The Day Maya Beiser & Kate Valk

• 1The Day30:23
• 2World to Come24:10
• Total Runtime54:33

Info for The Day

Composed by David Lang, the day was commissioned in 2016 by cellist Maya Beiser as a prequel to world to come (2003), which Lang also wrote for Beiser in response to the tragic events of 9/11. Both pieces are meditations on life, but from very different perspectives. the day looks at ways we review our lives, Lang explains, exploring remembered moments as a chronicle of a life. Lang sourced the text from the internet by searching for the phrase I remember the day that I..., and then cut and compiled lyrics based on his findings. The spoken word accompaniment by actor Kate Valk lends an emotional charge to Beisers poignant cello lines, which gradually build in multi-tracked layers to emulate a small string ensemble.

Maya Beiser, cello
Kate Valk, spoken words

Maya Beiser
Hailed as “the reigning queen of avant-garde cello” by The Washington Post, Maya Beiser brings a bold and unorthodox presence to contemporary classical music. Raised on a commune in Israel’s Galilee Mountains by her Argentinean father and French mother, Beiser spent her early life surrounded by the music and rituals of Jews, Muslims, and Christians, while studying classical cello repertoire. Throughout her extensive career she has been a featured performer on the world’s greatest stages, defying conventional norms with her boundary-crossing performances. Maya has collaborated with eclectic artists across five continents, reimagining solo cello performance in the mainstream arena. Maya’s vast discography includes fourteen solo albums, many of them topping the classical music charts, and she is the featured soloist on numerous film soundtracks. A graduate of Yale University, Maya Beiser is a United States Artists (USA) Distinguished Fellow in Music and was a Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology. She is the founder of Islandia Music Records, an independent record label that creates work with large-scale social, cultural, and spiritual impact by pushing the boundaries of the art-music genre.

Booklet for The Day