I thought I wanted to play the flute, but band didn’t start until fifth grade and orchestra started in fourth grade. I couldn’t wait. Violin seemed too high-pitched and too common. Cello was enchanting but I rode the school bus and I immediately imagined lugging the cello down the aisle of the bus. I barely knew what a viola was, which spoke to my already obscurantist soul. Viola it was. But I’ve always regretted, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, that I didn’t chose cello.

Maurice Gendron I don’t know much about but I love this slightly experimental short doc on him from 1961. Pierre Fournier recorded my favorite version of the Bach Cello Suites, I watched this whole hour-long doc despite not speaking French.