Expansive and ethereal, temporal yet spiritual, shining in shadow, Bach’s music receives a contemporary redux ripe with nuance through its simplicity. Maya Beiser, releases her first offering from her latest project, InfInIte Bach, which will release this May. Recorded in a spatial audio and a binaural mix, “Chapter 1: LIGHT, Cello Suite No 4 in Eb, Prélude” encapsulates the everchanging push and pull of harmonics gliding against sweet resonance. 

The 59-year-old musician partnered with longtime sound engineer and collaborator, Dave Cook, to reimagine the solo cello suites of J.S. Bach to bring listeners into the space where the album was recorded: Beiser’s converted barn in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Beiser shares, “I considered how the space itself uncovers, informs and reshapes my interpretation of the Bach Suites, feeding back the music to me as I play and record it.”

Beiser and Cook utilize naturally occurring drones and harmonics to create a unique soundscape that mixes and matches microphones placed throughout the acoustic environment they recorded in — all while staying true to Bach’s music. “I brought my longtime sound engineer and collaborator, Dave Cook, to the space and we started exploring the acoustic environment. I considered how the space itself uncovers, informs and reshapes my interpretation of the Bach Suites, feeding back the music to me as I play and record it. We mixed many microphones placed at various distances in the resonant space to emphasize nuances in overtones, reflections, and reverberations.” She continues, “Analyzing the multichannel recording, identifying and accentuating the natural drones and harmonics, we further reinforced the resonances and macro harmonic structure of the music. In the spatial audio mix, we aimed to bring the listening experience into the room; guiding the listener through the virtual space as the music infinitely evolves around them."

Mentored by the late violinist Isaac Stern and having performed at a myriad of prestigious stages all over the world, from Carnegie Hall in New York to the Sydney Opera House in Australia, Beiser has innumerable accolades that elevate her to titan status in the classical music space. The avant-garde cellist has collaborated with the likes of Louis Andriessen, Philip Glass, Shirin Neshat, and countless other maestros of the classical music world.

“I spent 2022, my 60th year of life, immersed in recording, and rerecording, deconstructing and decontextualizing, experimenting and exploring sounds, reverberations, harmonics in my converted barn in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, engaging with Bach’s cello Suites,” she shares on the process of recording the album. “Having dedicated the past 35 years to creating new music, work that reimagines the cello on a vast canvas in multiple disciplines, I radically departed from the conventional classical cello sound.”