Her album "Venice", released by Sony Classical, demonstrates the stylistic range and wide musical interests of cellist Anastasia Kobekina. "Venice doesn't just feel like a city, but like an idea, a character of its own," says Kobekina. "Or perhaps it represents a different character for each of us. It poses questions to us, stimulates our imagination." Her album, on which she is accompanied by hand-picked soloists and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, combines past and present, music from the Renaissance by Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland to the 21st century by Brian Eno. The album combines works by the free-spirited Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677), concerto movements by Vivaldi and Bach with a modern work such as "Limestone and Felt" by the American composer Caroline Shaw. Also represented are works by composers in whose lives Venice played a role, such as Gabriel Fauré, Nino Rota and Benjamin Britten. Anastasia Kobekina, who lives in Frankfurt / Main, will also play a work by her father Vladimir Kobekin, "Ariadne's Lament", which is based on a melody by Monteverdi. "This piece really gets under my skin and the recording is one of the most intense musical experiences I have ever had," she says. Anastasia Kobekina is a master of both the modern and baroque cello, whose use on 'Venice' blends seamlessly, depending on the original. Monteverdi, a former music director of St. Mark's Church in Venice, is almost constantly present on the album. The most famous composer to emerge from Venice, Antonio Vivaldi, is also represented in a series of cello concertos. Kobekina says of Vivaldi: 'There are such extreme contrasts in Vivaldi's music, especially between the orchestra and the soloist, as if it were between sun and shadow. You almost have the feeling of being swept along and carried away by the waves. An unconscious dance, eternal, as if it were beating a rhythm that is inherent in all of us, movement as the root of music. It is so easy to be carried away by it