A CUMBRIAN cellist and poet is ready to undertake a 2000-mile bicycle pilgrimage that may take him to all 42 English cathedrals within the space of seven weeks.
Kenneth Wilson, who’s 66, might be undertaking “Pilgrim Cello”, and, in 40 of the cathedrals, he’ll perform a specially written “Seven Last Words Meditation”, which interleaves poetry of the Seven Last Words with the Sarabandes from Bach’s six cello suites. This shouldn’t be his first gruelling ride — in 2022 he cycled from Hadrian’s Wall to Rome, during which he performed on the best paved road over the Alps.
‘He’s transported by bike and by music’
In addition to his cello, Mr Wilson might be carrying seven abstract paintings by Gillian Lever, which is able to travel in a gilded box intended to seem like a medieval reliquary. “The idea is that, symbolically, it’s like a medieval pilgrim taking holy things across the holy places,” he said on Tuesday.
“These paintings, that are abstract paintings of the Seven Last Words, might be displayed as I’m performing. They’re beautiful, beautiful paintings. People might be invited to return up and make a response either to the music or to the poems, in whatever way they would love.”
The music, the words, and the paintings can have a distinct resonance in different buildings: something already proven in five cathedrals he has already visited, owing to venues’ schedules. “I’ve at all times been conscious of the holiness of place,” he said. “The holy place may be very necessary and also you don’t know what’s going to occur to you if you’re standing there.
“In Liverpool Cathedral, as an example, which I confess I actually have never been to before, I discovered myself on this amazing, enormous, and exquisite Twentieth-century space, and suddenly I used to be overwhelmed and completely taken over by the music that I used to be offering to that place.
“It was a really extraordinary experience for me. So I’m feeling that that is my offering to the holy places, and what happens to me and to the performance is a type of function of the place as much as anything that I’m bringing to it.”
Of the ability of the words and music in each place to every audience, he says: “The framework structure is identical, and the notes are roughly the identical but one way or the other, the entire functions as one whole thing which is exclusive to that moment.”
There was something unique about going right into a cathedral, he said. “A cathedral seems to have the best discontinuity between inside and outside of anyplace you’ll be able to imagine.
“You undergo the door and immediately you’re in a totally different place and space and feeling from if you were outside. So that puts me within the mind set to do the performance. I’m planning and hoping that, for many places, I might get to the cathedral a couple of couple of hours beforehand in order that I might have time to do some proper pilgrim observances within the space myself — you understand, walk quietly around and absorb and settle myself within the space before I actually have to offer a performance that may properly belong to that space.”
“Pilgrim Cello” will start in Newcastle on 19 May and end in Carlisle on 4 July. “I’m really excited,” Mr Wilson said. I’m also terrified.
“I’m nearly ready, though my cycling muscles aren’t as prepared as they ought to be. I just haven’t had time to get on the bike nearly enough due to all the opposite preparations — but yes, I’m very excited.”
The itinerary may be found at kennethwilson.com/pilgrim-cello
