Cellist Amanda Forsyth has spent much of her career inside the disciplined world of classical performance, where precision, formality and restraint are part of the work. At The Grace Note on May 15, she will step outside that frame with a cabaret-style performance that blends music, storytelling, humor and costume.
The result is an evening centered not only on Forsyth’s musicianship, but also on her personality, theatricality and sense of play.
“That whole [classical] life is very structured, very strict, very perfection-driven — this would be the opposite,” said Forsyth.
Forsyth is a Canadian Juno Award-winning cellist known for her rich tone, technical mastery and expressive stage presence. She has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, and has performed at festivals including Tanglewood, the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms. This year, she will tour with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, performing Brahms and Schubert in Switzerland, and will perform Strauss’ tone poem “Don Quixote” in Spain.
But in her new project, the formality of the concert hall gives way to the intimacy of the speakeasy. At The Grace Note, Stissing Center’s downstairs listening room, Forsyth’s cello playing remains the centerpiece, but the evening will have a looser, more conversational tone.
“People can clap between movements, for heaven’s sake,” said Forsyth. “You can laugh, you can talk, maybe even heckle.”
The set is interspersed with storytelling, humor and audience banter. Steeped in the classical tradition, Forsyth is also turning some of its conventions inside out, challenging the perception of classical music as rigid, dogmatic or humorless.
“I’m interested in doing a ‘show,’ as opposed to a classical recital,” said Forsyth.
Audiences can expect Shostakovich, Chopin, show tunes, singing and compositions by her father, Malcolm Forsyth, a renowned South African-Canadian composer who wrote pieces for his daughter since she was a child. The performance is both a musical survey and a personal retrospective, tracing Forsyth’s life with the cello from childhood to an international career.
One of the pieces her father wrote for her was playfully titled “Pops Cycle.” When the work was published, Forsyth recalled, the publisher changed the title to the more formal “Eclectic Suite.”
“You’re taking the humor out of music, why?” Forsyth recalled thinking.
Forsyth will perform some of those family pieces, reclaiming their original spirit and preserving their playfulness.
As an audience member, it may not always be clear what kind of concert this is meant to be. Is it a classical recital, with all its formalities and unwritten rules about when to applaud? A winking cabaret with a little room for raucousness? A memoir in music? That uncertainty is part of the point.
“[The show] is not going to be sit-down and stuffed-up,” said Forsyth, who will be joined by pianist Danny Zelibor.
The show is directed by polymath artist Doug Fitch, who described it as “Like a cabaret with a cello between your legs.” It will go on to have its premiere at National Sawdust in Brooklyn in 2027. At The Grace Note, audiences will see the artists still building the piece, testing ideas around costume, script and setlist.
Fitch is known for his puppetry, colorful set designs and interactive performances. While there are no puppets in this show, he is experimenting with costume.
“We’ve already purchased some wings for her,” said Fitch. “I made a swan headdress that we’re aiming to use.”
Forsyth and Fitch first became acquainted through Forsyth’s husband, violinist Pinchas Zukerman. When Forsyth was experimenting with the form, she performed a prototype version at Cafe Carlyle in New York.
“I felt sort of freed by that experience,” said Forsyth. “I could play a movement of something that I like, something that isn’t necessarily written for cello, something slightly pop, — I guess they call it crossover.”
Looking to expand the idea, she connected with Fitch, whose eclectic style fits naturally with Forsyth’s playful approach to classical music.
“She’s sort of crazy and wonderful and radical and delightful and free spirited,” said Fitch of Forsyth.
Having known her for a long time, Fitch also reflected on the arc of Forsyth’s career and her musical family.
“She was always Malcolm Forsyth’s daughter, until one day he was her father,” said Fitch.
The pairing of an avant-garde director with a musician willing to loosen classical music’s formal edges has produced a show with humor, surprise and a clear affection for the music itself.
“I just love the feeling of playing for the joy of it,” said Forsyth.
On May 15, Forsyth will treat tradition as something to be played with: Shostakovich may give way to a show tune, classical repertoire may sit alongside film music, and stories from a world-traveling life in music may unfold with a storyteller’s ease.
Rather than presenting classical music as something distant or museum-like, Forsyth is making it intimate, personal and irreverent, inviting audiences into what she describes as “my life in a Amanda-land, population one.”
Amanda Forsyth will perform at 7:30 p.m. May 15 at The Grace Note, Stissing Center’s downstairs performance space. Tickets start at $45.