Name: Clarice Jensen
Nationality: American
Occupation: Cellist, Composer
Recent release: Clarice Jensen's Esthesis is out October 21st 2022 via 130701.

Tool of Creation: Cello
Type of Tool: String instrument
Country of origin: The modern cello was most likely first developed In Italy, around the same time as the violin.
Became available in: The 16th century

[Read our feature about the violin]
[Read Theresa Wong's perspective on the cello]

If you enjoyed this interview with Clarice Jensen about the cello and would like to explore her work in more depth, visit her expansive official website. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook. To keep reading, head over to our earlier Clarice Jensen interview.

For interviews with some of her collaborators or artists whose recordings she's appeared on:

[Read our Winged Victory for the Sullen interview]
[Read our Michael Harrison interview]
[Read our Dustin O'Halloran interview]
[Read our Dustin O'Halloran interview about his creative process]
[Read our Carolina Eyck interview]
[Read our Max Richter interview]
[Read our feature about Max Richter's New Four Seasons]
[Read our Hildur Guðnadóttir interview]
[Read our William Basinski interview]
[Read our Xiu Xiu interview]
[Read our Xiu Xiu interview about sound]
[Read our The Album Leaf interview]
[Read our Balmorhea interview]
[Read our Michael A. Muller of Balmorhea interview]
[Read our Balmorhea interview about climate change]
[Read our Matmos interview]



What was your first encounter with the cello? What was it about it that drew you in?

I began cello lessons when I was 3; before this I briefly had a few violin lessons and I vaguely remember seeing kids playing the cello at the first recital and telling my mother that I wanted a cello instead.

I remember being drawn to its shape and size and sound, and that you sort of hug it when you play.

Just like any other instrument, the cello has a rich history. What are some of the key points from this history for you personally?

Charlotte Moorman performing Nam June Paik’s TV cello, using her instrument as means of expression outside of its tradition. Discovering this piece led me to explore her work and I am very inspired by her participation in performance art, her historic collaborations and the trove of avant-garde work she championed.



Bach’s Cello Suites are some of the most beloved and well known works in the repertoire, so it is obvious to include them. But I think works are also mysterious and contain secrets. On basic levels they function as exceptional study etudes for the instrument (I often turn to these pieces when I need to do some clean-up of my technique). Bach did not write much secular work; some scholars argue that his wife Anna Magdalena actually wrote them.

Jacqueline Du Pre’s performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto: I don’t remember how I first saw as a child the famous video footage of this performance with Daniel Barenboim, but seeing a young woman interact so viscerally and compellingly with her cello made a huge impact on me. I think at first I felt uncomfortable but also curious and later, could relate.  



What, to you, are some of the most interesting cello recordings and -performances by other artists in terms of your personal development?

Both Anner Bylsma and Rostropovich’s 1955 recordings of the Bach Suites are equally important and beautiful to me. Stylistically they couldn’t be more different (and I suppose one of them is more “correct” than the other) but both artists clearly find and express beauty in those notes in very personal and meaningful ways.



Julius Eastman’s "The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc" from his album Unjust Malaise. Being introduced to this piece for ten cellos led me to learn more about Eastman’s unbelievable work and career. The score for the piece was lost which was hugely sad and frustrating to me, so using this recording (which was an archival recording used for radio broadcast) I transcribed the piece which is now published and available for performance. I’m so happy this piece can be performed again live!



Arthur Russell’s World of Echo is an album of unlikely closeness and sincerity and intimacy. Besides displaying what the cello can sound like with very minimal effects, the album, to me, is almost uncomfortably spare and direct. I’m inspired by this economy of material and bravely unadorned expression.



When talking about electronic devices, we often think about their “features”. But the cello is a complex device, too. What are some of its stand-out features from your point of view? How would you describe its sonic potential?

Acoustically, the cello has a generous range and it sounds uniquely beautiful across that range. It is versatile in that it can serve as a solid bass, exquisite lead melody voice and supportive harmonic structure in the middle range too.

It can easily transition from foreground to background, and its sound can take on or portray infinite characters or emotions.

Instrument design is an ongoing process. Are you interested in recent developments for the cello in this respect?

I have a cello made of carbon fiber. While I appreciate how durable it is (I’m not afraid to check it on airplanes or toss it into my pond for that matter) it still does not possess all the sonic richness and full spectrum of overtones that my wood cello does. It does sound rather nice, but limited.

I long for a durable and stress free instrument that could sound even 75% as good as my wood cello.

Tell me about the process of learning to play the instrument and your own explorations with it.

I started learning cello via the Suzuki method which teaches young children to play instruments the same way they are taught a language: by ear and mimicry first, and reading second. I would practice every day (only eat on the days you practice) and early lessons were spent watching and copying my teacher. At home I would repeatedly listen to recordings of the pieces I was learning.

I value the training I had from a young age because I think it really cultivated my ear and allowed for me a very easy facility with my instrument. Having held one since I was three, playing cello feels like the most natural thing I do in life. I think this ease and my fascination with listening allowed me to love music later in life, and to find my own ways of using the instrument.

After such a long experience with creating acoustic sound and exploring the limits of the cello’s acoustic sound and the limits of my own ability to create that sound, I finally arrived where I am now which is experimenting with this acoustic sound through various effects pedals.

What are specific challenges in terms of playing the cello?

Carrying it! Carting a nearly human sized case around the five boroughs for years and years has taken its toll and only now that I’ve moved to the Hudson Valley and away from the bustle of some of my freelance life in the city have I noticed a new sense of physical and psychological ease.

I’m not exaggerating! Carting a cello on the train, through throngs of pedestrian traffic, up and down stairs … finding a place to stash it in the back of a movie theater or the corner of a crowded bar, crossing fingers it will fit in either the trunk or passenger seat of your cab … not to mention the stress associated with air travel!

As well, total strangers never miss an opportunity to attempt some witty small talk about the instrument (“bet you wished you played the flute”) or sometimes people just grin and yell “cello!” or “Yo Yo Ma” at me on the street. This is all very difficult for an introvert.

What interests you about the cello in terms of it contributing to your creative ideals? How do you see the relationship between your instrument and the music you make?

The majority of my life has been spent playing chamber music and collaborating with others. For years I knew I wanted to embark on a solo project but I felt frustrated by the sound of a cello alone, or just cello playing along to backing tracks.

Experimenting with playing through guitar pedals allowed me to open up the tonal possibilities of solo playing and integrate the instrument I know and love into an electronic music scenario that I felt was very sincere and an expression of myself, and that was connected innately to my musical experience since I was a child.

How would you describe your personal style of playing the cello?

I think “style” is a difficult word. I think most people would assign the words “ambient” or “post-classical” as my musical style.

But regarding my approach to cello playing specifically, I’d say that I like to be informed by historical performance practice and integrate that into the way I feel the music should go.

And more generally than this, my first priority with cello playing is creating a beautiful sound and sustaining a coherent and clear musical line.  

Some see instruments merely as tools towards creativity, others feel they go hand in hand. What's your take on that?

I think it depends on the instrument and the person who is playing and or using it. I sometimes use piano to write, to fill in the details of a composition, to start making more specific decisions, but never to begin or conceptualize a piece, and rarely in performance.

So for me I would say keyboards are a tool, whereas cello is more innately and deeply tied to my creativity as a whole, or my means of expression at home or on stage, and that is innately tied to me as a person and a musician.

What does playing your instrument feel like, what do you enjoy about it, what are your own physical limits and strengths?

I enjoy playing cello because it allows me to give voice to the sounds and music I wish to create. It allows me to express and communicate in a beautiful and abstract medium which, to me, is natural and makes sense. It feels like communicating without the hassle of using your tongue and mouth and breath and without having to settle on words.

Physically I have been very fortunate to have avoided any serious repetitive stress injuries but I have very tight shoulders and upper back.   

Could you describe working with the cello on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

Many years ago I played some concerts with Stars of the Lid and it was the first time I was asked to sustain very long or slowly moving tones in minimal yet evocative ways.

Physically I learned what was needed to sustain beautifully such long tones, but musically a new door opened to reveal expression through duration and slowness.

How, would you say, does the cello interact with other instruments from ensembles/groups you're part of?

Because of its diverse range and sonic variety, it interacts in so many different ways. The nature of the interaction depends on the piece we are performing.

Each instrument is vital and each voice is just as important as the others, just like all chamber music. The interaction happens melodically, harmonically, rhythmically, etc.

Are there other cello players whose work with their instrument you find inspiring? What do you appreciate about their take on it?

Charlotte Moorman and Arthur Russell inspire me in similar ways. They both were participating in and producing avant-garde work in New York, both had classical backgrounds that were upended upon moving to New York, both used cello as a means to enter or express much larger art and idea, and both died too young.

In the light of picking your instrument, how would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation vs perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I feel a deep respect for the history of all music and tradition. With regards to Western music specifically, I can appreciate the cello’s place in this tradition. However I can’t say I’ve ever been interested in any sort of joining the ranks of the great composers or performers.

That said, the history and tradition associated with the cello, and more broadly the study of classical music and its performance, and all of the associated practicing and repetition and struggle and perfectionism is what led me to feel free to create my own music and use the instrument the way I do. Without all of my training, and without feeling a strong classical mastery of the instrument and a close connection to classical repertoire, I don’t think I would have felt confident enough to do my own thing. Nor would I have felt the creative desire to break away from this conservative world.

And I feel deep satisfaction still participating in the conservative world, too.