The Crying Wall

Imagine a cellist pulling up a chair in front of the Crying Wall in Jerusalem and starting to play. This wall is holy for all the Jews, Christians and Muslims. I imagine the cello as a woman: talking, reasoning, screaming, pleading, praying to the wall, at times calm, angry, questioning, accepting, thankful, whispering, pleading, rebelling, screaming… No matter what she does, there is a quietness of being in the depth of everything. She goes to the center of herself and stays there. It is a stubborn stance against the chaos and unexplained of the world. It is acceptance of fate, sorrow, and of giving up. She is screaming among the thousands of things in the universe that are happening around her but no one hears her. Maybe this is the way she wants it anyway. It is as though she drank from a potion that makes her invisible, no one can see her or hear her. But she exists – in nothing and everything. The work is an important departure point for me as I make extensive use of quarter tones in both the solo cello and orchestra. Solo cello performs only in the top of its register, in the highest octave. Kamran Ince