Trino Zurita is among the finest of musician-cellists. Free from deference to the past, his performance allies technique to evolving sound within new fields. The use of bow and strings combined with the relatively unknown sounds of electronic synthesis might be compared to early attempts at bringing together voices and musical instruments, taken for granted today. Conjoining loudspeakers and instruments, however, has never been easy and this continues to be so. There are 'problems within problems' to resolve in the search for compatibility between the different sources of sound. Resolving these problems is what inspires imagination in the fingers of the present-day cellist. Trino Zurita addresses them by taking into account their future aesthetic dominance. This studious interpreter 'transforms' our capacity to hear. Together with new sounds, he translates the episodes of past music and of the popular tradition of radio, film and video – both 'entangled' and danceable – into soundscape. (zapping, in the arborescent and adolescent mix of styles, and an ability to intuit this distinction within the space of seconds) our interpreter is capable of creating this intense and swift polisemia.
The pizzicato and a 'spectral bow' of prodigious voluntaries in many places on the tastiera sum up articulation, intensity and timbre in one gesture. Total dominance in placing notes and mastery of their limits (microtones) – with or without vibrato – and in a wide register, modulation as microtemporal change in each sound, are the marks of an enriching interpretative performance. Thus we come to comprehend the deployment of the contemporary cello, born only yesterday. In the setting of twenty-first century Spain, Trino Zurita displays masterly skill in this deployment.
Gabriel Brnčić, 2012
We're finding your readings to be unusually thought-provoking and highly expressive. We've been discussing them at some length - in particular, the ways in which ventures like yours are opening up what really is an unprecedented approach to nineteenth-century performance.
George Barth and Kumaran Arul, 2012
I have enjoyed listening to it very much. It's remarkable music, of course, and the arrangements also work very well. The piano makes an intriguing contribution to the sonorities which, on top of the distanced compositional style, alienates the pieces even more. I like that. Your sensitive playing contributes to just the same effect, so that the whole programme seems other-worldly in a very interesting way. I'm pleased to see players taking seriously the evidence of early recordings. What we could or should learn from them is a surprisingly complicated issue, practically and philosophically, but copying the styles they document is a highly informative and thought-provoking task with a lot to teach us about the nature of music.
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, 2012