Words by David C. Obenour
We all make space for rituals. From those common to others sacrosanct, we find these practices that create parameters, meaning, and sometimes more for us. However, on examining them more closely the implied weight of each begins to fluctuate. What once seemed small can start to feel infinite. Through consideration of habit and intent, something closer to the mystic can be found.
For the Black and White Editions of her album Ordo Ritualis, cellist Maya Fridman examines her own rituals and those of the composers featured. Through thoughtful perception, practice, and finally performance, the songs here come to life with incredible depth that connects to different places and on levels.
Off Shelf: You talk about these songs as being inspired by rituals in life. Can you talk about the space you allow for rituals in your life?
Maya Fridman: Rituals take many forms. For me, they are spaces within the flow of daily life that reignite wonder and connection. I believe my fascination with ritual came from a curiosity about what lies beyond my expectations. In that sense, some concerts can feel profoundly ritualistic, as can certain pieces of music, because they allow me to submit myself to a pure experience.
Outside of music, I love exploring rituals from various traditions and creating my own. Currently, I’m working on several projects through my platform, Maya Fridman Foundation, which are inspired by rituals in both concept and form. I should probably mention that this fascination has also led me to begin an artistic PhD trajectory titled Ritualization of Concert Practice.
OS: Do you find your belief in the power of rituals to be rooted in the cognitive intention or something perhaps more mystical than that?
MF: It is both… intention is definitely one of the most important aspects of it. But it is also about being open to jumping into the pre-cognitive, liminal sphere of existence, which can indeed be felt as something mystical or of that sort. I believe that this is the most beautiful part of it.
OS: Can you compare the ritual of playing for recording to performing live? How do each of them connect to different places for you as a musician?
MF: Difficult question! Recording is intensely intimate—you’re alone with the sound, with time suspended. Live performance is unpredictable, communal. Both studio recording and public performance could be felt like ritual spaces but the energy is quite different. In one, I feel as if I am extended in the open empty space of a recording location, and the other one includes -in my imagination- the people of the audience. And the latter definitely affects the way I play.
OS: On the cover you hold a book open with writing and symbols. Can you talk to the pages held open? How you see them connected to the two editions?
MF: I imagined this book as a personal grimoire consisting of some old poetic invocations, music scores and diary entries. The White Edition has a Latin text alluding to the water element and was meant to be used in rituals in medieval times to purify it, allegedly. When I found that text I thought that it served the atmosphere of the White Edition perfectly. Of course, I mean purely on symbolic level, which resonated with me intuitively, but it is hard to explain. The same applies to the Black Edition. There, I used the spell for Salt as a metaphor for the Earth element. As in all rituals, symbols are personal entries to some sort of pre-cognitive realities where -much like in dreams- everything makes total sense until the moment of being woken up or trying to explain them rationally.
OS: What aspect of ritual do you find in these songs? Did you draw the connection more personally or was it through knowing the intent of the composers?
MF: Both, actually! With some of the composers whose works I recorded for Ordo Ritualis I worked for several years, so it felt as though they knew what I was looking for even better than I did myself.
For example, I found Fjóla Evans’ Reid-Hagall-Bjarkan a few years ago during one of my annual quests for new music, and immediately felt a deep connection. I recorded it for my album REID. Later, when I was preparing my first ritual-inspired recital for the 2020 Cello Biennale, I asked Fjóla if she’d be open to exploring ritual explicitly in a new work. That became Vatnaskuggi – Meeting Your Water Shadow.
With Kaveh Vares, my collaboration goes back even further—he was the first composer I ever commissioned. That resulted in Red Velvet, which I am very proud of. His piece, Egidius, featured on this album, has a distinctly different feel. It’s deeply ritualistic to me because it deals with grief, loss, and letting go— emotions that rituals traditionally serve to facilitate.
I could talk at length about each piece of the album, but in the end, it is not about my interpretations but what the listener would make of it.
OS: When thinking of music rooted in ritual that’s come before, the meaning is usually fairly explicit through its given context. How do you think these pieces differ having given the space for a listener’s more personal translation?
MF: Each piece on the album has its own backstory, which in one way or another reflects an attempt to connect with or question the world around us. However, the meaning comes alive only in relation to the listener’s individual experience, and otherwise remains quite abstract.
OS: Can you talk about the uniqueness of the Black and White editions of Ordo Ritualis?
MF: I left it intentionally open why there are two editions of Ordo Ritualis, hoping that some listeners would engage with both in their entirety and form their own ideas. To me, reversing the order of the compositions creates a new narrative and allows one to experience them differently. I wanted to experiment with the concept of light and darkness and create something perfectly balanced using just one concept – a collection of “personal rituals” – and how one might bring forth a new world merely by reversing the order.
OS: While the sequencing is changed, each edition ends with a different remix. How did the collaboration with Madiel come together? How much of your vision of the album did you share as opposed to leaving it to their interpretation?
MF: Madiel and I have known each other for years. I have total trust in their intuition and unique approach to sound. That’s why I left the remixes entirely to their interpretation.
OS: How do you feel each provides a fitting – and different – culmination for the album?
MF: The White Edition’s remix evokes a sense of dissolution—a return to stillness following the intensity of the ritual.
The Black Edition’s remix is more raw. It explores unresolved emotion while gradually pushing towards symbolic closure. To me, that is the promise of any ritual: that it will carry you somewhere—even if not to resolution, at least to transformation.
OS: The modern world is a dynamic place, and given that these recordings came from three to four years ago, do they mean something different to you now than they may have then?
MF: When I listen now, I hear where I was—mentally and physically—during that time. The last day of recording in 2022 coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It had a huge impact on me and I postponed the rest of the recordings because my mind was entirely elsewhere and I began full-time organizing benefit concerts for Ukraine together with my Ukrainian colleagues. Yet, those pieces stayed with me during these whole time. I learnt to understand them better, to translate them better through the lens of my new experiences.