Yo Yo Ma The Geisha and the Cello Drawing

In honor of John Williams "The Suite from Memoirs of a Geisha is a concert work based on John Williams’ 2005 film score of the same name. The piece is written for a symphony orchestra and a cello soloist. Williams wrote it specifically with the famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in mind, who had also performed on the original soundtrack of the film. The suite is in classic Williams tradition a significant reworking and reimagining of the thematic material found in the score presented in six movements. Each movement is a self-contained development of a single theme or a few musical ideas where the composer showcases the cello as the main solo instrument but significant solos are assigned to violin, oboe and flute. The suite premiered in the autumn of 2008 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Yo-Yo Ma as the soloist and John Williams himself conducting. It was recorded live at the event and has been since released on Sony Masterworks label (the old Sony Classical) on two different occasions, first as a part of the Yo-Yo Ma: 30 Years Outside the Box (a 90 CD collection!!!) and then in 2010 on a John Williams compilation album The Music of America John Williams. The suite utilizes for the most part a standard Western symphony orchestra but is enhanced by Japanese instrumentation, most prominently the percussion. However in these pieces Williams has recorchestrated the music for the symphony orchestra, filling now the roles of Japanese ethnic instruments, so colourfully used in the film score, with the sounds of the traditional symphonic ones. He succeeds exceedingly well in mimicing the timbral aspects and sounds of koto, shakuhachi, shamisen and erhu with the strings and woodwinds. The brass section seems to be comprised of mainly French horns as it was in the soundtrack recording."