This album explores the cello’s origins and the creative process of new music fascinate Elinor Frey. Her excellent new album, Guided by Voices, consists of six commissions for baroque cello, including three for the five-string cello. Composed by Scott Godin, Linda Catlin Smith, Ken Ueno, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Maxime McKinley and Lisa Streich, these new works played on instruments built in recent years reveal the incredible versatility and remarkable colors of the instruments which have inspired these outstanding composers. Elinor Frey plays both period and modern instruments. Her recent release on the Belgian label Passacaille, Berlin Sonatas with Lorenzo Ghielmi on fortepiano, was nominated for a Juno award for Best Classical Album, Solo & Chamber Music and won the 2015 Québec Opus Prize for Early Music album of the year. Her first Baroque album, La voce del violoncello, was praised for its “careful scholarship and brilliant layering of moods and tempos” (Toronto Star) and for the “honest, reflective beauty of her music making” (Strings). Her performance of this program was the winner of the public prize at the 2013 Utrecht Early Music Festival Fringe.