Sebastian Plano
The Grammy-nominated Argentine cellist on Solo: one instrument, one performer, one uninterrupted voice.
Some records find you where you live. Sebastian Plano's Solo found me in the part of myself that has never fully belonged anywhere. The Grammy-nominated Argentine cellist made it on the road, from Argentina to Berlin to Italy, with stops in New York and Canada, and it carries all of that movement inside it. It is melodic and patient, built entirely from a single cello across fifteen pieces, from Every Beginning to Keep Wondering. A perfect companion for a solo trip, and for the longer journey inward. When he says that not belonging forces you either to disappear or to become very clear about who you are, I knew exactly what he meant.
Born Into Sound
Plano was born in Rosario in 1985, into a family where music was simply the air. Both his parents played in the city's symphony orchestra, and his grandfather was a tango composer and bandoneon player. He began the cello at seven and was composing by twelve, his classical training shadowed from early on by a fascination with electronic music, sparked by artists like Vangelis. That balance, between tradition and experiment, has never left his work.
Leaving at Seventeen
At seventeen he left Argentina alone, and the leaving became the shape of his life. Studies at the United World College of the Adriatic led to scholarships at the Boston Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory. In San Francisco he busked in subway stations, testing his music in the immediacy of public space. Then Berlin, where he joined a generation of composers reshaping the classical idiom, collaborating with the likes of Nils Frahm and building a language that fused cello, piano, and electronics into deep, layered textures. His records, almost always self-performed and self-produced, can sound like whole ensembles while staying rooted in one player's intimacy. A turning point came in 2013, when his computer and hard drives were stolen and he had to reconstruct lost works from memory, an experience that pulled the themes of loss and reconstruction permanently into his music.
Geography as Material
Now based between Berlin and northern Italy, Plano has carried his music into film and video-game scoring, including the soundtrack to Everything, which was long-listed for an Academy Award. Across all of it, the work keeps returning to the same questions: identity, belonging, and the emotional imprint of place. Rosario, Duino, Lisbon, Boston, San Francisco, Berlin, each city leaves its trace. These are the exact concerns this archive keeps circling too, which is part of why his music lands the way it does here.
When you don't fully belong anywhere, you either disappear or you become very, very clear about who you are.Sebastian Plano
Solo
Released on 26 June and written over two years, often in isolation, Solo is his first work entirely for unaccompanied cello. It is a meditation on identity, on what remains when everything else is stripped away. He thought of it from the first note as a single uninterrupted line, a suite of fifteen movements that breathe from beginning to end. Here is the video for the opening piece, Every Beginning.
The Conversation
Solo feels like an act of reduction, a deliberate stripping away of everything non-essential. Do you think creativity is sometimes more about removing than adding, and what did this process reveal to you about your relationship with music?
Yes, for me, working on 'Solo' felt like departing completely from my comfort zone, it meant changing my compositional and recording approach entirely. It was a very focused creative process, the fact that I was writing, performing, and recording for a single instrument made the process particularly intense, and found myself having to face challenges that I hadn't expected along the way.
I've always been drawn to music that says a lot with very little. Music is simple by nature, and I admire works that are able to convey something meaningful without overcomplicating it. I think that simplicity often makes the music feel more honest, direct, and ultimately more powerful.
Musically speaking, with 'Solo', I learned what it means to look at yourself in the mirror.
Throughout your career, you've worked across contemporary classical composition, electronics, film scoring and performance. Has creating Solo changed your understanding of what a composition can be?
It certainly did, in two ways: the form and weight of the sound changed completely, and I had to adapt to that at first. The other aspect was that I had been thinking of the album as a whole from the very beginning, one uninterrupted line that tells a story from start to finish.
In that sense, the album can be seen as a single suite of fifteen movements.
With Solo, I learned what it means to look at yourself in the mirror.Sebastian Plano
There is a remarkable sense of patience and silence in this record. In a culture increasingly shaped by speed and distraction, what role do you think slowness plays in both creating and experiencing music?
Boredom is a spark for creativity and invention. I think slowness, per se, plays a truly important, and I would even say arguably essential, role when it comes to writing music or doing any creative work.
I don't meditate, but I do contemplate a lot; I like to let my mind be completely free and drift between thoughts and ideas. I think that sense of contemplation is particularly present in 'Solo'.
I also wanted the album to breathe as a whole, creating a sonic landscape from beginning to end. The use of silence was deeply embedded in the writing process, shaping the music as much as the notes themselves.
I honestly think it is very healthy to cultivate slowness in our lives these days; time is all we have, and we are constantly squeezing it.
Many artists spend years searching for their voice. When you listen back to Solo, do you hear a culmination of that search, or does it feel more like the beginning of a new chapter?
I believe the search never ends, it only evolves, and 'Solo' feels like a part of that course.
As an artist, I want to question myself, grow and discover new perspectives. Each project becomes a reflection of where I am at a particular moment along that path. 'Solo' reflects my own journey, weaving together who I am as a person with who I have become as a musician through the experiences that have shaped me.
I wanted to tell my story in its simplest form: one instrument, one performer, one uninterrupted voice, where the cello becomes both storyteller and witness.
Your music often evokes vivid landscapes and emotional imagery. When you're composing, do sounds arrive hand in hand with visual impressions, or do the images emerge later? And when performing live, are there particular places, memories or scenes that accompany the music in your mind?
Most often, visual impressions and images emerge later. At the moment I am writing music, I am completely immersed in the sound, but sometimes a very clear image or visual impression can come to my mind while composing. I also have a tendency to put my thoughts into written form, simply writing down any ideas the music may inspire.
When I am playing live, memories and scenes tend to constantly cross my mind. I feel a strong sense of perspective around the music, something that isn't present during the creative process in the studio.
How do you recognise the moment when a piece stops belonging to your plans and starts revealing something unexpected?
Unless there is a detailed brief to follow, I do not have plans when it comes to writing music. I want everything to unfold unexpectedly; I simply follow my intuition.
Improvisation is at the heart of my compositional process. Most of my music comes directly out of it, and it plays an essential role in developing ideas. At times, this can make the process quite chaotic, but I like how chaos gradually becomes structure over time.
For me it is important to give the music time to evolve, stepping away for days, weeks, months or even years, and returning with fresh ears. It is in that distance that I can gain perspective and understand what I truly want to say.
Do you think composing has changed the way you experience the passage of time in everyday life?
I can't really say, but there's something beautiful in how you and your music grow together.
Your work often invites deep listening rather than immediate gratification. What do you hope listeners might discover if they spend time with Solo beyond the first impression?
'Solo' is a set of songs rooted in feelings that connect us all, stories of movement and transformation. It is a very exposed record, and I hope that the longer the listener sits with it, the more they will feel they are hearing not just the cello, but a life unfolding through it. I hope the album does not remain fixed as my story, but becomes something personal for each listener as they spend time with it.
I also very much wish to inspire other cellists to play these pieces and invite them to explore their own musical journey, expressing each piece in their own voice. All fifteen cello solo pieces will be published as a sheet music book, both in digital and print form.
Looking ahead, after creating perhaps your most distilled and focused work to date, what questions are you asking yourself now as an artist?
I have a clear sense of where I want to go next musically, so the overall direction feels settled. In this regard, the questions I'm asking are directly tied to various other artistic aspects, besides the music, within each project.
What remains are questions that are less about the music itself and more about everything surrounding it, several of them relating to technology and the way we communicate today. Going back to our earlier topic of speed in our daily lives, I somewhat struggle with this, but I must navigate the world we live in today.
sebastianplano.com
Photography by Paolo Barretta
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