1991, Summer, Huntington Garage Fire

Cellist Leila Bordreuil infuses walls of noise with a sense of deep melancholia

I took a brief glance to the side. The middle-aged woman in the seat next to me was plugging her ears with her fingers, her face contorted in a mix of horror and disgust.

On stage, Leila Bordreuil had been coaxing devilish screeching tones from her cello for 20 minutes. After a slow decrescendo, she had gone back to harsh noise attacks nearing the end of…