Praised for her “total involvement with the inner life of the lowest voice” (New York Concert Review Inc.), cellist Madeleine Bouissou has a vision to influence the attitude of performing on classical instruments among her peers and pupils. When she first heard a historical piano, Madeleine was struck by the variety of colors in sound and the unpredictability of the instrument itself. It inspired her to explore baroque cello where the gut strings, various temperaments, and ornamental improvisations awakened an attitude of openness to explore, react in the moment, and savor her ideas.

 

In 2020, Madeleine began training to become an Alexander Technique teacher because she wanted to learn to embody that attitude through the use of her whole self. After three years of intensive daily training, Madeleine will be qualifying this July and has already begun to use and share the process of the Alexander Technique in both her cello teaching and her collaboration with various ensembles as a cello player. She aspires to use the Alexander Technique to inspire her colleagues to explore new ways to play and hear music and experience their everyday lives.

 

Madeleine is a New Ensemblist in the period performance ensemble Arcangelo led by Jonathan Cohen. This engagement projects her into the vibrant HIP scene in London and throughout Europe with frequent international performances as well as ongoing mentoring and professional profile and career development. This enriches her personal musical development and allows her to begin to shape the early music scene with her own unique playing and ideas.

 

Madeleine is a fellow of the English Concert in America and she performs regularly with Combattimento in the Netherlands and The Boston Early Music Festival in the US and Germany. She began her professional cello studies at the age of 14 at Juilliard Pre-College and then continued at The Juilliard School where she completed her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree as a full scholarship student in Historical Performance. After her ten year tenure at Juilliard, she moved to the Netherlands to gain a broader perspective of HIP and further refine and develop her baroque cello playing in a new musical environment. This journey led her to pursue an Artist Certificate at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in 2020. She currently resides in Den Haag where she has an active career as a freelance cellist and privately teaches cello and the Alexander Technique.