Jo Quail is an internationally acclaimed composer and virtuoso cellist from London. Over the past few year’s Jo has performed solo, in collaboration with chorus and orchestras such as Poland’s Cappella Gedanensis as well as with bands and artists such as Myrkur, A Sun Amissa, Khost, MONO and Caspian. Roadburn Festival also commissioned her to create a piece of music at this year’s festival which was sadly postponed but the intention was to explore heaviness, and focus on exploring the juxtaposition between classical and more contemporary music.
She released a new album called Exsolve in 2018 but since then has started to reissue her back catalogue on vinyl as it was previously only available on CD which is long sold out. The next reissue is of her 2016 album Five Incantations which will be out on 20th November via her own label Adderstone Records. Pre-order is available here. This versions features an additional bonus track which is a live performance of Jo with choir of Cappella Gedanensis and Alicja Lach-Owsiany, conducted by Jos Pijnappel. Check the live video for the track “The Breathing Hand“.
She explains: ” ‘The Breathing Hand’ is the second track from Five Incantations, and it explores the element of Air. Originally for cello quartet, I orchestrated this for performance by the choir of Cappella Gedanensis, cellist Alicja Lach-Owsiany and myself. Poet Mohan Rana wrote ‘The Crossing’ as a response to this music. Origianlly written in Hindi, this was then translated to English and then in to Polish, and I set his beautiful poetry within the phrases of the music. This is the premiere performance of this version of ‘The Breathing Hand’ and it’s live from Gdansk, Poland.”