8-Track Ashley Bathgate

• Fjóla Evans (b. 1987): Augun:
• 1Evans: Augun06:02
• Emily Cooley (b. 1990): Assemble:
• 2Cooley: Assemble09:57
• Alex Weiser (b. 1989): Willow’s Song:
• 3Weiser: Willow’s Song01:27
• Shimmer:
• 4Weiser: Shimmer12:35
• Steve Reich (b. 1976): Cello Counterpoint:
• 5Reich: Cello Counterpoint11:05
• Total Runtime41:06

Info for 8-Track

Cellist Ashley Bathgate releases her third solo album featuring her performance of Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint alongside three new works that take advantage of the versatile format of soloist with layered tracks. Composers Emily Cooley, Alex Weiser, and Fjóla Evans wrote works that expand on Reich’s template, exploring harmonic, dramatic, and gestural contrasts. The homogeneity of timbre inherent in works for layered tracks of the same instrument gives the listener a sense they are hearing a hyper-cello; the compositional strategy both echoes studio techniques that are ubiquitous in commercial music while also amplifying more Romantic impulses of extroverted expression and immersive textures.

The structure and motivic material in Fjóla Evans’ Augun is inspired by the traditional Icelandic song, Vísur Vatnsenda Rósu. Evans organizes overlapping motives taken from the traditional song and creates a shimmering, undulating texture, pushing and pulling between dissonant and consonant voicings. The atmospheric quality of the work tells a non-linear story, painting a complex mix of mournful and resolute emotions.

Emily Cooley’s approach to the layered ensemble was to focus on various groupings of the eight celli as they take on shifting roles in the overall texture. She writes of Assemble, “The title describes what I felt like I was doing while composing: assembling a sort of puzzle. Only at the end of the piece do the eight parts truly assemble into one voice. They all play a slow, resonant chorale that fades into silence." The work ventures through moments of insistent pulse, poignant anticipation, and exuberant lyricism, expanding beyond the bounds of mere assemblage.

Alex Weiser’s Willow’s Song is an arrangement of a William Carlos Williams setting included in a larger work of his, Three Epitaphs, and here serves as a prelude to his longer work on the album. Shimmer opens by extending the final ascending scalar gesture of Willow’s Song, weaving it into luminescent sound masses amongst the cello ensemble. The piece takes advantage of the physical space in performances, calling for spatial organization of the playback of seven pre-recorded cello parts which accompany the live soloist. Weiser writes, “Shimmer explores this sound world through changes – both gradual and dramatic – in melody and range, as well as through a waxing and waning canonic relationship between each cello and the soloist. As the work develops, the appearance of the opening melodic fragment slowed down in augmentation adds a lyrical and sustained element to the texture.”

Steve Reich wrote Cello Counterpoint in 2003 for cellist Maya Beiser and it is the fourth work in his counterpoint series. In performance, the piece is played by a single live cellist playing along with seven pre-recorded tracks (or in an alternate version, by Cello Octet). This innovation of expanding a soloist into a large ensemble through pre-recorded layers augments the sonic palette of a solo instrument while maintaining the simplicity and personality of an individual performer. Reich writes, “The first and last movements are both based on a similar four chord cycle that moves ambiguously back and forth between c minor and Eb major. This harmonic cycle is treated extremely freely however, particularly in the third movement. As a matter of fact, what strikes me most about these movements is that they are generally the freest in structure of any I have ever written. The second, slow movement, is a canon in Eb minor involving, near the end of the movement, seven separate voices.”

Ashley Bathgate, cello

Ashley Bathgate
has been described as an “eloquent new music interpreter” (New York Times) and “a glorious cellist” (The Washington Post) who combines “bittersweet lyricism along with ferocious chops” (New York Magazine). Her “impish ferocity”, “rich tone” and “imaginative phrasing” (New York Times) have made her one of the most sought after performers of her time. The desire to create a dynamic energy exchange with her audience and build upon the ensuing chemistry is a pillar of Bathgate's philosophy as a performer. Dynamism drives her to venture into previously uncharted areas of ground-breaking sounds and techniques, breaking the mold of a cello's traditionally perceived voice. Collaborators and fans alike describe her vitality as nothing short of remarkable and magical for all who are involved.

Bathgate was a member of the acclaimed sextet Bang on a Can All-Stars for ten years. She is also a member of the chamber music group HOWL, TwoSense with pianist Lisa Moore, and Bonjour, a low-strung, percussive quintet. In 2015 Bathgate gave the world premiere of What Moves You, a collaborative performance project with jookin’ dance sensation Lil Buck at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, as well as the world premiere of a new Cello Concerto written for her by Kate Moore for the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht, NL. Her debut solo album, Stories for Ocean Shells, featuring a set of works for cello composed by Moore, was released in 2016 on Cantaloupe Music. That year Bathgate also commissioned the ‘composer collective’ Sleeping Giant to write ASH, a six-movement suite for solo cello, which was released on New Amsterdam Records in the fall of 2019. Her forthcoming album, 8 Track, featuring new multitrack works by Alex Weiser and Emily Cooley, as well as a new rendition of Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint, is due this season on New Focus Recordings. Her latest project is a new evening length work by Michael Gordon, House Music, which premiered at the 2018 Cello Biennale in Amsterdam, NL.

Bathgate’s radio/television appearances include performances on BBC Radio 3, WKCR, WMHT, WQXR’s Meet the Composer podcast with Nadia Sirota, NPR’s Performance Today, WYNC’s New Sounds Live, SiriusXM, Late Night and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Her recorded work can be found on Albany Records, Cantaloupe Music, Innova Recordings, La-La Land Records, Naxos, New Amsterdam Records, Nonesuch, Starkland and Uffda Records. She has also recorded for several podcasts presented by Wondery, Gimlet and Stitcher.

Bathgate studied at Bard College with Luis Garcia-Renart (B.M.) before continuing her education at Yale University with renowned cellist Aldo Parisot (M.M. & A.D). Originally from Saratoga Springs, NY, Bathgate began her cello studies with the late Rudolf Doblin, principal cellist and assistant music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the 1950’s. After his passing, she resumed her tutelage with Ann Alton at Skidmore College. A member of the Empire State Youth Orchestra at the time, Bathgate was also the unprecedented two-time winner of the Lois Lyman Concerto Competition, performing the Saint-Saens and Schumann Cello Concertos with the orchestra at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. While at Bard College, she was invited to perform both the d’Albert and Barber Cello Concertos with the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leon Botstein and then went on to win Yale University’s Concerto Competition in 2008, performing with the Yale Philharmonia in New Haven’s legendary Woolsey Hall.

Booklet for 8-Track