World-Class Cellist Performs for Crabapple Crossing and Summit Hill Elementary School Students
Students at Crabapple Crossing and Summit Hill elementary schools were recently treated to a special performance by GRAMMY award-winning cellist Zuill Bailey, a performing artist who also teaches at the University of Texas El Paso. His performance launched the inaugural season of Music Milton, a new music series of concerts and events in Milton and its neighboring communities. The series is designed to bring people together through music and partnerships with schools.
The first event took place at Crabapple Crossing. Students, who had been prepared by their music teachers, gasped in awe as Bailey pulled the slipcover off his 325-year-old cello. Made by famed 17th -century Italian master craftsman Matteo Goffriller, the cello had already traveled six million miles with Bailey for his various performances around the country and the world. It even gets its own seat on an airplane.
Music Milton Artistic Director William Ransom introduced Bailey, and the concert began in silence as Bailey mentally prepared. When he performs at schools, rather than beginning each performance with a pre-determined piece of music, he prefers to absorb the energy of his audience and decide what he believes will fit in the moment. At both concerts he performed J.S. Bach’s “Prelude from the Cello Suite No.1 in G Major” (often used in commercials and movies) and Johannes Brahms’ “Cradle Song,” commonly known as Brahms’ Lullaby, as well as other pieces for solo cello.
The performance was both a formal recital, an opportunity for learning proper audience concert etiquette, as well as a thoughtful interactive exercise using the senses and emotions to listen and respond to music. After explaining the parts of the instrument and bow, comparing them to the upper parts of the human body, he invited his audience to share what music means to him. At Summit Hill, he brought a student up onstage to assist with encouraging silence and listening, while at Crabapple, he went out into the audience to play, inviting students to circle around him.
The son of musicians, Bailey began studying cello at age four and wants classical music to be interesting to children as well as adults. He added fun elements like noting his hard-shell cello case is made from one of the materials in Batman’s car: carbon fiber. It weighs just 3 pounds yet can hold the 20-pound instrument, making it easy to carry like a backpack. One piece was played entirely on a single string. He also demonstrated how the cello has the unique tonal range of multiple instruments; it plays as high as a violin, mid-range like a viola and as low as a string bass. Students were asked to identify by sound popular tunes like the two-note theme from “Baby Shark” (staff members remembered it as the theme from the film “Jaws”) as well as funny deep-sea whale sounds. At the end, students were given an opportunity to ask questions.
Fulton County Schools and its performing arts department, headed by Matt Koperniak, is thrilled to partner with this innovative and enriching new artistic project and look forward to future events in the coming years.
