Frances-Marie Uitti

Who is Frances-Marie Uitti?

Frances-Marie Uitti is composer and cellist known for her performances of the most esoteric and virtuosic contemporary classical music. She was born in 1946 in the US to Finnish parents, and she studied classical music at Meadowmount with Ronald Leonard and Josef Gingold, Boston University with Leslie Parnas and University of Texas with George Neikrug. In Europe she worked at the Academia Chigiana with Andre Navarra, winning their top award two years in a row.

Uitti invented a radically extended technique using two bows simultaneously in one hand- being the first to transform the cello into a 4 part chordal instrument. This technique expands the harmonic and timbral possibilities of the instrument in extraordinary ways: for example, one can play simultaneously 4, 3, 2, and 1 string, with contrasting polyrhythmic articulations between the two bows. Non-adjacent strings can also be accessed. One bow can be played near the bridge while the other is near the fingerboard.

She has used over 75 different tunings in her compositions using this technique, each producing new harmonic possibilities and exotic timbres plus a polyphony and independence of voices that her previous work with a single curved bow couldn't obtain.