How Cellist Maya Beiser Recorded a Solo 35-Part Minimalist Manifesto on ‘Maya Beiser X Terry Riley: In C’

By Greg Cahill | From the July-August 2024 issue of Strings Magazine

A wide range of ensembles, from exotic Chinese orchestras to edgy percussion groups, have performed or recorded Terry Riley’s 1964 minimalist masterwork In C. Indeed, the 89-year-old California-born composer has suggested the piece requires 35 players. But cellist Maya Beiser has blazed a new path, recording the piece as an ensemble of one. Using acoustic and electric cellos, as well as a looper and computer software (and supplemented by two percussionists), Beiser has created a sonic tsunami that runs from soft ripples to towering waves of sound. You can hear the results on Maya Beiser X Terry Riley: In C (Islandia Music) and onstage this summer.

How does she do it?

“For the live performance, I am using Ableton Live software, which allows me to create infinite live loops in different formats,” she explains. “I am controlling the MacBook computer with a MIDI foot pedal, the Keith McMillen SoftStep. I’m using a mix of a condenser mic—the DPA cello mic—and a pickup, the Realist. I worked with a software developer who programmed and customized the Ableton software, so I can generate each loop as an individual channel that allows us to control the mix and create a spatial-sound experience. The drummers perform without the looper. We all follow the 120 bpm pulse.”

Strings asks Beiser about her connection to In C, Terry Riley, and minimalism.

Why did you decide to record In C at this time?

Last summer, we celebrated Terry Riley’s 88th birthday with an online performance organized by my friend the composer Evan Ziporyn. It was a magical midnight performance with musicians from around the globe connecting online. Terry joined from his home in Japan. I stayed up late that night in my recording studio and started to formulate the idea for recreating In C as a solo cello-drones-and-loops album. I wanted to create an hour of cello-induced meditative trance—an album that opens up and explores the sonic world of the cello in a new way. 

How would you describe your personal connection to this work?

I’ve known Terry for a long time. We performed In C together on a tour with the Bang on a Can All-Stars [Beiser is a founding member of that New York new-music collective]. We also recorded the piece for an album on the Cantaloupe label. When I decided to create my version of In C, it was meant as a surprise gift for Terry. I didn’t know if he was going to like it. I sent him the rough mix on Christmas Eve with a note. I decided I would only release the album if he liked it. Luckily, he did! 

Riley composed a variety of melodic fragments for the piece and has suggested that it is up to the performer to use them at will. That seems both daunting and freeing. 

I view In C as an amalgamation of an “open source” and “sacred text.” Sacred in the sense of respecting the original text. I didn’t try to change it or rewrite it. I was looking to find a new way into the piece, but all within the confines of what Terry already created. Going inward rather than outward. Yet, in its open scoring, the piece offers an opportunity to be transformed into many different musical experiences. I was interested in finding the serendipitous rhythmic and melodic connections that emerge when reconstructing In C’s 53 melodic cells as a series of cello loops, floating above continuous C-string cello drones. The album explores how the sonic world of the cello’s C string, with its rich overtones and harmonics, informs and reshapes Terry’s work in an intimate yet expansive iteration of this classic minimalist work. This is a personal, solo journey into a piece that was originally created, and has always been performed, as a communal experience.

It’s been covered by a wide range of ensembles. What was the genesis of your solo looping arrangement and decision to include two percussionists?

The album is grounded in a series of low-C cello drones that I recorded for many hours. I wanted to find as many interesting iterations and variations of the reverberation and overtones in the C drone as possible. I then created what I called a “pulse drone,” where I was lightly hitting the low C-string with the tip of my bow to create a rhythmic pulse of 120 bpm. That pulse was also created in real time to get many variations on the sound. After the drones were laid out, I started to construct the loops, and overdub them one at a time. We recorded everything in Pro Tools, and each module was looped much longer than I intended it to be. They were each recorded in multitracks using multiple microphones around the room in my barn recording studio in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. And then we stacked all 53 modules vertically in the Pro Tools session, so I could see and hear the entire architecture and decide when each one of them would begin and end. It was an arduous undertaking.

I also treated each module differently. I wanted to create a malleable, porous, breathing soundscape, so nothing ever feels too perfect or too machine-like. I wanted to retain the human voice in there, which led me to actually use my voice at some point in the piece. I was referencing medieval chorus hocketing in that section. But then in the following section, I was thinking of the sounds of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana and was referencing their dark grunge-distorted guitar sound. So the sound world range is quite large in this album. 

As I have done with other recent recordings, I was working with multiple mic positions to record each loop. This created shifting sonic elements that produce changing, evolving perspectives. This is akin to the visual effect you get when you photograph in multiple exposures or slow-shutter. The album cover image is done in that technique.

The drumming came last. We had the album mixed, and I felt it would be great to have the drums added. I called two of my longtime collaborators [percussionists Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer], and they came to the studio and recorded the drumming tracks in one session. 

What were the challenges of taking this on by yourself?

The challenges were more from the production side. Being the producer and the performer, creating and recomposing the work in this fashion was something I haven’t done before. Recording the loops was really fun and kind of meditative. I would go into a certain groove pattern and play it over and over again, shaping it in different ways, creating subtle variations in the sound, the articulation, the feel. 

Mixing and editing the loops was the bigger challenge. I wanted to have clarity in the mix, and I wanted the interlocking rhythm to really rock, to make you want to get up and dance. I had the whole thing mapped out in my mind, but the way I created the album was as a structured improvisation.

It sounds intensive, but rewarding.

As always, the reward is in the act of creating and discovery. Creating a sound recording from something that exists in my head. Discovering new ways of working. Learning something new about myself, about the music, about the cello.

The arrangement seems to be quite a workout in terms of cello bowing technique, including ponticello and col legno. How much leeway did you have? 

I had total leeway. That’s one of the great things about this piece. There are no restrictions or indications on how to perform these few notes that are on the page. You can play in any octave, any dynamics, and so on. So it was an exploratory process. As the performer, I was quite subversive and adventurous. I made technique decisions based on what my ears were telling me. As the producer, I kept what my gut told me works. 

In C is sometimes dismissed as a strident work. What are people missing here?

They miss everything. I don’t think it’s strident. To the contrary. That’s what I’m trying to show in my album. The piece is really one long, big meditative drone.

And this work has endured.

I think the communal and malleable nature of the piece is one reason. And the fact that it allows the performer to be a creative participant in the composition is another. It also was the work that helped launch the minimalist movement in American music. The first performance, in 1964, included giants in the field, like Steve Reich and Pauline Oliveros. It is a masterpiece.

What did you learn about yourself while recording this project?

I learned to trust my gut feeling. And at the same time to allow for the possibility of failure. Not to play it safe. That’s when you get somewhere meaningful.