100 percent of the proceeds from the concert raised will be used for arts and music and other programs at the school
By Barbara Burke
Special to The Malibu Times
An excited audience of attentive children, parents, and friends looked on with interest as Arash “Joey” Amini walked onto the altar at Our Lady of Malibu Church on Oct. 15, smiling and carrying his cello, a gorgeous instrument dating from circa 1860.
“Please welcome Joey Amini, a renowned professional cellist with many decades of performance experience,” said Richard Nambu, principal of OLM School. “He has played in many venues across the world.”
Amini, a local realtor, and his wife Eveline have a daughter, Sienna Malibu Amini, 7, who attends OLM. Smiling, Sienna sat with her mom and a friend, watching her daddy on the altar.
The cellist had the intrigued children at hello.
“How many of you have ever seen a cello before?” Amini asked the kids. Responding, a few excited children raised their hands. “A live classical music concert is very different from what happens when you attend a pop concert such as Taylor Swift’s, where people are loud and excited. In a classical concert, the audience is silent until you can clap when the parts of a performance are over. Each movement is like a short performance.”
Amini explained that he would perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major for Solo Cello, BWV 1007, in G major (1717) which features six suites.
“There is a prelude, which is the introduction and establishes the mood and this one is bucolic and pastoral,” he said. “After the prelude, there are five parts: an allemande, which is from Germany; a courante, which is French; a sarabande, which is Spanish; two menuettos and a gigue, a lively dance.”
Then, Amini lifted his bow, furrowed his brows in deep concentration, and performed one of the most famous cello solos, its flow entrancing young, admiring minds with parents who smiled appreciatively, while babes in arms slept peacefully. When the final chord of the prelude slowly disappeared, the breathless little ones looked around, as if to ask, “What’s next?” only to be swept away by the subtle flows of the preludes and then delighting in the Sixth Gigue’s climax.
After the thunderous clapping and the standing ovation, Amini took the opportunity to tell the entranced children more about the music and its history.
He explained that for 200 years, Bach’s cello solo lingered in anonymity, and it was not played or widely known until Pablo Casals, a master Spanish cellist, practiced the suites for 13 years before performing it publicly.
“Now, we’re going to speed things up by playing one of Gaspar Cassadó’s suites for solo cello, a piece composed a hundred years later.” Amini said. “Cassadó was a virtuoso cellist and a wonderful composer.”
Continuing, he noted, “The main section is a polka, which includes a lot of castanets, Spanish musical instruments that one puts in his hand and claps together. There’s also a lot of dancing that accompanies the later parts of this exciting, high energy piece.”
Then, he took the children on a magical musical journey, sharing the rhythm of the sardana, a traditional dance from Catalonia. As he performed the master’s brilliant work influenced by Spanish and Oriental folk music, the enlivened children swayed in unison with the rhythm.
“You kids have been a good audience! Your parents must be very proud,” the beaming Amini said after he finished. “My final piece is from the third suite in C Major for Solo Cello by Bach and it begins by establishing a heroic mood and then it goes through six movements.”
There was hardly any movement by the children, only their attentive facial expressions that manifested their intellectual curiosity as they watched Amini’s hands skillfully and quickly move across the instrument’s strings, entertaining the crowd with the piece’s expressive vibrato.
This time, there was a standing ovation that lasted, and lasted, and lasted. Amini had made a lasting impression on keen young minds.
As the crowd filed into Sheridan Hall for an artist’s reception, many of the children went straight for the piano, their musical inquisitiveness piqued.
“I loved it!” exclaimed Michelle Mitnick, 8. “It sounded so good and he didn’t make any mistakes. That instrument is very large — it’s half my body size!”
Michelle’s dad, Kyle Mitnick, and other parents appreciated Amini’s concert, with all proceeds going directly to support OLM school.
“Playing here in my own backyard at OLM has been even more special than playing my debut in Lincoln Center,” Amini said. Ever humble, he had brought all of his education and musical experience to open young minds.
Amini studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School and he has performed extensively as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician throughout the U.S. and internationally. He once toured with Rosanne Cash and composer Mark O’Conner and has graced the stages of some of the world’s most celebrated concert halls, from Carnegie Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and even the United Nations. Amini graciously selected OLM’s altar, with its beautiful grotto above, as the venue for his first concert since the COVID pandemic.
For music aficionados it is fun to know that Amini has played his large, shining cello since he was 13, and although it is of unknown origin, experts say it likely was crafted from the workshop of the master French luthier, Jean-Baptiste Vuillame. Its bow was crafted by the 20th century Czech-German bowmaker, Rudolf Neudörfer which was gifted to Amini in 1993 by his former teacher.
“I hope OLM’s children benefit from the proceeds of the concert, 100 percent of which will be used for arts and music and other programs at the school,” Amini said.