Canadian-American cellist Rufus Cappadocia will be returning to his roots in Hamilton, Ontario for a concert on November 25. His solo performance will include his own compositions and improvisations, along with his words on the various musical forms and genres that are interwoven into his work.
You could say that curiosity, and a dive into the history of his instrument, took his musical career from Western classical traditions to a different notion of classical music entirely.
Education & Early Years
“I grew up in Hamilton,” he recalls. That’s where he began to play the cello by age three. At the age of five, he began studying with the then Principal Cellist of the Hamilton Philharmonic, a musician who had performed extensively in his native Czechoslovakia before that.
“He had a big, beautiful, Slavic sound and soul,” he says, and credits him with a solid early foundation in music.
From there, Rufus studied at Montréal’s McGill University. He was immersed in the world of Western classical music during his studies, and that’s how he performed for his teachers there. On stage, however, he says he found it stressful.
“I didn’t really feel authentic,” he says, likening it to speaking a different language. “Although, there’s definitely a lot of passion and technique [I got from that training],” he acknowledges.
“I feel like I’m taking a cue from Bach and playing with contemporary dance forms.”
Busking In Europe
Rufus left for Europe, where he busked on the streets of various capitals, including Seville, Spain, and Paris. He added the rhythms of flamenco music to his bowed cello technique.
In his performance, Rufus began to work with improvisation, a practice that’s been removed from Western classical music practice — but, as he points out, was actually common during the time when much of the repertoire was composed. “In the classical era, there was all kinds of improvisation that was going on.”
His says his performing and composing practice is actually more in line with the way music was produced centuries ago. “It’s always been part of a continuum between improvisation and composers,” he says. “What I learned from playing Bach, from playing Bach Suites, I learned to play a prelude, and then innovate on contemporary dance forms.” He points out that the Sarabande, a very popular 18th century dance form, descends from the zarabanda, a type of dance thought to have migrated to southern Spain from West Africa. “I feel like I’m taking a cue from Bach and playing with contemporary dance forms.”
Performing on the streets of Europe, and trying to compete/fit in with musicians in various genres, Rufus realized he wanted to access a lower end to the instrument. His cello is a five-string version which adds a bass string.
“I play a five-string instrument,” he says. “It allows me to function both as a bass player and a cellist.”
He added a pick-up system that allows him to play either acoustically or with amplified volume.
It was on the streets of Paris that Rufus says he first met French cellist Vincent Ségal, a performer who is also known for his cross-cultural collaborations. Ségal’s friends called him over to hear Rufus play on the sidewalk, and the two have stayed in touch.
Prayer, from his 2008 release Songs for Cello:
Cross-Cultural Music
Today, his music draws from the techniques of his early training in Western classical music, incorporating the musical idioms and forms he’s learned along the way, including ecstatic North African music, the blues, Gregorian chant and more.
He’s become known for his collaborations with musicians from all over the world, including the jazz group The Paradox Trio and the world music group Trance Mission, along with producing releases with guitarist David Fiuczynski and singer/songwriter Bethany Yarrow.
The COVID-19 pandemic allowed him to do two things: reconnect with Canada via a visit to British Columbia, and re-examine his collection of recorded but unreleased music.
“I’ve been negligent about releasing music,” he says. He’s been working on various projects, including tracks recorded several years ago with a kora player from Guinea-Bissau who has since passed away. “The kora is very reminiscent of the harpsichord in a funny way,” he says.
As a student and aficionado of West African culture, he draws often on the traditions of the Mande culture specifically, and its music. “It’s actually very composed,” he notes, this despite their nature as oral traditions passed down through the generations.
Rufus draws similarities to Western culture. “I think we’ve forgotten how much of what we’ve inherited is the literary part of an oral tradition,” he observes.
Rufus performs with the Darcy Hepner Duo at the McMaster LIVELab in 2018:
Microtones & Pentatonic Scales
Right now, he’s working on putting together a release of music influenced by the traditions of the desert regions of West Africa. “I’ve done a lot of research into the music of Niger,” he says. “I’m working on an album right now called The Art of the Pentatonic.” The music will come from tracks accumulated via years of collaborating with musician Yacouba Moumouni of the band Mammar Kassey.
During the Baroque period, composers were as much inspired by the improvisations of the fiddle players and other musicians they heard throughout their society, from the pubs to royal courts, Rufus points out. “I like to think I’m just bringing the oral tradition back into classical music.”
The farther he went in his musical explorations, the more he heard, and learned about, the roots of the music he’d learned in North America. He links the cello to the tradition of bowed string instruments that stretch across many cultures in North and West Africa. “It’s one of the most versatile instruments.”
From there, his musical curiosity drew him to trace the roots of bowed string instruments from all over the globe, from Mongolia to Ethiopia, Morocco and the Sahel and Sahara regions. “Each ethnicity has a pentatonic bowed string tradition,” he notes.
He points out that it’s a part of global music history that is poorly understood in North America. “It’s not well understood in terms of cultural heritage,” he says. “The Sahara and the Sahel are defined by pentatonic music. The scale structures change as you move south.”
Our understanding of the roots of jazz and blues likewise change as you move from North America to the African continent. “There’s a whole pentatonic tradition that’s incredibly rich, that forms the basis for most of the popular music in North America,” he says.
Rufus’ music today works largely with microtonal and modal structures. He’ll be talking about the background of the music as part of his performance. Pentatonic bowed music, as it is used in trance and possession dance ceremonies, and as unlikely as it may sound to North American ears, is the root of the blues.
“The guitar has been trying to emulate the bowed string for the last 50 years,” he says. “There’s a whole cultural piece involving bowed string music from West Africa that’s not well understood.”
- Tickets and event information about the November 25 show available [HERE].
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