Inbal Segev Pairs Elgar Concerto with Premiere Recording of Anna Clyne’s DANCE on New Avie Album Featuring Marin Alsop & LPO, Out June 5

June 5 brings a new release on the Avie label for Inbal Segev, the Israeli-American cellist known for her “complete dedication and high intelligence” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Recorded with Marin Alsop and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the album pairs Segev’s interpretations of two English cello concertos composed exactly a century apart: Elgar’s iconic, elegiac example dates from 1919, while Anna Clyne’s DANCE was written just last year. For the cellist, who commissioned Clyne’s new work and gave its world and East Coast premieres last summer, the release marks a major career milestone.

The recording captures the close musical rapport Segev shares with her two female collaborators. She and the conductor co-curated both seasons of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival together, and it was Alsop who originally introduced her to the Grammy-nominated composer. This in turn kindled the first flames of the partnership that led Segev to commission DANCE, which Clyne – “a composer of uncommon gifts” (New York Times) – based on a poem by 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi. The cellist explains:

“Anna’s music has an old-soul sensibility but is fresh and modern at the same time. This juxtaposition of old and new has always appealed to me; it suits my playing, as well as the tone of my 1673 Ruggieri cello.”

Of her decision to pair Clyne’s new concerto with Elgar’s, Segev reflects:

“It is so rewarding, to record and perform the work of a contemporary female composer whose music complements Elgar’s so well. The two pieces share a certain sensibility – a romanticism, warmth and humanity – that transcends any stylistic differences. There the similarities end, however, for whereas Anna Clyne’s DANCE is essentially optimistic and forward-looking, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, composed shortly after the First World War, is deeply reflective, and is in a way a requiem for humanity. One senses this extraordinary sense of loss, not only of those who had fallen, but of a whole way of life – a more innocent age that will never return.”

Clyne attended all the recording sessions, even those devoted to the Elgar. As Segev recalls:

“It was a rare privilege to have the composer herself on hand to answer our every question. As a result, this recording has a certain authority of which, as an interpreter, one can usually only dream.”

The cellist commissioned DANCE for the Baltimore Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony, São Paulo Symphony and California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, where she gave its first performance under the baton of Cristian Măcelaru. After the second performance, with New York’s Chautauqua Symphony, the Chautauquan Daily marveled:

“Clyne is a genius for our time. … Herself a cellist, she created DANCE for talent her equal. Soloist Segev held her audience in a profound resonance to experience opposites, melody confronted with turbulence, those moments of the poet, where one feels acutely alive within the sharpness of pain – then surprised by underlying beauty.”

As the review recognized, Segev is “an important artist.” Clyne’s concerto expands the growing portfolio of major new works she has premiered, which also include concertos by Timo Andres, Avner Dorman and Dan Visconti. She currently looks forward to recording Andres’s concerto, Upstate Obscura, for release by Nonesuch, expanding a discography that already features premiere recordings of concertos by Lucas Richman and Max Schubel as well as acclaimed interpretations of Bach’s Cello Suites (Vox) and Romantic cello works by Chopin, Schumann and  Grieg (Avie). Combining “rich tone, secure presence and complete technical mastery” (Jerusalem Post), in live performance Segev has appeared with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic and Pittsburgh Symphony. Besides making regular appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, she co-founded the Amerigo Trio with former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus. The cellist’s popular YouTube masterclass series, Musings with Inbal Segev, has received more than a million views to date.

Click here to download high-resolution photos.

Inbal Segev: Anna Clyne: DANCE; Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto

Inbal Segev, cello
With Marin Alsop and the London Philharmonic Orchestra
Release date: June 5
Label: Avie
Anna Clyne (b. 1980): DANCE (2019; world premiere recording)
Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor (1919)