Music

Zoe Keating - Tetrishead

The Oregonion: A cellist's new love
By Tom D'Antoni

From oregonlive.com, originally published by The Oregonion Friday, November 24, 2006
©2006 The Oregonian. All rights reserved. 
Zoe Keating has been cheating on Sebastian. Sebastian is her cello and has been with her since she was 12 and she began taking lessons in Albany, N.Y. Sebastian has traveled the world with her and is more than vital to her popular recording, "One Cello x 16: Natoma" which although self-produced and distributed, hit No. 2 on iTunes' classical chart.
Sebastian endured having electronics added and his sound looped and altered by computer, even being used as a percussion instrument. Sometimes he sounds like an entire string quartet.
But behind Sebastian's back, Keating has been shopping for a new instrument.
"When you go down the road to picking a cello, you have to start dating," she says. "You have to move in together, figure out if you're going to be compatible."
She tried out one. "He was a fun boy. He was a high-quality instrument, but he had a few flamboyant characteristics. There were things about him that I wanted to change. I wasn't willing to put up with the things that he had to change in order for me to tie the knot. That didn't work out and we separated," Keating says, laughing.
"Then I tried another cello, and it was the same thing. We were close, but it wasn't a very exciting relationship. We were going through the motions as a couple, so I stopped looking. As inevitably happens when you stop looking, the right cello appears."
A cello maker had been working on one for a year with Keating in mind. She met up with both of them in Italy.
"He was newly born, a green young cello, very handsome, very sexy. I met him, and it was love at first sight. He was a little awkward the first time but after four days together I knew that he was the one. When I played him I just had to touch the bow to the string and it's like, 'Laaaaaaaaaaaa.' "
Keating moved to Portland with her husband (and Sebastian) from San Francisco a couple of months ago. From her base here she has maintained a dizzying schedule of worldwide touring, recording and composing for films.
Cellos seem to be everywhere these days. "It's like a voice," she says. "When I'm playing, I can feel like the cello is my voice. I can say things with the cello that I can never say in words. If I was going to try to say in words the kinds of things I say in an abstract way in music, it would come out like Jack Handy."
She will pick up her new unnamed cello in Europe next year.