Cellist to walk in footsteps of pilgrims, offering Bach – Knight Foundation
Arts

Cellist to walk in footsteps of pilgrims, offering Bach

Dane Johansen.

Cellist Dane Johansen played Coral Gables last night as a member of the Escher Quartet, joining British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor for a concert of music by composers including Dvořák and Dutilleux.

But tonight, he’s in Palm Beach, where the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach is holding a fundraiser for his solo project, which begins next week overseas. Johansen is walking the ancient Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, stopping along the way in the churches that line this pilgrimage route to perform the cello suites of J.S. Bach.

He’s launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund this trip, which will take the better part of six weeks and which will filmed and recorded for later distribution. It’s a unique effort that will combine Johansen’s love of the outdoors — he’s a sixth-generation Alaskan — with his love of Bach.

He’ll walk the Camino — a route for pilgrims since at least the early 12th century — with his cello on his back (in a custom extra-light case made of reflective material that will keep the sun at bay), stay in the refugios at night, and finish up at Fisterra, the westernmost Spanish peninsula which in ancient times was named for what they thought it was: The end of the earth.

Johansen, who’s 29, is in the middle of a terrific young career so far, having played Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as venues around the world. Some of his biggest concerts included the Elliott Carter Cello Concerto in 2008 for Carter’s 100th birthday, a performance that was conducted by James Levine, and the New York premiere of Chinese composer Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto (based on music from his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Later this year, his work with the Escher will be available on two discs, one of the complete Mendelssohn quartets, and the other of the complete quartets of Alexander von Zemlinsky.

But it’s his reverence for Bach that inspired him to take the Camino in the first place. He was looking for another way to perform and record these great suites in public, and came up with the walk idea after talking to a composer who had found much inspiration during a walk on the Appalachian Trail.

Part of Johansen’s mission is to reach as many people as he can, and so he’ll be meeting in Spain with students from four conservatories as well as hoping to strike up as many good meetings as he can with whomever happens to be in the area at the time.

Delivering an artistic experience to people is an outward mission, and Johansen told me that’s one of the central aims of his journey.

“I want to share this music with as many people as I can,” he said.

He’s playing tonight at Café Boulud on Palm Beach for his special fundraiser. If you can’t make it up to Palm Beach for the 7 p.m. concert, which will include Bach and perhaps the solo sonata of Gaspar Cassado, he’s still looking for contributors to his Kickstarter campaign, the deadline for which expires Tuesday. He starts his trip next Friday and finishes at the end of June.

Here’s the link to his Kickstarter page; he’s at about 71 percent of his $20,000 goal this morning. It’s a worthy project, and one that you’ll be able to follow along the way on the official website.

For information about tonight’s concert, call 561-379-6773 or visit www.cmspb.org.