Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 1, 1991 TAG: 9102010325
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JEFF DeBELL/ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Cello Pudding.
Can't Run With a Cello.
Cellovision.
Babes on Strings.
It was fun, McHenry said, but "they weren't for us. Simple and to the point was the way to go."
They decided on Cello. Less color
ful than Babes on Strings, perhaps, but definitely simple and to the point.
This group doesn't need a funny name to be different. It accomplishes that just by existing. McHenry said Cello is probably the country's only full-time cello quartet and certainly the only female foursome.
Roanokers will be able to hear the group Sunday, when it plays at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church as part of the church's annual fine arts series.
For McHenry and fellow Cello member Stephanie Cummins, the group's Roanoke debut will be a homecoming. Both women are former members of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.
Cummins grew up in Roanoke as part of one of the valley's premiere music families. Dad Richard is a pianist and harpsichordist and music minister at Greene Memorial, where he directs the fine arts series. Mom Rita is in demand as a soprano. Sister Cenovia is a violinist who free-lances in New York and is about to tour Mexico with the Orchestra of St. Luke's.
McHenry also has family in the valley. Her parents are Reiko and Harold "Crick" Crickenberger of Roanoke.
The other members of Cello are Caryl Paisner and Maureen McDermott. All four women live in the New York area, where they make their livings as free-lance musicians and orchestra players while building the reputation of their 3-year-old quartet.
"We're not a household name but we're doing well as far as classical chamber groups go," McHenry said by telephone from New York.
The group will play its first performance at New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall on Thursday. It has done concerts in Rochester (with jazz bassist Ron Carter) and in New York City's Cami Hall.
Most often, however, Cello does club gigs in places like The Bitter End.
"I know some classical musicians who'd never do that," McHenry said. "Put up with the talking and clinking glasses and bar noise. We're not put off by that. Those are the people we're trying to reach."
From the beginning, Cello has aimed to expand the audience for classical music, particularly among younger people whom McHenry says are "put off by the stodgy, serious side of it."
Another of its objectives is to expand the repertoire for cello quartet, which is tiny. That goal has borne fruit in the form of "The Visionary" and "Samba de Sol" by Jeff Beal, Kenn Chipkin's "Funk by Proxy" and Ron Carter's four-cello arrangement of his own "Loose Change," among other new works.
Those pieces will be performed in the Roanoke concert along with works by Bartok, Vivaldi, Barber, Gershwin, John Adams, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. It's a jazz-classical mix that is typical of Cello and one that it will take to Carnegie Recital Hall despite its reputation as a classical house.
"We don't want to lose what Cello is all about," McHenry said. "We're going to be ourselves and hope that we'll be accepted that way. It's our most important concert to date. We will be looking for reviews and for our acceptance in the, quote, classical world."
To date, Cello's reputation beyond New York rests mainly on its first compact disc. Titled "Cello," it was recorded on the Pro Arte label and issued last year. The first printing has sold out and there will be another. A new recording also is planned, McHenry said.
The cellist did what she could to push the CD last year while on tour with pop singer Belinda Carlisle. Whenever the tour hit a new city, McHenry visited radio stations and record stores to promote the disc. It's a role she's comfortable in.
"I've always been torn between arts management and performing," she said.
After leaving Roanoke in 1983, McHenry played in the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and was on its administrative staff in Raleigh as well. Her first job in New York, where she moved in 1987, was as executive assistant to the music director of of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She also worked for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
It was when she moved to New York that McHenry adopted the name Sachi. Previously, she was known as Peggy. Both names were borrowed from her grandmothers. McHenry is the name of the cellist's former husband.
"My name has changed so much, people in college have no idea who I am," she said.
McHenry is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Her colleagues are alumnae of such prestigious institutions as Yale, Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music.
McHenry, Paisner and McDermott knew each other as fellow music students and free-lancers in New York. Cummins joined the group later, not long after moving to New York and taking a position in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. She and McHenry had known each other in Roanoke.
The quartet members shared a love of "the sound of cello ensemble," McHenry said, and decided to pursue it through a quartet. A coed lineup was never considered.
"It was part of the look we wanted," McHenry said. "It set us apart in another way besides being a cello quartet and playing new music. It was a way of grabbing attention."
The group has no leader. All decisions are by majority rule, including what to play and where to play it. The women even rotate the lead parts among themselves.
"That's why it's so much fun to play in a group like this," McHenry said. "We all get to play the melody."
Sunday's concert will begin at 4 p.m. Admission is free, though an offering will be collected to help defray expenses of the fine arts series.
CELLO: 4 p.m. Sunday, Greene Memorial United Methodist Church. Free.
by CNB