Described in The Times as “One of the most exciting cellists to have emerged for a decade”, former BBC New Generation Artist Andrei Ionita draws together some of the greatest music ever written for solo cello. Ionita gives the world-premiere recording of Australian composer Brett Dean’s 11 Oblique Strategies, from which the album takes its name. Dean’s work was inspired by the Oblique Strategy cards invented by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt to spark creativity. In J.S. Bach’s exquisite Cello Suite No.1 a sense of harmony is created using a single melodic line, with mesmerising results. Kodály’s pioneering Sonata (1915) is another giant of the solo cello repertoire, and the album concludes with Black Run (2001) by contemporary Swedish polymath Svante Henryson.