Lyrica Chamber Music concert features two cellists

The cello blends so beautifully with the piano, with a string quartet or a piano trio. Alone, it can bring one to tears. But how often does the cello get to pair with itself?

That rare occurrence will happen when Lyrica Chamber Music presents its co-artistic director Ani Kalayjian and Andrew Yee, cellist for the Grammy Award-winning Attacca String Quartet, in concert at 3 p.m., Sunday, March 24, at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, 240 Southern Blvd.

Lyrica concerts are presented with the support of Morris Arts which seeks to build community through the arts.

“When playing music with two cellos you can really take advantage of two of the beautiful sides of cello playing, lyrical high playing and that really grounded sound of the lower end,” said Yee, who identifies as she/they. “Also as a quartet cellist, I hardly ever get to play with other cellists, and especially ones I love as much as Ani.”

Yee and Kalayjian have assembled a program of diverse works that include the 17th-century composer Jean-Baptiste Barriere and the Armenian musician Komitas, whose career spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Contemporary composers will be represented by Andrea Casarrubios and Caroline Shaw.

Don’t be surprised to hear some of Yee’s own music as well. The concert will feature works for solo cello and two cellos.

“I chose music with Ani the way I choose any music -- does it bring me joy?” Yee said. “The solo pieces I am playing are part of a solo show I do called “Halfie” that is made up of pieces that sort of map my identity, but really it’s an excuse to play music by my friends.”

The Attacca String Quartet won a Grammy Award for its recording of works by Caroline Shaw, so it’s only natural that her music would sound forth at Sunday’s concert.

“Caroline is one of my best friends, and I feel like her music changed the way we feel about modern music in the 21st century,” Yee said. “She has a way of pushing boundaries without ever alienating. I am so proud of the work I have done with her, and I can’t wait to share it with this audience!”

Shaw won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music and has collected several Grammy awards. She wears many hats, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist.

Yee dismisses the idea that being bi-racial and having transitioned to she/they influences her music. But it still provides her with something to transmit to the audience.

“My identity as a trans woman and racial identity don’t directly affect the way I write or the way I play,” Yee said, “but I find when I focus on how the music directly impacts me, it helps me share it with others. You don’t need to know what it is like to be trans or bi-racial to know what it feels like to experience loss or feel imposter syndrome.”

Yee performed at a Lyrica concert with the Attacca Quartet in April, 2018. His relationship with Kalayjian is also long running.

“We have had a great camaraderie as colleagues and friends for many years,” Kalayjian said, “and are excited to collaborate together.”

Trained at the Juilliard School, Yee is a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet which has released several albums to critical acclaim, including Yee’s arrangement of Haydn’s “Seven Last Words” which Thewholenote.com praised as “. . .easily the most satisfying string version of the work that I’ve heard.”

Yee co-composed a score to Wu Tsang’s film adaptation of “Moby Dick; or, The Whale” with Caroline Shaw that was premiered with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and then in New York at the Shed by the New York Philharmonic. She is writing works for Leilehua Lanzilotti, the Thalea Quartet and the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra this season, as well as a new version of the opera “Carmen” for Schauspielhaus Zürich directed by Wu Tsang.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “representing the young, up-and-coming generation,” and a “superb cellist with a large, expressive, singing tone, passionate musicianship, and magnificent playing” by the Journal Tribune, Armenian-American cellist Kalayjian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and educator that has taken her to Japan, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, and throughout Europe and the United States.

Tickets for Lyrica concerts are $30 ($25 for seniors), and students and children are admitted free. For more information about Lyrica Chamber Music, visit www.lyricachambermusic.org or call 973-309-1668.