly wide lines”
– Der Tagesspiegel
Sony Classical presents its debut album from charismatic cellist Anastasia Kobekina, to be released on February 2, 2024. The “unrivaled musician” (Le Figaro) known for her fearless musicianship and “almost overwhelming sincerity” (The Strad) presents an eclectic concept album exploring her own multifaceted relationship to the city of Venice. New single, “Abendserenade” is out today – listen here.
Anastasia Kobekina is a trailblazing artist who is proving a major force in shaping the future of classical music. A former BBC New Generation Artist and Borletti-Butoni Trust Artist, her communication skills and imaginative flair combine with a command of modern and baroque cellos, both of which mingle seamlessly on her new album.
Venice, which showcases many sides of Kobekina’s artistry, draws listeners away from the lugubrious gondoliers and carnival masks that have provided our standard musical image of Venice. Instead, the album asks how much of what we’ve internalized about the iconic city is actually real. ‘Venice feels not just a city but an idea, a character in itself,’ says the cellist; ‘or maybe it presents a different character to each of us. It asks questions of you, fires your imagination.’
Her album, on which Kobekina is joined by a team of handpicked soloists and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, presents an embracing, personal conversation between past and present, including music from the Renaissance of Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland to the twenty-first-century of Brian Eno and Caroline Shaw.
In reflecting on a city that exists both physically and in the imagination, Venice creates and links musical worlds. Some of the most familiar music on the album is invigorated for being both taken out of one context and placed in another. More unfamiliar music sounds strangely close-to-home. The effect is dream-like, enchanting and thought provoking - as mysterious, timeless and surprising as Venice itself.
Among the works included are those of the free-spirited Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677). Between concerto movements by Vivaldi and Bach, American composer Caroline Shaw’s work Limestone and Felt yanks us into the present day, the puncturing of history being played out in sound. There are works by twentieth-century greats in whose lives Venice played a role: Gabriel Fauré, Nino Rota and Benjamin Britten.
Also included is Kobekina’s performance of her own father Vladimir Kobekin’s work based on a melody by Monteverdi, Ariadne’s Lament. ‘This piece goes right under my skin, and recording it was one of the most intense musical experiences I have ever had,’ she says.
Monteverdi, a former Director of Music at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, is a near-constant presence on the album. Likewise, the most famous composer to have emerged from Venice, Antonio Vivaldi, is represented across a number of cello concertos.
Of Vivaldi, Kobekina says: ‘There are such extreme contrasts in Vivaldi’s music, especially between the orchestra and soloist, it’s as if between sun and shade. There is this almost physical feeling of getting picked up and carried off in the waves. An unconscious dance, eternal, as if beating a rhythm innate in all of us, movement as the root of music. It is so easy to get swept away in.’
In the music of the baroque as in the music of today, Kobekina displays instinctive flair and tangible sincerity. She states firmly that this is not an album about the cello but the human voice - in both the adaptation of songs and arias and the desire to achieve, even in music conceived for instruments, the most natural communicative expression.
‘The voice exists closest to our thoughts and imagination…our everyday speech,’ she says.
‘My ultimate goal in making music is getting beyond cello technique,’ says Kobekina, ‘beyond the wood, the strings, the bow, beyond simply reproducing a sound or echoing a particular voice, and instead attempting to reach for that feeling when I sing in my most expressive, private and personal moments. Music at its most direct.’