Zuill Bailey expects Grammy joy to infiltrate this year’s Bach festival

In many ways, cellist Zuill Bailey associates “Tales of Hemingway” with Spokane.

The Northwest Bach Festival artistic director and renowned cellist first got the music for the piece, from composer Michael Daugherty, during the 2015 Northwest Bach Festival, and set about learning it in his room at the Davenport Hotel.

It was in Spokane in December when Bailey learned not only had he been nominated for his first Grammy Award for solo instrumental performance for his work on the recording, but that “Tales of Hemingway” took two other Grammy nods, for best classical compendium and best composition.

And now, days after “Tales of Hemingway” swept its three categories, Bailey again will be in Spokane, and he’ll be performing his Grammy-winning work for audiences as part off the Northwest Bach Festival, which kicks off Tuesday.

“The whole journey, literally, began with printing it out in Spokane, downstairs at the Davenport,” Bailey said last week. “And to bring it full circle, and to be able to present it and celebrate it in Spokane two years later … is amazing.”

Since the concert with the Nashville Symphony that was recorded live for the CD, “Michael Daugherty: Tales Of Hemingway, American Gothic & Once Upon A Castle,” Bailey has performed the piece with orchestras from Detroit to Istanbul. What he’s done only a couple times is perform it with Daugherty’s adaptation of the orchestral score for piano and solo cello. On March 2 at Barrister Winery, he and pianist Elizabeth DeMio will take on that task.

“It’s amazingly effective,” Bailey said.

With additional bookings to play the piece piling up, Bailey knows he’ll be living “Hemingway” for the next couple seasons.

“With pleasure,” he added, “because it’s so beautifully written for the cello and it such a personal journey for me. It deserves the attention it’s getting.”

Bailey is still riding high from last week’s Grammy win, and he predicts that joyful spirit will be woven through the Bach festival.

“Especially now, the word ‘festival’ is very appropriate. We’re going to be celebrating the whole time,” he said. “Not only what we do in Spokane, but how we resonate out, with the commissioning work we do.”

In addition to the local premiere of “Tales From Hemingway,” the Bach Festival also will feature the regional premiere of “The Three Dancers” by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, inspired by Picasso’s masterpiece of the same title.

The Bach Festival is among the organizations that commissioned the work, along with Sitka Summer Music Festival and El Paso Pro Musica – both of which Bailey serves as artistic director – as well as the Wimbledon International Music Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music and Dancenorth in Australia.

Bach’s Lunch and the Flash-Bach concerts – free noon hour events – and the Twilight series return. The festival Classics Series will be at home at Barrister Winery, and the festival finale once again will fill St. John’s Cathedral with beautiful music.

The Bach’s Lunch performances – on Thursday and again March 2 on the third floor of River Park Square – will feature something a little different this year: a duo-cello performance.

Joining Bailey for both performances is John Marshall, principal cellist for the Spokane Symphony. Bailey and Marshall first met in the early ’90s, Bailey said, at a seminar in Los Angeles. But they’ve not had a lot of experience performing together. For Bach’s Lunch, they’ll be performing duo-cello versions of several fun pieces, he said.

“Most of these duos are party pieces,” he said. “So they’re not generally performed in public. They’re done at musician parties where musicians want to get together and play together and have a great time.”

And while there are various classic and contemporary composers scattered through the program, it’s J.S. Bach who is the thread that’s woven throughout.

“We’re celebrating music, Bach, the beginning of what we know about this music,” he said. “He is the top of the mountain.”

‘No one taught me what this feels like’

Even a week after this Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles, Bailey is riding high. He took his 14-year-old son, Matteo, with him, and the pair attended the nominees’ luncheon, the awards ceremony the afternoon of Feb. 12, the telecast that night and the afterparty.

It’s an experience, he said, that’s forever seared in his psyche.

“The telecast at night is really more of a concert. It’s really not even an awards show. It’s a spectacle,” he said. “The one I was in felt like what you see on the Oscars. … Everyone is there.”

It also was a lot of waiting. There are 84 categories. Bailey’s category, best solo instrumental performance, was announced somewhere in the mid-30s.

“My son, who was sitting next to me, really kept me in the moment. He kept saying ‘You’re going to win, you’re going to win,’ ” Bailey said, adding that he tried to urge his son to be calm. “He kept punching my leg. ‘Two more categories! One more category!’ … He’s said, ‘You’re not excited, are you?’ I said, ‘Matteo, I’m trying not to explode!’ ”

When they said his name, “It was almost like I blacked out. I remember him screaming next to me. And I remember standing up, but I don’t remember really my speech, I don’t remember really walking up on stage. There were pictures taken backstage that I don’t remember taking. …

“I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, I’ve done just about everything one can do in terms of music, but no on taught me what this feels like.’ ”