Twitch and Bow (Dance for Cello and Mask)
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Composed
- 1998
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre
Purchase or download
About this piece
A solo-cello piece from 1998 commissioned by Winnipeg choreographer Ruth Cansfield for cellist Shauna Rolston and dancer Davida Monk, and premiered at New Works Calgary. Carrabré composed it to videotaped studio work by the dancers; the music mirrors choreography that swings between twitchy outbursts and frozen slow sections. It can be billed as 'Dance for Cello and Mask', 'Twitch and Bow', or both, depending on whether a dancer is involved, and it is recorded on his 2025 album Red River with cellist Ariel Carrabré. The composer's site has a score excerpt; scores are sold through the Canadian Music Centre.
Technical overview
The composer says the cello's bow-arm technique is the musical starting point, with abrupt 'twitchy' explosions contrasted against frozen adagio sections.