Claire Bryant / Whole Heart Liner Notes

Whole Heart Claire Bryant

Liner Notes Claire met composer and cellist Andrea Casarrubios when the two were fellows in Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect in the 2000s. Andrea’s work SEVEN, commissioned during the 2020 lockdown by cellist Thomas Mesa, is a song of isolation. The piece honors the 7pm ritual that took place each night in New York City, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; neighbors, isolated from one another during the day, gathered at their windows, clapping and beating pots and pans, enthusiastically communing together in appreciation those on the frontlines, who were working tirelessly for the rest of us. The piece ends in homage, with seven, solemn, bell-like sounds.

Ayudame, written in 2004, was the first piece Claire commissioned as a young cellist at Juilliard, from her best friend, composer Adam Schoenberg. It was their first time working closely in this way, and the experience paved the way for a lifelong friendship. “The title, Ayudame,” Adam writes, “translates from Spanish to English as “help me” and refers, in part, to my struggle with composing the piece.” Concurrently, the piece was pushing Claire as a cellist, juxtaposing extreme virtuosity and high emotional output. Together, they persevered. As two young artists setting out on their careers, Ayudame allowed them to embrace the difficult corners of artistic expression.

BRIGHT SHINY THINGS

Delta Sunrise is a musical sonnet about wanderlust. It was written in 2017 by composer Jessica Meyer on a plane ride home from visiting New Orleans for the first time. Delta Sunrise highlights the cello’s softer side, featuring celestial and ethereal textures. Jessica reflects, "the city and the people I connected with there made such an impression on me that I felt the deep need to process the experience by immediately writing a piece". The companion music video for Delta Sunrise was shot on the coast of South Carolina by filmmaker Carleen Maur in June of 2022.

Claire met composer Caroline Shaw when the two were young children – campers and Suzuki collaborators at Camp Gwynn Valley in North Carolina; the two have enjoyed a lifelong personal and professional connection ever since. Limestone & Felt, for cello and viola, was written by Caroline in 2012, and presents two contrasting, common textures – resonant, gleaming limestone and muted, soft felt. Violist and producer Nadia Sirota, another lifelong friend of Claire’s (they met at a summer music festival in the 2000s), joins her for this exuberant performance.

Varsha (Rain), was written in 2019 by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. This beautiful work uses Hindustani raags from the Malhaar family, which are sung to beckon rain.

Originally inspired by Haydn’s Seven Last Words for string quartet, the piece is a reflection on physical and spiritual thirst. Reena writes, “Music can have an incredibly focusing power. A beautiful performance pulls you into the present, into the here and now. And even if that's all we have, and even if that is the only moment two people share with one another - or will ever share with each other - it can still be transformative."

BRIGHT SHINY THINGS

And Even These Small Wonders by Tanner Porter was commissioned by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music during the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown, part of an initiative to provide composers and performers with an artistic and collaborative outlet during a particularly difficult time for the arts. The score is notably playful and optimistic, a suiting send-off for this album, which was conceived in a trying time, but looks brightly towards the future.

Jessie Montgomery’s Duo for violin and cello is a three movement work that sets the two instruments against each other in a series of playful, glittering, and virtuosic tableaux. Jessie writes, “the piece is meant as an ode to friendship with movements characterizing laughter, compassion, adventure, and sometimes silliness.” Claire can think of no better collaborator for this work than her colleague, Ari Streisfeld, also a professor at the University of South Carolina, and old friend from their days in New York City.

BRIGHT SHINY THINGS