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"Forget the traditional offerings of Bach and Brahms. Maya Beiser, the hot cello diva of the avant-garde, puts together hip global programs of purely 21st-century music, pushing her instrument to its limits. She embraces amplification, revels in multimedia and likes to punch up the bland stage of the recital hall with visual drama. Her musical appetite is voracious, and top composers from Steve Reich to Osvaldo Golijov have lined up to write for her. In short, she's out to shake the classical world by its neck, to which we can only respond with loud and heartfelt cheers."—THE WASHINGTON POST, October 23, 2006

Thursday, May 24, 7:30p.m. at Joe's Pub, the Israeli-American cellist MAYA BEISER makes her only solo New York appearance of the 2007 season (she'll be back on October 30, 2008, when she debuts her next major global project, Provenance, at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall). Maya's Joe's Pub show offers a rare chance to see her perform live in an intimate club; on this occasion she celebrates the release of her new album ALMOST HUMAN, which was just released by Koch on Friday, April 20, 2007.

Maya Beiser has been described by The New Yorker as "a cello goddess," The San Francisco Chronicle as "the queen of post-minimalist cello," The Los Angeles Times as "a striking virtuoso," and The Philadelphia Inquirer as having "rock-star magnetism." At Joe's Pub, playing selections from her new album, Maya will perform the haunting and surreal I am writing to you from a far off country with music by Eve Beglarian and text by poet Henri Michaux; and the whimsical Motion Detector by the young British composer Joby Talbot. The program also features music by Michael Gordon and Osvaldo Golijov, video by Bill Morrison, and a guest appearance by fiddle virtuoso Mark O'Connor.

Maya premiered the live multimedia version of "Almost Human" at Zankel Hall in March 2006, which included video by the award-winning Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. The New York Times called Maya's performance "Deep and rich, with a lush vibrato...Ms. Beiser's rich-hued tone singing out from within a bed of sound loops ranged from the insistently rhythmic to the meltingly lyrical." For this project, she asked Beglarian, Talbot, and others to write music inspired by ancient vocal traditions they felt connected to. The resultant works give the cello, an instrument said to be "almost human," a powerful and haunting opportunity to "sing."

MAYA BEISER MAY 24 JOE'S PUB PROGRAM:
I am writing to you from a far-off country by Eve Beglarian (excerpts)
Motion Detector by Joby Talbot
Light is Calling by Michael Gordon (with video by Bill Morrison)
Mariel by Osvaldo Golijov
Double Concerto by Mark O'Connor (with Mark O'Connor, violin)

"ALMOST HUMAN" CD (released by Koch International, April 20, 2007):

EVE BEGLARIAN, b. 1958: From a Far-Off Country (commissioned by Meet The Composer) (2006)
With Alexandra Montano, mezzo-soprano
Text by Belgian surrealist poet Henri Michaux
Music based on traditional Armenian chants and folk songs.

JOBY TALBOT, b. 1971: Motion Detector for cello, sampled chorus, and live electronics (2006)
Based on the "Pasiputput" singing of the Bunun tribe of Taiwan.

JOBY TALBOT: Falling for electric cello (1998)

ABOUT MAYA BEISER (www.mayabeiser.com):
Cellist Maya Beiser has captivated audiences worldwide with her virtuosity, eclectic repertoire, and relentless quest to redefine her instrument's boundaries. Over the past decade, she has created a new repertoire for cello, commissioning and performing many works written for her by today's leading composers. Most recently, Maya has collaborated with composers Louis Andriessen, Tan Dun, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gordon, Steve Reich, and Simon Shaheen, among many others. Maya recently toured as the featured soloist of Philip Glass's Naqoygatsi with the Philip Glass ensemble, and appeared at the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan, and in Barcelona, Paris, and San Francisco.

Maya's critically acclaimed multimedia concert "World To Come" premiered in October 2003 as part of the inaugural season of Carnegie Hall's new venue, Zankel Hall. Highlights of her 2005 "World To Come" tour included performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, UCLA's Royce Hall, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Maya's performance of Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint is featured on the Nonesuch CD "You Are," chosen by The New York Times as one of the top albums of 2005. She is also the soloist on the Sony Classical CD release of Tan Dun's "Water Passion," and has performed his Academy Award-winning score Crouching Tiger Concerto with orchestras around the globe.

Raised on a kibbutz in Israel by her French mother and Argentinean father, Maya Beiser is a graduate of Yale University. Her major teachers were Aldo Parisot, Uzi Weizel, Alexander Schneider, and Isaac Stern. Maya was the founding cellist of the legendary new music ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

"Exceptional...Gorgeous...Haunting...Not only does her warm, golden sound permeate even the most searing and challenging passages of music she plays, but she appears to have the ease of a hip-hop turntable spin-meister when it comes to interacting with technology, so the music consistently remains the most crucial message...For despite Beiser's lavish use of video, sampled and live voices, and electronic multitracks, she never loses touch with the all-important human element of live music."—THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, December 4, 2006

"Intense... rich... powerful... Beiser is not the sort of musician who zigzags around the planet playing catalog music for polite and sleepy audiences. She throws down a gauntlet in every program."—NEWSDAY, March 11, 2006