Finding his way home through a single voice: cellist Sebastian Plano on his new album, Solo, his most personal work to date

Sebastian Plano

Grammy-nominated Argentine cellist and composer Sebastian Plano announces the release of his deeply personal new album, Solo, arriving on 26 June.

For more than two decades, Sebastian Plano has built a distinctive musical language that bridges classical tradition, contemporary composition and cinematic atmosphere. Across acclaimed recordings, the Argentine-born, Grammy-nominated cellist and composer has become known for richly layered sound worlds that blend acoustic instruments with electronics, creating music that feels both intimate and expansive. With his forthcoming album Solo, released on 26 June, Plano strips everything back.

His most personal work to date, Solo is the first album of his career composed and recorded entirely for unaccompanied cello. The result is a collection of pieces that reflects a lifetime of movement, memory and transformation, distilled into a single instrumental voice.

Music has always been part of Plano’s story. Born in Rosario, Argentina, into a family of musicians – both parents performed in the city’s symphony orchestra, while his grandfather was a tango composer and bandoneon player – he began studying the cello at the age of seven and composing by twelve. Alongside his classical training, he developed a fascination with electronic music after discovering artists such as Vangelis, a curiosity that would later become central to his artistic identity. At seventeen, Plano left Argentina alone to pursue studies abroad, earning full scholarships to the United World College of the Adriatic, the Boston Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory. The experience of crossing continents, adapting to new cultures and constantly redefining notions of home would leave a lasting imprint on both his life and his music.

Those journeys form the emotional foundation of Solo. Rather than telling a straightforward autobiographical story, the album unfolds as a continuous musical arc, tracing themes of identity, belonging and change through a single uninterrupted cello voice. The pieces flow seamlessly into one another, creating what feels less like a sequence of compositions and more like a personal meditation on movement itself. That vulnerability lies at the heart of Solo. By embracing the limitations and possibilities of a single instrument, Plano has created a work of remarkable focus and honesty – one that explores not only where he has been, but what it means to continually evolve.

Ahead of the album’s release on 26 June, we spoke with Sebastian Plano about improvisation, memory, Bach, belonging and the artistic freedom that emerged from stripping everything back to one instrument.

Your new album Solo marks a striking departure from your previous, more layered works. What drew you to the idea of writing exclusively for unaccompanied cello at this stage in your career?

My new album Solo explores movement and transformation, forces that have shaped my life and artistic path over the past twenty years. I chose to present the music in its simplest form – a single, uninterrupted cello solo line from beginning to end. This continuous voice mirrors a personal journey that, in a way, has come full circle after twenty years.

Writing music for unaccompanied cello was a completely different creative process, both in composition and recording. Stepping outside my comfort zone and working within such constraints was challenging, yet the reduction of possibilities brought a deep sense of focus.

You’ve described Solo as a journey of being “completely alone” with your instrument. How did that sense of isolation influence your compositional process?

The isolation had a profound influence, bringing me closer to the physicality of the instrument, where gesture, imperfection and the resonance of both the cello and the surrounding space became integral to the musical language.

When you write for a solo instrument, all your focus is on a single source of sound. The compositional process therefore became centred on elements such as timbre, vibrato and subtle variations in articulation – essential tools in shaping the music. Silence also became an active element, almost like a second voice shaping the narrative.

Improvisation appears to play a central role in Solo. How do you balance spontaneity with structure when shaping these pieces into finished compositions?

My relationship with the instrument changes completely when I improvise compared to when I perform written music. The sensation shifts, and so does the character of the music. In improvisation, there’s a real sense of freedom – the music unfolds organically, almost effortlessly. But the moment I put something written in front of me, my playing becomes more deliberate, more structured. I had always been aware of this contrast, but while working on Solo, it became especially evident, shaping not only my playing but my entire approach to writing the music.

This tension presented a real challenge – finding a balance between the openness of improvisation and the discipline of written form. In that process, I captured many recordings that felt compelling in the moment, rich in sound and expression, but lacked a clear structural arc or narrative coherence.

Your music often reflects a strong sense of place. How did your experiences living in Rosario, San Francisco, Berlin and northern Italy shape the narrative of this album?

All the pieces on the album make direct references to the different places where I have lived over the past twenty years. They evoke moments and emotions, almost like sound postcards from the past. With Solo, I wanted to trace and express that, creating an arc that depicts the entire journey through music. The pieces flow into one another, forming a continuous, uninterrupted voice.

Several works on the album, such as Every Beginning, Sense and Change, and Wonders, seem to trace a personal timeline. Did you conceive Solo as a kind of autobiographical cycle?

In a way, yes, but not as a fixed or deliberately autobiographical framework. I didn’t approach Solo as a linear life story. It was much more intuitive, unfolding naturally as a creative path rather than something consciously shaped with a clear autobiographical intent.

I think the album ultimately narrates universal feelings – the emotional and psychological states we all pass through when facing change. The pieces may feel personal, and in many ways they are, but they are not tied to specific events or chronological memories in a direct sense. Instead, they reflect fragments of experience, impressions and inner states.

The tradition of the solo cello repertoire inevitably invites comparison with Johann Sebastian Bach. In what ways did this lineage inform your thinking, and where did you consciously choose to diverge from it?

Bach’s cello suites are, without question, a foundational pillar of the solo cello repertoire. I’ve been playing them since I started learning the cello at the age of seven, and over time they have inevitably shaped the way I think about the instrument itself. During the making of Solo, that influence resurfaced in very specific ways.

Two aspects in particular were always present in my mind – the ability to suggest multiple voices within a single line, and the creation of a strong harmonic sense without accompaniment.

At the same time, I was very conscious of not remaining within that lineage. The works in Solo deliberately move away from Bach in terms of form, structure and language. Where Bach builds clarity through balance and architectural symmetry, I was more interested in fragmentation, openness and a more fluid sense of time and narrative. In a way, the dialogue with Bach was less about continuation and more about departure, using that foundation as a reference point, but allowing the music to evolve into something more personal and less bound by historical expectation.

At its core, the album seems to grapple with identity and belonging. What do you hope listeners take away from hearing your music in its most exposed and unadorned form?

At its core, the work’s sense of identity and belonging arises from moments and feelings that are universally human. Rather than isolated personal experiences, what I express are shared inner states. In this way, the album is less about a fixed identity and more about movement, transformation and change.

The music from the album will also be published as a printed music book. My hope is that cellists who wish to play these pieces will make them their own, shaping them through their interpretation and sensibility. It becomes an invitation for cellists to embark on their own musical journey, and to give each piece a voice that reflects their personal perspective.

Sebastian Plano: Solo – released 26 June – further information.