All Things Strings: A Life in Music

IF YOU’RE NOT LOOKING BEYOND the chronology and vital statistics, Zuill Bailey’s career in music seems like one big happy accident. As a four-year-old, Bailey literally ran into a cello backstage, and even before anybody could pick up the pieces (luckily, it was a cheap cello), young Zuill had decided that would be the instrument for him. He grew up in a place abounding in classical music, where Mstislav Rostropovich was one of the prime attractions on a regular basis, so taking up the cello just seemed as ordinary a pastime as skateboarding. Later, still in his teens, Bailey won several competitions that put him on tour performing, so by the time he finished his education, he already had a solo career in full swing.

Later still, Bailey’s wife got a temporary appointment in El Paso, Texas, and while the couple was staying there—ostensibly just for a few months—Bailey was asked to run a music series, which he has done from his now-permanent El Paso home ever since. All the while, he’s continued to perform around the world: touring Russia with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra; performing with the Toronto Symphony and conductor Itzhak Perlman; appearing with major orchestras in Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas; doing the Dvořák concerto in Colombia and Peru; concertizing at Carnegie Hall; and playing all the Beethoven cello sonatas to sold-out audiences in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Yet, aside from happening to grow up surrounded by music, Bailey’s success is by no means a matter of luck. His dark good looks make him highly marketable, but he’s also highly musical, with a distinctly personal expression, and that’s something that requires careful cultivation. “I was given wonderful opportunities,” he says, “but I had to work very hard along the way.”

All that hard work has paid off: in October, Bailey and his music partner, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, received the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artist Award from the Classical Recording Foundation, for their recent two-disc recording of the complete works for cello and piano by Beethoven.

Careful cultivation starts with rich soil, and in Bailey’s case that means being born into a musical family—his mother is a pianist, his father has a doctorate in music and education, and his older sister is a violinist—and growing up near Washington, D.C. In the 1970s, that put him in Mstislav Rostropovich’s backyard when the famed cellist was music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, one of more than a dozen orchestras operating locally, besides a range of chamber-music presentations.

“The opportunities and excitement for music were very abnormal in my childhood,” Bailey says. “It was beyond contagious.”

As a child, Bailey had no idea how exceptional his musical surroundings were. “As shocking as it is to say, I thought everything Rostropovich did was par for the course,” he says. “I believed it was normal for a cellist to play ten concertos in three nights; back when I was 15 years old, Rostropovich was celebrating his 60th birthday, and he did that. So to carry huge amounts of repertoire in my fingers all the time, or to play two concertos on a program seems like nothing to me because of how I was wired watching Rostropovich.”

Bailey’s first cello teacher was Loran Stephenson, who virtually sat at Rostropovich’s elbow every day as a member of the National Symphony. “He was strict as a teacher, and that’s an understatement,” Bailey recalls with surprising fondness. “He pulled no punches, and that really worked with me because I needed that kind of fire lit under me to push me further. I firmly believe people establish an invaluable strength in their hands and in practice habits in those formative years. Those things don’t go away, and as far as my accepting nothing less than the highest level from myself, that bar was set by Loran Stephenson.”

Bailey’s next teacher, starting in high school, was Stephen Kates, whom Bailey describes as “one of the most naturally talented cellists ever. Kates could seemingly do anything on the cello. It wasn’t pre-programmed; it was inspired. So after this very important regimented outlook from Loran Stephenson, Stephen Kates exposed me to this heightened sense of inspiration, this abandon. He’d say, ‘Play the cello. Just go out there and let it go.’ I was very inspired by that.”

As an 18-year-old freshman at the Peabody Conservatory, Bailey won the National Federation of Music Clubs “Young Artists” competition, which gave him the opportunity to play dozens of recitals across the country over the next two years. For these concerts, Kates helped Bailey put together programs that would stretch the bounds of the cello and push him to his limits, both technically and musically.

Bailey would often arrive at a concert hall where, instead of having printed programs, the concert hosts would ask him to announce the pieces from the stage. Bailey decided right away that he needed to do more than just name the title and composer. “I would find myself telling stories and that would lead to something else,” he says, “and as I did that, I saw this unity developing between the audience and the performer. I don’t talk about the things you find in program notes; I talk about things I think about when I’m playing, so the audience can identify with me and the music. This enables us to be there together in this magical evening of music that we’ve all come together to explore.

“I find a majority of concerts in classical music similar to going to the aquarium—there’s such a disconnect between the performer up onstage and the audience. You don’t know what they’re thinking; they’re just watching you. But by speaking to people during the concert, I feel a more personal connection. In the audience, you understand the performers’ attempt to go deeper and get something extraordinary. You are with them on this journey.”

Meanwhile, Bailey was completing his undergraduate education at Peabody, and preparing to move on to Juilliard. Kates sent him to study with Joel Krosnick.

“He was the ultimate polisher, and such an amazing human being,” Bailey says of Krosnick. “A lot of our lessons were philosophical. I could already play the cello physically when I began my work with him, but I hadn’t really thought to question the whys of everything. These are the decisions one makes that make the music come from the heart and make it real. Joel asked all the right questions, and frankly the questions shut me down. He persuaded me to stop playing in public for a while, and focus on the long term versus the short term. He wanted to take all the ideas I had and show me how to choose when to use them. That’s very difficult. That has to do with life also, why we make the decisions we make, what they’re inspired by. I was getting ready to go out on my own, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect time to work with him, one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever met and one of the greatest musical inspirations I’ve ever had, and a man who to this day I still draw inspiration from.

“Because of Joel, I don’t see a line between life and music anymore. These days, when I talk about music I’m talking about life, and when I talk about life, I’m talking about music.”

Bailey kept performing, and the month he graduated from Juilliard, he was already making enough from concertizing to pay his bills. He developed ongoing recital partnerships with two old friends and school chums, pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt, and he formed a trio with pianist Navah Perlman and violinist Giora Schmidt.

“Zuill is always fun and exciting to work with,” says Dinnerstein. “He is very free and spontaneous and he loves to perform, so performing with him is always an exhilarating experience. We don’t spend a lot of time rehearsing, but are always listening and responding to each other in the moment as we play. It’s almost like the way I imagine it would be to be a jazz musician. Zuill is very interested in color and texture, and he has taught me a lot about the different sounds that are possible on the cello, which has influenced my piano playing. He is also a very honorable person and a very loyal friend, which are qualities I really value.”

Eleven years after finishing his master’s degree at Juilliard, Bailey is one of the most in-demand cellists performing today and a very busy musician—even though he’s based not in the cultural power center of New York City, but in the more laid-back and remote El Paso, Texas.

In 2001, his wife, sculptor Margarita Cabrera, received an art residency there. The couple expected to leave El Paso after a few months, but El Paso Pro Musica asked Bailey to become the artistic director for its classical chamber-music series.

Even while heading that organization, Bailey spends more than 200 days on the road performing more than 70 concerts every year. He insists that he doesn’t feel isolated passing the rest of his time in El Paso. “When I come home to El Paso I find that I have incredible perspective, because I can take a deep breath and take a survey of what I’m doing, versus continually running as fast as I can in a place like New York,” he says. “When I’m in El Paso, I’m sitting in silence when I practice, and I’m thinking, and I’m going for walks.

“I always felt sad that the outreach and impact I was trying to have in my travels and concerts wasn’t being realized to its potential because I always had to leave. I wanted to make more of a difference and give back more. The invitation in El Paso made me realize I could look outside the box of what I was as a cellist, and be more of a musician, be a source of inspiration for an entire city, and to try to create a cultural environment through what I know best, which is classical music. It has been one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done, because I see day in and day out the impact we’re having as an organization in this city and this region.”

He still manages to maintain a national and international profile, sometimes in unusual ways. For example, he portrayed a murderous cello-playing inmate on the HBO prison series Oz, and managed to insinuate Bach, Paganini, and other classical composers into the soundtrack.

A few years ago, Bailey told Strings, “I want to be a classical cellist, but I had to stop thinking like a classical cellist to accomplish that. And I take tremendous responsibility for what I bring to that undertaking.” Asked to elaborate on that comment, he now says, “I will always be first and foremost a cellist, but I don’t see this as a life as a cellist; I see it as a life in music, as being a part of how the arts influence history and culture and keep our society moving onward and upward.

“Making recordings, speaking to the audience during concerts, being an artistic director, outreach, the whole HBO thing—these are all [part of] a grand attempt to bring my love for classical music to the masses without underselling it in any way. I’ve always been this way. This is not some image or personality I’ve tried to invent. This is me. And I think that’s a very interesting destination, when you start to realize what you truly are and who you are, and you try to be that.

“In the end, that’s the easiest thing in the world, instead of trying to be something you’re not.”

Bailey on Disc

A select discography of Zuill Bailey’s work:

Beethoven Cello & Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (Delos 3368)

With pianist Simone Dinnerstein.

Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Francour, et al. (Delos 3326)

His take on Vieuxtemps “Yankee Doodle” alone is worth the price of admission.

Janos Starker Celebration (Delos 3344)

Recorded live at the El Paso Pro Musica Festival in 2004 in celebration of Janos Starker’s 80th birthday. Bailey is joined by Starker, violinists Soovin Kim and Kurt Nikkanen, and violist Kirsten Johnson.

What Zuill Bailey Plays

Zuill Bailey plays a cello made by the Venetian Matteo Goffriller in 1693, a rather oversized and oddly shaped (big at the bottom) instrument from a period when cellos were also used as church basses. It’s one of only two Goffriller cellos with a carved rosette on the top, under the fingerboard. The instrument was used for 30 years by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet.

“I can tell, based on particular notes in the bass, that this has been used as a quartet instrument,” Bailey says. “When I hit particular notes on the C string it opens up like a pipe organ, because I feel it adjusted itself heavily to Mischa Schneider being the core of the Budapest Quartet.

“I believe this cello is a magnificent solo instrument because of its incredibly unique voice. It’s also ideal for chamber music. If I’m playing a Haydn trio, or other pieces with strong supportive lines, I can really hold the structure of the piece together with this instrument, and then when I have a solo line that needs to come through, the cello has the ability to cut through and sing. In the end, I really feel the appropriate way of describing my cello’s sound is that it creates an incredible environment of sound and beauty.”

His bow is by the French maker Victor Fetique. “It’s a very strong stick that pulls a very clean, clear, crisp, higher-frequency sound out of the cello. This cello naturally has a darker, chocolatey sound, very mellow. So these really complement each other beautifully. The bow makes the clarity, but it lets the cello be itself.”

—J.R.

Considering Beethoven

In 2006 and 2007, Zuill Bailey and Simone Dinnerstein received a Classical Recording Foundation award for a two-CD set of the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano. The second disc is coming out this spring. The two had performed the Beethoven cycle 10 years before, one of their first recital projects together. In both the concert and the recordings, they played the works in chronological order.

“When you present them in order,” Bailey observes, “you witness how the cello evolves through the sonatas, and you see how Beethoven’s knowledge of the cello builds on every single note he writes. The first two sonatas are primarily piano and cello sonatas; the first one is piano-driven from the very beginning. Through the sonatas, the cello has more and more of a role. When you get to the middle period, the A major sonata, it is finally an equal treatment of the two instruments. Beethoven realizes that the cello can not only hold its own but it can start on its own, announcing the first theme solo, without piano. It was quite a revelation when we did them chronologically 10 years ago, and I felt very strongly that we should do them in the same order and have the same evolving energy level and perspective when we recorded them.

“I think it takes a lot of nerve to record anything and to stand behind it. A concert comes and goes; you go out there and present an interpretation that is where you are at that moment. But when you make a recording, especially of a piece that everybody has put their imprint on, the goal for me was to do the research, set up the blueprint to adhere to what Beethoven wanted, and then find a way to be ourselves and to let our personalities and our inspirations come through.”

—J.R.

Player Tips

People often ask for my advice on how to practice effectively. As my responsibilities grow with each passing year, I find this question increasingly relevant in my own life. Maximizing efficiency in my practice sessions is a must.

One thing for sure is that repetition is not the secret to successful practice sessions, especially mindless repetition. Playing something in a way that does not work over and over only engrains something undesirable that will be difficult to unlearn later. Not only is this counter-productive and a waste of time, it does more harm than good. “The keys to efficient practicing are, first, recognizing that a problem exists, which means listening to oneself objectively and being one’s own worst critic, and, second, identifying the root cause of the problem. If there is a disturbance in the musical line, which is the primary measure of success, I first check to see if I am executing properly from a physical standpoint, i.e., maybe I need to move my elbow up or adjust my posture. If all seems fine, I then move to try different fingerings and bowings.

I have an unusual perspective about practicing due to my hands being larger than average, which means I am able to reach things and maneuver differently than others. This was a problem in my early years because the markings in the commonly used editions were not ideal for my physical make-up. I had not yet acquired the tools that would enable me to recognize that the root cause of some of my technical problems was the printed fingerings and bowings themselves!

The markings in an edition are ideas that served a particular editor well for various reasons, whether due to his or her physical make-up or musical taste. It should be kept in mind that the edits are just snapshots in time of his or her thoughts while marking up the music. The editor could very well have had different ideas a week later. I realized later that the markings in editions are not set in stone or sacred and that it is okay to think for myself and search for ways of playing that work best for me. These days, I typically give a printed fingering or bowing two or three tries. If I am not satisfied with the result, or they simply don’t work, I put the edition aside and try something else.

It is important to remain open to new ideas, however. A fingering or bowing that works today may not be satisfying later. I am constantly experimenting, collecting various editions, and talking to my colleagues in order to gain new perspectives. The goal is to simplify the execution in a way that best serves the music.

—Zuill Bailey

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This article also appears in Strings, Issue #157


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