Culture & Religion — October 19, 2011

When Bach Sounds Better UnAccompanied

Ethan Philbrick performs one of the first pieces of music ever written for solo cello, by J.S. Bach.

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Ethan Philbrick grew up on Nantucket and has been playing music voraciously since he was 4 years old. Philbrick, who is currently completing graduate work in performance studies at NYU, has played music in a variety of contexts all over the world: from Latin America, to West Africa, to Europe, and Central Asia.

Philbrick’s latest performance came during The Nantucket Project, a festival of ideas held on Nantucket, Massachusetts last month that featured heavyweights including Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, Larry Summers, Former Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard University and Hedge Fund Manager Eddie Lampert, among others.

At an event with a very forward-looking theme “Rethink,” Philbrick chose to actually take a “glance back.” He selected a piece to perform that is among the first pieces of music ever written for solo cello, by J.S. Bach.

Watch the video here:

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