Frances-Marie Uitti
Frances-Marie Uitti (US) is a composer and musician.
String 'em Up: Frances-Marie Uitti; photo: Jan Sprij
Frances-Marie Uitti, composer/ performer, pioneered a revolutionary dimension to the cello by transforming it for the first time ever into a polyphonic instrument capable of sustained chordal (two, three, and four-part) and intricate multivoiced writing. Using two bows in one hand, this invention permits contemporaneous cross accents, multiple timbres, contrasting 4-voiced dynamics, simultaneous legato/articulated playing, that her previous work with a curved bow couldn't attain.
...eight notes from a solo cello! The piece of Frances-Marie Uitti, Ricercar, composed in 1987 gave the unbelieveable sensation of an entire string quartet! Liberation, Paris. György Kurtág, Luigi Nono, Giacinto Scelsi, Louis Andriessen, Jonathan Harvey, Richard Barrett, Sylvano Bussoti are amongst those who have used this technique in their works dedicated to her.
Collaborating significantly over years with radicals, Dick Raaijmakers, John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi, she has also worked closely with Iannis Xenakis, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough and countless composers from the new generation. Frances-Marie Uitti tours extensively throughout the world having played for audiences from New York City to Mongolia and appears regularly in such festivals as the Biennale Di Venezia, Strasbourg Festival, Gulbenkian Festival Ars Musica, Holland Festival and for radios and televisions in Europe, Japan, and the United States. She premiered cello concerti dedicated to her by Per Norgaard, Jonathan Harvey and will give the first performance of the cello concerto of William Jeths in 2000. Peter Nelson is writing a work for her with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Canadian composer Rodney Sharman is also mulling over a cello concerto for her. Frances-Marie Uitti collaborates with pianist Rolf Hind, classical pianist Alwin Bar, filmmakers Frank Scheffer and Frans Zwaartjes, avantgarde guitarist Elliott Sharp, accordionist Pauline Oliveros, DJ Scanner, DJ Low, and Stephen Vitiello and video master Ferenc van Damme.
(1999)
http://www.radiantslab.com/Uitti/
