Ophělie Gaillard Whenever I approach a piece of music, I tend to search for the cantabile of a musical phrase, find the vocal expressiveness of a melodic line, explore new colours and make a musical intention or an emotion palpable. As Anner Bylsma once said, the cellist must become a master of fencing with their bow. The bow is our main ally. Without it, it’s difficult to talk about the cantabile, the art of connecting one note to another, of joining one sound to the next. Its action is dependent on the right arm’s balance: having fluidity of movement in space, a good amount of weight transferred from the back to the upperarm, forearm, and hand, and good flexibility and tone of the joints. You have to constantly adjust yourself, and find a subtlety of balance between speed and weight, articulation and legato, and song and speech.