"i've never heard anyone play so many instruments on the cello!"
gideon freudmann is an accomplished musician/songwriter who specializes in playing the cello within an inch of its life (
figuratively, of course). He was trained in
classical music, and received a
bachelor of fine arts in cello performance from the
university of connecticut.
since then, he's been experimenting with different sounds, making plenty of
far-out,
witty albums, and bringing his unique style to
venues across the
country. he's performed at the new directions cello
festival in
new york, as well as many
colleges and universities (i first saw him at the
simon's rock college annual mayfest celebration in 1997). he also does
artist-in-residence programs at colleges including the university of connecticut,
james madison university, and the
ithaca violincello institute. and he maintains a
newsletter full of
ramblings and
tour dates, which he emails each month to his fans.
gideon appeared as a
guest musician on many albums, including two of
dar williams' cds: the
honesty room and
mortal city.
he has been described as a "cross-genre"
cellist, and is usually lumped in the
folk/
bluegrass/
world music category by cd distributors. oh, but he's so much more! gideon freudmann invented
cellobop, which he describes as "the passion of a
Mozart aria or the fury of a
Bartok quartet layered with an
R&B sensibility." really this amounts to making some very
odd, diverse sounds come out of a single
instrument, the
electric cello. with various playing styles and techniques, as well as funky sound effects,
pickups and
amps, gideon can make his cello sound like just about anything.
his non-classical influences include the kronos quartet,
turtle island
string quartet,
penguin cafe orchestra, guitarist
leo kottke, and many
jazz and
blues legends.
his
music is hard to describe in words. to get a better feel for it, you should
check out some of his albums:
give gideon freudmann your
money. he's wonderfully
squishy.
thanks, www.cellobop.com