– Paul Rosenthal, Artistic Director, Sitka Summer Music Festival
Press
February 25, 2009 Historically, carbon-fiber composites have beefed up airplane and space shuttle wings, formed rocket nose cones, and sliced through the waves in the America's Cup. Known for their stronger-than-steel sturdiness, the materials weren't originally developed with high art in mind. But instruments made from these materials offer many advantages: they're durable, lighter than wood, and insensitive to changes in temperature or humidity. MORE |
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Cold Case: The Sound of Carbon for Yo-Yo Ma? When the cellist Yo-Yo Ma takes to the inaugural stage on Tuesday, the instrument he will have may take music enthusiasts by surprise. Black, with a single-piece body, neck and peg box, and with no scroll at the top, the cello is a high-tech carbon-fiber instrument designed to withstand the cold. Created by Luis Leguia and his Massachusetts-based company, Luis and Clark, the cello is unaffected by temperature and humidity, which can crack or split the delicate antique instruments that professionals usually use. Mr. Ma plans to play his Luis and Clark cello if the weather warrants, said his manager, Mary Pat Buerkle. His other cello, a 1733 Montagnana from Venice, is worth more than $2 million. Mr. Ma will be playing a score by John Williams with Itzhak Perlman on violin, Gabriela Montero on piano and Anthony McGill on clarinet. Mr. Perlman could not be reached for comment. Mr. Ma is not the only inaugural string player using a Luis and Clark instrument. At the “We Are One” concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, the entire Joint Service Orchestra string section — 44 musicians in all — played the company’s carbon-fiber cellos, violins, violas and basses. “My cello is a couple hundred years old,” said Staff Sgt. Ben Wensel, a cellist in the United States Army Band, before rehearsing on Friday in 14-degree weather. “I wouldn’t dare take it outside in this.” Sergeant Wensel said that this would be the first time a major orchestra had exclusively used carbon string instruments. The orchestra is a combination of the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Navy and Marine bands. Mr. Leguia, who studied under Pablo Casals and played cello for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 44 years, came up with the idea for a composite cello after going sailing on a fiberglass Hobie 16 catamaran. He was struck by how efficiently the boat’s hulls transmitted the sound of the waves. “The greatest instruments can be heard through the din of an orchestra,” he said in a telephone interview. “I saw potential in that.” The first cello Mr. Leguia built was of fiberglass in 1990. He then moved to carbon, partnering with Steve Clark, a champion sailor and carbon-fiber expert from Rhode Island. Mr. Clark helped refine the design and construction process, and the Luis and Clark cello was born. About 12 Luis and Clark instruments are manufactured each week at Clear Carbon and Components in Bristol, R.I. The cello costs $7,139. Each instrument takes about a week to build and is handmade of layers of carbon fiber and epoxy. More than 600 have been produced. As for the sound, Mr. Leguia said that he had tried to maintain the full-bodied sound of top-end instruments, but at a much lower price. A carbon cello, he said has a “flooding, deeper sound,” though “not quite as penetrating” as Mr. Ma’s Montagnana. René Morel, who deals in fine string instruments in Manhattan, has said the sound is as close as you can get to a traditional top cello like a Stradivarius without being one. The cellist Aldo Parisot, a longtime instructor at the Yale School of Music, has been recommending Mr. Leguia’s cellos to his students for everyday use. Sergeant Wensel said that his instrument “sounded a little raw at first,” but that “the sound has opened up for me.” “It’s a good cello,” he added, “not just a good carbon cello.” |
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Philip Heyman is the principal viola of the Welsh National Opera Orchestra. He owns and plays a Luis and Clark viola. During the month of January, he and Luis Leguia played two recitals at the Welsh Royal College of Music, Oxford University and the Victoria Albert Museum in London. |
| Mihai Marica won the 33rd International Music Competition Playing a Luis and Clark carbon fiber cello, Rumanian cellist Mihai Marica won the 33rd International Music Competition in Viña del Mar in Chile, regarded as one of the most prestigious music competitions in the world. Marica, a protégée of Aldo Parisot, competed against cellists from a dozen different countries to win this celebrated prize. |
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This cello's no carbon copy: Derek Gomez's carbon
fibre cello unique among professional EDMONTON - Derek Gomez is a quiet man, an analytical man. Behind his reserved exterior, though, the Edmonton Symphony cellist is also what you might call a practical revolutionary. Without warning, a few months ago, he showed up for work with a carbon fibre cello. In a world where old wood talks, bringing in a composite instrument could have been seen as deviant. Classical musicians can be a conservative lot, but Gomez says his five playing mates in the cello section were intrigued. "They were all immediately impressed with it although they wouldn't give up their wooden cellos," says Gomez. "They've been really receptive." Colin Ryan, the ESO's principal cellist, says after a period of adjustment, the high-tech instrument has fit into the section just fine. And Ryan is hankering for a chance to get to know better what it can do. "It really piques your imagination." Ryan says he was trying to persuade Gomez to let him play it for an evening during the recent Nutcracker run or to take it home for a weekend. The instrument compares favourably to the traditional wooden one,
and it's considerably "It's surprising it has the quality of instruments costing many times more. I can tell you if a young player was looking at me saying what should I buy to move up, I'd say you should really consider it," Ryan says. Gomez's late-19th-century Italian cello cost him $20,000 years ago,
a paltry sum for a professional instrument. A Stradivarius, a Guarneri
or a Montagnana Gomez says he's always been open to new ideas, but his first contact with the synthetic instrument world didn't come from some great leap of the imagination. He needed a cello that wouldn't break. A couple of summers ago, he was hired to play chamber music for whitewater
rafters going down the Colorado River into the Grand Canyon for two
weeks. He'd heard He found he liked the instrument beyond its physical resilience. "I thought it was such a cool thing to have," he recalls. For the next year, Gomez mulled over the idea of getting a space-age cello for himself. "I've always been intrigued by new ideas on ways to improve upon what we do. And I've always looked at my instrument as basically just a tool, as a way of transmitting human expression. In that sense it's not all about the instrument. It's all about what you project through that tool." Gomez made the move, but he didn't go with a Quintus cello. He'd heard about a Boston company and was especially impressed that its cellos were developed by an admired musician who has been one of the 11 cellists in the prestigious Boston Symphony for 40 years. The Luis & Clark cello testimonials from other BSO musicians were also convincing. It didn't hurt that the world's most famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, had played a Luis & Clark cello in an outdoor July 4 concert and said good things about the instrument. In an interview with CNN's Paula Zahn, Ma told the world, "You can see I have a really interesting cello. It also serves as a barbecue. ... I love this instrument." Gomez got a hold of Luis Leguia, the instrument's inventor, and had a cello sent to Edmonton with the guarantee it could be returned if the ESO player didn't like it. "I went on the premise that if this guy was playing it, it must be good. He mailed it up to me and I've been loving it ever since," Gomez says. Leguia says Gomez is the only Canadian musician to own one of his carbon fibre cellos. A cursory survey of other Canadian orchestras confirmed reports that Gomez is the only Canadian professional using one. (A Toronto Symphony player did offer to be interviewed about his graphite tennis racket, however.) Leguia took 10 years to perfect his design and enlisted the expertise of Steve Clark to manufacture the cellos. Clark has built prize-winning Little Americas Cup C-class catamarans using carbon fibre. The Boston cellist says he usually plays one of his expensive wooden
instruments in symphony concerts, but he uses his carbon fibre instrument
exclusively for Gomez still plays his wooden cello, especially for his Alberta Baroque Ensemble concerts. The old look fits better with the old music. But he's excited by the new technology's potential. "I think with modern-age science, we can maybe get closer to
what's in your head by making it easier to interpret that through
your hands. That's my goal. I just He teases that the new instrument might call for a new concert wardrobe, as well. "I think I should update my uniform. A leather tuxedo, I think." |
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LUIS
AND CLARK Carbon Fibre Cello Alberta String Association Newsletter Summer 2006 Josephine van Lier |
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Luces: El Chelista |
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El Universo |
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Selecciones-Readers's Digest: Innovadores |
It's
lighter, cheaper and it turns heads in the pit: Derek Gomez plays
his $7,500 (Canadian dollars) space-age cello.