Frances-Marie Uitti (born 1946) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

known for her use of

extended technique In music, extended technique is unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.Burtner, Matthew (2005).Making Noise: Extended Techniques after Exper ...

s and performance of

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is Western art music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st-century classical music, 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 Modernism (music), post-tonal music after the death of ...

Tom Service Tom Service (born 8 March 1976) is a Scottish writer, music journalist, and television and radio presenter. He has written regularly for ''The Guardian'' since 1999 and presented on BBC Radio 3 since 2001. He is a regular presenter of the Proms ...

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

for the ''

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'' newspaper, has called her "arguably the world's most influentially experimental cellist." Stephen Brookes wrote in the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', "The spectacularly gifted cellist Frances-Marie Uitti has made a career out of demolishing musical boundaries. She has developed new techniques (most famously, playing with two bows simultaneously), collaborated with a who's who of contemporary composers, and pushed the cello into realms of unexpected beauty and expression... Uitti showed why she might be the most interesting cellist on the planet."

Music career

Born in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

Finnish-American Finnish Americans (, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots in Finland, or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population is around 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to ...

parents, Uitti graduated from Berkeley High School in 1964, where she played cello in the school orchestra. She studied

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

at Meadowmount with Ronald Leonard and

Josef Gingold Josef Gingold (; January 11, 1995) was a Russian and American classical violinist and teacher who lived most of his life in the United States. At the time of his death he was considered one of the most influential violin masters in the United St ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

with Leslie Parnas and

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

with George Neikrug. In Europe she worked at the

Accademia Musicale Chigiana The Accademia Musicale Chigiana (''English'': Chigiana Musical Academy) is a music institute in Siena, Italy. It was founded by Count Guido Chigi-Saracini in 1932 as an international centre for advanced musical studies. It organises Master Class ...

with

André Navarra André-Nicolas Navarra (13 October 1911 – 31 July 1988) was a French cellist and cello teacher who was born in Biarritz and died in Siena. Early life He was born into a musical family in Biarritz, his father being a bassist of Italian desce ...

, winning their top award two years in a row. Uitti invented a radically extended technique using two bows simultaneously in one hand, becoming the first to transform the

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

into a four-part chordal instrument. This technique expands the

harmonic In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

and

timbral In music, timbre (), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes sounds according to their source, such as choir voices and musical instruments. ...

possibilities of the instrument in extraordinary ways: for example, one can play simultaneously 4, 3, 2, and 1 string, with contrasting polyrhythmic articulations between the two bows. Non-adjacent strings can also be accessed. One bow can be played near the bridge while the other is near the fingerboard. She has used over 75 different tunings in her compositions using this technique, each producing new harmonic possibilities and exotic timbres plus a polyphony and independence of voices that her previous work with a single curved bow couldn't obtain. Early on, she combined singing with the cello and premiered

Louis Andriessen Louis Joseph Andriessen (; 6 June 1939 – 1 July 2021) was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although ...

's ''La Voce'' which is dedicated to her. Other works featuring her voice include

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microt ...

's concerto, ''Ain't I a Woman?'' with text by Sojourner Truth, David Dramm's ''Crosshair'',

Rodney Sharman Rodney Sharman (born 24 May 1958) is a Canadian composer and flutist based in Vancouver. His music has been performed in over 30 countries worldwide. He has won several international and national awards, including First Prize in the 1984 CBC Compe ...

's ''The Ecstasy of St. Teresa'',

Vinko Globokar Vinko Globokar (born 7 July 1934) is a French-Slovenian avant-garde composer and trombonist. Globokar's music uses unconventional and extended techniques, places great emphasis on spontaneity and creativity, and often relies on improvisation. H ...

's ''Janus'', and William Kirkpatrick's ''Stations of the Cross''. Uitti has collaborated with and is the dedicatee of composers

Luigi Nono Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music. Biography Early years Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono bega ...

, Jonathan Harvey,

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

, Karen Tanaka,

Per Nørgård Per Nørgård (; 13 July 1932 – 28 May 2025) was a Danish composer and music theorist. Though his style varied considerably throughout his career, his music often included repeatedly evolving melodies, in the vein of Jean Sibelius, and a per ...

Giacinto Scelsi Giacinto Francesco Maria Scelsi (; 8 January 1905 – 9 August 1988, sometimes cited as 8 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for having composed music based around only one pitch, ...

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical music, contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist. A central figure in the Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimenta ...

György Kurtág György Kurtág (; born 19 February 1926) is a Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. According to ''Grove Music Online'', with a style that draws on " Bartók, Webern and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky, his work is c ...

, Richard Barrett,

Guus Janssen Guus Janssen (born 13 May 1951) is a Dutch composer of contemporary music and a recording artist. A pianist and harpsichordist, he is also active as a jazz performer. He studied piano and composition at the Sweelinck Academy of Music in Amster ...

Jay Alan Yim Jay Alan Yim (born April 24, 1958) is an American composer of Chinese descent and recipient of a 1994 Guggenheim Fellowship. Early life and education Yim was born into a Chinese family in St. Louis, Missouri on April 24, 1958. He attended the U ...

Clarence Barlow Clarence Albertson Barlow (also Klarenz; 27 December 1945 – 29 June 2023) was a British composer of classical and electroacoustic works. He was an academic teacher internationally, at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague from 1990 and at the ...

, David Dramm, Geoffrey King, Martijn Padding, Horațiu Rădulescu, Calliope Tsoupaki, and Peter Nelson, among many others. She collaborates in duo with

Mark Dresser Mark Dresser (born September 26, 1952) is an American double bass player and composer. Career Dresser was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. In the 1970s, he was a member of Black Music Infinity led by Stanley Crouch and performed w ...

, and with

Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...

, Joel Ryan,

Misha Mengelberg Misha Mengelberg (5 June 1935 – 3 March 2017) was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer.Feather, Leonard & Gitler, Ira (2007) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'', p. 459. Oxford University Press. A prominent figure in post-WWII European Jazz ...

David Wessel David Meyer Wessel (born February 21, 1954) is an American journalist and writer. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism. He is director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution and a contributing ...

, and with DJ Low, Scanner, and Stansfield/Hooykaas,

Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limit ...

, Steina Vasulka, Frank Scheffer. While living in Rome, she worked closely with

, not only as dedicatee of all the cello works, but also transcribing from his archive and improvising together from 1975 until his death in 1988. Uitti premiered his newly discovered cello concerto at the Angelica Festival,

Teatro Comunale di Bologna The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season. While there had been various theatres presenting opera in Bologna since the early ...

in 2006. She was guest professor at

Oberlin Conservatory of Music The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music school, music conservatory of Oberlin College, a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the ...

for two years, and was awarded the Regents' Lectureship both at the University of California Berkeley and at University of California San Diego. She gives master classes worldwide for composers and string players at conservatories and universities including Yale, Princeton, Stanford, University of Illinois, as well as having the Fromm Foundation Fellowship to teach a residency at Harvard University. In 2003, Uitti commissioned a custom-designed electric 6-string cello from Seattle luthier Eric Jensen, which she later enhanced ergonomically with sensors at Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (

CNMAT The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley ...

) (University of California, Berkeley) working with David Wessel and Adrian Freed and Michael Zbyszynski. She was to have returned to CNMAT in 2008 to design and construct a 12-stringless meta cello with Adrian Freed. She acquired an aluminum cello made in 1929 by the Pfretzner luthier family. She has recorded and performed on the Mongolian Morin Choor, a custom built Uzbeki Sato, and an original Stroh one-stringed cello. As inventor Uitti has developed a difference-tone resonator that strongly amplifies the beating and subtle "ghost tone" produced by chordal playing. She has redesigned and built 5 prototype-bows under guidance of bowmaker Andreas Grutter to facilitate her work with two bows in one hand. At the request of Scelsi, she redesigned the metallic mutes used in the String Quartet #2 and Triphon for solo cello. Uitti was Fellow at Civitella Ranieri in 2021 and produced 200 ceramic resonators and distortion enhancers at Cotto Etrusco for her work Stornelli Storti (working title). She founded the Bhutan Music Foundation which supports traditional music from

Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

, music education inside of Bhutan, and various outreach programs. The BMF awards 22 scholarships every year to children who otherwise couldn't afford to study music. Recently the Prins Claus Foundation awarded a grant to further outreach programs in the local schools in Thimphu. Uitti has recorded on

ECM Records ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

, Wergo,

Hathut Records Hathut Records is a Swiss record company and label founded by Werner Xavier Uehlinger in 1974 that specializes in jazz and classical music. The name of the label comes from the artwork of Klaus Baumgartner. Hathut encompasses the labels hat ART, ...

, CRI, and BvHaast, JdKproductions, Cryptogramophone Records, Sargasso, and

Naxos Naxos (; , ) is a Greek island belonging to the Cyclades island group. It is the largest island in the group. It was an important centre during the Bronze Age Cycladic Culture and in the Ancient Greek Archaic Period. The island is famous as ...

Films, DVDs

*''13AL''. DVD with Yota Morimoto. KoK and jdkproductions.com. *"Alyssa in Concert" Eric van Zuylen feature length *"Frank Scheffer" Elliott Carter *"Rescue Dawn" Werner Herzog (various tracks) *"Solstice" Stansfield/Hooykaas, Uitti *"Re:Vision" Stansfield/Hooykaas, Uitti *"De Val van de Goden" Uitti, Koek, van der Meer, Goebbels, Hollandia

Publications

*Zorn, John, ed. (2000). ''Arcana: Musicians on Music''. New York: Granary Books/Hips Road. . *" Cambridge Companion to the Cello" New Frontiers of Music *"Contemporary Music Review" 2008 Improvisation (interviews by and with F M Uitti) *"Music Texte" The Second Bow 1999 *"Tempo" Preserving the Scelsi Archive 2000 *"Augmenting the Cello" NIME, Uitti, Freed, Wessel, Zbyszyński 2006

References

External links

Frances-Marie Uitti HomepageOfficial BlogBhutan Music FoundationFrances-Marie Uitti on ECM Records
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uitti, Frances-Marie 1948 births Living people American contemporary classical music performers American women classical cellists American classical cellists American women classical composers Musicians from Chicago American people of Finnish descent ECM Records artists 20th-century American women composers 20th-century American classical composers 21st-century American women composers 21st-century American classical composers Boston University alumni University of Texas at Austin alumni Accademia Musicale Chigiana alumni 20th-century American cellists 21st-century American cellists