Vivaldi Virale - Double-Masked: The Four Long Seasons

Recorded at Louisiana State University in 2021 by Dennis Parker, Derryl and Helen Haymon Professor of Cello, and the LSU Celli. If you are like most musicians, playing concerts with masks has been a challenge. Spending months ‘caged’ in practice rooms or Zoom has been equally difficult. We’ve all missed stage life in different ways. “Vivaldi Virale - Double Masked“ was a way to bring joy to the experience of music-making safely, and to produce what might be (?) the first complete recording of this masterpiece using only Cellos. Much of what the LSU Celli did on stage was improvised in a limited amount of time, but for a few moments we all felt free---we vented pent-up performance anxieties and shared a few laughs. It is our hope that this project will inspire the same sort of pleasure in its listeners. The performance is dedicated to the victims worldwide of this era.