In this interview, we speak to Matthew Barley, a world-renowned and boundary-defying cellist and now composer. Read on to find out more about his musical journey, education and community programmes, and his current projects!
Hello Matthew, please could you briefly introduce yourself for anyone who hasn’t heard of you before? What initially drew you to the cello and what inspired you to pursue music in a professional way?
Hello, I’m cellist Matthew Barley. When I was seven, growing up in Sheffield, I took up the cello and it was love at first sound. I immediately decided I wanted to do this professionally (so I’m told by my Mum – I don’t even know how I knew cello-playing was a possible profession at that age!) and never thought for a moment in my life about doing anything else. After 8 years of specialist training – Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, Guildhall in London, and the Moscow Conservatoire – I left and began my professional life at the start of the 90s and have not looked back since.
At that tender age when I took up the cello it was undoubtedly the sound that drew me in… the gorgeous sonorous singing voice of the cello… as a well-known composer said to me recently: ‘The king of instruments’.
Who have been some of your biggest musical influences and how have they shaped your approach to music?
I have been influenced and inspired by so many musicians along the way, including the obvious ones for a cellist like Yo-Yo Ma and Rostropovich. But two slightly more unusual ones would be The Beatles and Genesis. The Beatles fascinated me for their incredible eclecticism – they not only wrote great rock n roll and pop, they also wrote the first drum n bass song in Tomorrow Never Knows; they used world music (Ravi Shankar) before the term was even coined; and worked with classical musicians like the Allegri quartet (Eleanor Rigby) and David Mason on piccolo trumpet (Penny Lane). I’ve listened to them my whole life and always felt the feeling of musical freedom in their sound: the wish to explore and stretch in many directions. They still inspire me.
Additionally, Genesis was a staple of my teenage years – I would hole myself up in my bedroom with my first hi-fi that my brilliant brother built for me, and float off in heaven at Peter Gabriel’s yearning vocals and Tony Banks' extraordinary, classically inspired keyboard solos and harmonies.
Improvisation is a significant aspect of your performances. How do you incorporate improvisation into classical music, and what challenges and rewards does this bring?
Improvising has been a part of my world for many years, and it plays a part in many of my concerts. Back in the days of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, improvisation was considered one of the foundational skills of being a musician. It fell out of common practice in the 20th century for various reasons, but a growing number of practitioners are trying to bring it back as it offers such rich dividends for creativity and musical expression. Getting classically trained musicians to improvise is often difficult, as we are trained for ‘perfection’ and to improvise you have to throw that fear out of the window, but once that hurdle is passed, there is a great joy in riding that rollercoaster of spontaneous creation.
You are known for your multi-genre music-making. What draws you to more diverse projects, and how do they influence your classical performances?
I think the fact that early influences on my musical heart and mind were not only classical has made me more easily drawn to non-classical collaborations. The mantra has always been, simply, if I love it, I want to play it. And it doesn’t matter in the slightest where that music may be from. Nowadays, I don’t differentiate between genres – not as a point of principal at all, but simply because that’s not what I feel. When I’m playing, I try and bring maximum expression for whatever phrase I am working on so that it sounds as good as it possibly can, regardless of any notions of genre.
Your concerts often include contemporary elements, such as multimedia or audience interaction. What motivates you to innovate in your performances, and how do you see the future of classical concert experiences evolving?
Arguably one of the most talented musicians of our times is Jacob Collier – his talents are SO extravagant. His technical facility not only on several instruments, but also vocally, compositionally and as an arranger, engineer, producer and so on. And he is very articulate about how much he loves his freedom to write in any style that happens to come out. So while musicians have historically been confined to one particular box, and when they try and reach out it has often been very difficult for them, I think Jacob is going to change that – my prediction is that this will be his big contribution to the music world and that one day people will look back on the time, pre-Jacob, when musicians played predominantly one style. It just doesn’t make sense any more!
Looking back on your career so far, what are some of the standout moments or achievements that you are particularly proud of?
I can now look back on nearly 40 years as a professional cellist and I have had some very exciting standout memories. Moments that spring to mind would be an evening improvising with Astor Piazzolla’s violinist (Fernando Suarez Paz) in his flat in Buenos Aires; playing Pascal Dusapin’s concerto for violin, cello and orchestra with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra (one of the very best in the world) with my wife, Viktoria Mullova on violin; finding out that Jon Lord (Deep Purple keyboard player) had written a piece dedicated to me called 'Air on a Blue String' that he wrote after seeing me on TV; playing John Tavener’s 'The Protecting Veil' with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the Sydney Opera House. But one of the sweetest of all musical memories was playing a short piece by Arvo Pärt for cello and piano with my 8 year old daughter on piano at Dartington many years ago.
What inspired you to start the Matthew Barley Arts Foundation, and how do its mission, activities, and projects like Light Stories aim to make an impact in the world of music and beyond?
Earlier this year I started the Matthew Barley Arts Foundation, with the aim of delivering workshops to university students to help them develop and maintain good mental health through creativity. It’s early days, and we are just in the process of a three-part pilot project with a good researcher on board who, as a senior lecturer at York St John University, will make her findings known next year. We are excited about the effect our curriculum is having on students. When our results are published, we hope to be able attract more funding and to roll out the programme more widely. Light Stories is a kind of recipe for turning trauma into art, highlighting the capacity of music to heal the past and to nourish a person in ways that are measurable, and not just fluffy and feelgood.
You’ve recently released a new multidisciplinary collaboration called Light Stories. Can you tell us about what this project involves and the topics explores?
On 27th September my latest album, Light Stories, was released on Signum Classics. It’s a kind of musical autobiography that delves into some crises I experienced as a teenager (life threatening at one point), and how music has helped me heal as an adult, and brought such stability and peace to my life. I am hoping that composing/performing will form a greater part of my work as a musician from now on – it has been deeply rewarding and enjoyable, using more of my talents than anything I’ve done hitherto. I feel like I am at the beginning of a new chapter.
Light Stories is available now on all streaming platforms, with more performances to be announced!
How did you navigate the process of recording the album compared to your approach to live performances?
The process of writing Light Stories and recording it at home has been unlike anything I’ve ever done. It’s the first time I’ve ever composed, so has been very different because of that, but also the recording process was very distinctive. For classical musicians recording can often be a fraught process – you are putting down music that has been recorded many times before, you are in an expensive studio with limited time and highly experienced engineers and producers, and there is a great deal of pressure.
Recording at home, I had time like in no other recording, and it really brought out a different approach from me – being able to listen at leisure to my takes and reflect, then maybe practice a little more to absorb the lessons of listening and find different routes to the heart of the music. Sometimes, as composer, I was also able to simply re-write something if it didn’t sound to my liking. It was a constantly evolving, creative process. Sometimes I would be in the studio from 8am to 10pm. I have rarely been happier – going to bed I would be looking forward to waking up so I could start work again.
Now for some more general questions to get to know you a bit.
What music have been listening to most often recently?
As well as Jacob Collier, these days I’m checking out a very talented folk singer called Sam Lee. I'm also listening a lot to my stepson, jazz bass player Misha Mullov-Abbado, who has an amazing band with a new album out in the new year, and to the latest album by Shakti that has some of the most extraordinary musicians in the world, like guitarist John McLaughlin, table player Zakir Hussain and singer Shankar Mahadevan. One of my all time favourites artists of recent years is John Metcalfe, whose latest album, 'Tree', is just sublime.
What hobbies do you have outside of music?
If it’s not music, nothing beats walking in the woods with my family.
One of the most important questions for us: what HiFi/music listening setup do you have at the moment?
Sometimes I listen in my studio on my Genelec speakers, or Sennheiser 850 headphones which are amazing, or if it’s just for enjoyment I’ll listen on our home system with Linn amplifiers and B&W speakers.
Thank you very much to Matthew for taking the time to complete this interview, we hope you've enjoyed learning more about his journey as a cellist and his incredible projects. Listen to Light Stories on all streaming platforms now, and stay tuned for details of more performance dates!
Main image credit: Madeleine Farley
