Cellist Rachel Mercer
One of the greatest gifts that can be given to a musician is trust. When trust exists - whether it comes from the audience, a manager, a presenter, or from a fellow musician - anything is possible. The gift of trust from a composer to a performer is perhaps one of the highest honors, as the performer is being entrusted with delivering the composer's message. When mutual trust exists, it is one of the most special relationships possible in the world of music creation. I feel extremely honored to be able to say that I have a relationship like this with composer Kevin Lau.
I first played one of Kevin's works in 2010 with the chamber orchestra Via Salzburg; Elemental for strings and Taiko drumming. It made an impression on me, in part because of the Taiko which reminds me of my half Japanese heritage, and I believe I asked if he had any music for cello. Later that year, my duo partner Angela Park and I were asked by organizer Dennis Patrick to perform Kevin's Starsail for cello and piano, which was the winning piece of the Karen Kieser Prize at the University of Toronto. The more I worked on it, the more I fell in love with it, and when we finally arrived at the performance, I felt this music was expressing something deeply personal about me as well as Kevin.
New music had always been a part of my repertoire in some form, but it had never occurred to me that it was possible to actually ask someone to write specifically for me, nor did I feel I had the resources or validity to do so. The discovery of this musical connection and mutual appreciation gave me courage, and I've been building on that courage and my resources ever since. With Kevin, the result has been two recordings of Starsail, premiering his first cello concerto, Foundation, multiple commissions of his work by chamber groups with which I am involved, and coincidentally, works for orchestra that he has written for the NAC Orchestra in Ottawa. Whenever I receive a new score from Kevin, the first thing I do is search for the amazing cello solo I know is there (lucky me!)...and I revel in communicating this voice, connecting to this music, which I know will also tell me something about myself.
