[piano intro] - [Narrator] Funding for Cello Cantabile provided by Deerfield, Gillespie Dental Associates, Frugal Framer, Mercy Urgent Care, Laborde Eye Group, BlackBird Frame & Art, Gould Killian CPA Group, Tops for Shoes, HomeTrust Bank, Groce Funeral Home, Asheville Eye Associates.

[gentle orchestral music] ♪ - Hello and welcome.

My name is Darko Butorac.

I am the music director and conductor of our Asheville Symphony.

I'm very excited to be at Diana Wortham Theater this evening as we welcome cellist Amit Peled, a wonderful musician who will present a truly varied program of the most beautiful cello music ranging from well-known works such as the Haydn Cello Concerto and Bruch's Kol Nidrei to something a little more popular and fun and even a beautiful spiritual that's arranged especially for meet.

Enjoy.

[audience applauding] ["Fandango"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] I'm here with our guest soloist, cellist Amit Peled.

Amit, welcome.

- Thank you, great to be here.

- It's great to have you here.

I'm so excited that we get to play music again together.

I really feel more than any cellist I've ever worked with, you have a very rhapsodic way of approaching these kinds of works.

You take incredible liberties and rubatos and tell me why.

- Well, the first reason- - What's the philosophy behind it?

- Well, it's actually quite simple.

First, you need a good conductor and I cannot do it with, no, I'm serious.

If a conductor cannot follow me, I have to behave.

- Right.

- And, but you can, and that's a problem.

So you allow me- - So the better I am, the worse it gets for me.

- Exactly.

- I see.

- You allow me to be myself and that's big mistakes that you're doing.

- Thank you.

- But then this kind of music, especially the Kol Nidrei is basically a stepping into a synagogue and I become a contour and you become the congregation, the rabbi, the women up there, the men here, and- - [Darko] And there's no metronome in any synagogue saying- - No, this is not a [speaking in foreign language] - It's about passion, yeah.

- And, but I have to say that if one doesn't know the score, you cannot take, so you need to take time out of order.

If you just do whatever you want, it collapses right away.

And the same thing goes for the Hungarian Rhapsody.

It's rhapsodic, but you need to have the Hungarian character.

- [Darko] Spirit.

[Amit hums] The [indistinct] and then the emphasize of notes and the harmonic progression.

You need to know where the chords come, so you can really take the time in between.

- In the proper place.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Yes, yes, yes.

- So I think, you know, one of my colleagues at Peabody who passed away, Leon Fleischer, this year, used to say that real music is a free walk on a firm ground.

So you give me the firm ground and I walk freely.

- I love it.

- But without that firm ground, I cannot do that, so thank you.

- That's a wonderful compliment.

[audience applauding] ["Kol Nidrei"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] ["Concerto in C Major III"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] ["Prelude in G Major"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] ["Brandenburg Concerto No.

3"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] You suggested Motherless Child.

Why this particular piece?

What struck you about it when you listened to it?

You sent me a recording of- - Yeah, well, the two reasons.

One, just simply being a parent.

And few days, actually before you contacted me, I was surfing online just out of boredom being quarantined.

And usually you press a link, you go away, you press another, but this one was an article about the spiritual and about a mother that took her seven kids on a weekend to the area next to the court in the old America and her kids were sold for slavery.

And on that particular Saturday, all seven kids were sold.

So she never saw them again.

And then one of the children is singing this song, I'm motherless now.

And I just thought about it as a parent.

What if my kids, you know, on a Saturday would just be sold and I'll never see them again, no iPhone, no nothing.

So I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It made me really want to play it.

And then you came up with the arrangement and I said, wow, this is a great cello piece.

And it just works so well.

And I'm so happy to do it together with orchestra and with you.

- We should mention this is an arrangement by Asav Gleiser, who's a phenomenal jazz pianist.

And he provided it on like no notice.

It was done so quickly.

And it's just, it's beautiful reimagining of the song.

And I love what you've done with it because you really, not only does it sing, but it shows off the cello in its glory, from the low register to the upper register, interacting with the ensemble.

And it's a really special piece that we've kind of are giving birth to today.

- Yeah, and it was, the whole process, people don't know when they hear us play, of course, we rehearse here, but through this process and embracing Zoom and the internet and the video making, I would rehearse a phrase, put it on video and text it to you.

- Right.

- And then you would hear it.

You would send it to the arranger.

And so it has been a great process to do it one week and then thinking, oh, this is how I want to play it.

But then the week after it's completely different because I lived with it for a week.

- You discover new things.

- Yeah, and then you are reacting to it as well.

And then bring it to the orchestra where we already went through kind of a process of owning the piece.

["Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] ["Le Carnaval Des Animaux"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] ["Hungarian Rhapsody, OP.68"] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [audience applauding] [orchestral music] ♪ ♪ - [Narrator] Cello Cantabile was created in partnership with Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, Kimpton Hotel Arras, Asheville, North Carolina Arts Council, Explore Asheville.

the Payne Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas C. Bolton, University of North Carolina, Asheville, Asheville Symphony Guild, Asheville Symphony Symphonettes.