PUTNEY — Next Stage is playing host to a trio of musicians who blend classical training with Catalan folk traditions, jazz, and contemporary sounds.
The Queralt Giralt Soler Trio features Giralt Soler, a vocalist and cellist, Mahya Hamedi on piano, percussion and vocals, and Bahar Badiei, on oud and vocals. The trio performs Giralt Soler’s compositions alongside inspired interpretations of music by Hermeto Pascoal and Paco de Lucía.
Tickets for the Feb. 20 show, which starts at 7:30 p.m., are $10 to $25 and can be purchased at www.nextstagearts.org/#/events.
This will be Giralt Soler’s third visit to Putney, with her first being the first time she ever played in the United States.
“I’m from a very small village, so Putney makes me feel a bit at home. It’s a beautiful place in the mountains like where I come from.”
While she misses Catalonia, which she visits twice a year, she has found quite a home in Boston, where she attended Berklee College of Music under the guidance of local cellist, Eugene Friesen.
“I love being here,” said Giralt Soler, who said there are students from around the world in Boston. “It was a big challenge to move to a new country by myself. A different language … different everything. But there are a lot of international students and each of us has a totally different story and all of us share the same love for music.”
She said connecting with Friesen has helped her define her own individual style on the cello.
“I’ll be playing some of my original music, but it all comes back to my Catalan roots, with versions that are influenced by everything I have been learning in Boston.”
Friesen, a teacher at Berklee School, said he first met Giralt Soler during an online course he was running while everyone was hunkered down during COVID.
He helped her prepare for her entry exams to Berklee, from which she recently graduated.
“She’s great to work with and a quick study,” said Friesen. “She has a naturalness to her approach to the cello that is so refreshing.”
Giralt Soler, who hails from a little town in Catalonia, Spain, takes a folksier approach to the cello than most classically trained musicians, he said.
“It’s like when bluegrass players come to play with me,” he said. “They have a more relaxed relationship between their bodies and instruments.”
Friesen said he is excited to hear how the trio, which is staying at his house during their trip, will sound on the stage.
“She has an amazing voice,” said Friesen, and has achieved a feat of coordinating her voice with her stringed instrument, which he said “is very tricky.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.reformer.com ’
