Cellist Abel Selaocoe weaves African and European music in St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts

"Classical without borders."

That's the category in which Germany's prestigious Opus Klassik Awards bestowed an honor upon South African cellist Abel Selaocoe on Sunday night in Berlin for his debut album, "Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae)." And it seems as good an appellation as any for an artist who intersperses four centuries of classical cello works with original music firmly rooted in the musical traditions of his native country.

"As a child, our traditional music and church music always had a strong influence in how we lived our lives," Selaocoe said last week from his home in Manchester, England. "When classical music and the cello arrived in my life, I was already keen to express those influences onto the instruments."

So if you experience one of this week's St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts, don't be surprised to find this SPCO artistic partner plucking out a rhythm and strumming his cello while singing in the Sesotho language of his homeland.

"Anytime I pick up my instrument, it feels like a constant aspiration to emulate that power the voice can have," Selaocoe said.

And Selaocoe's voice carries a lot of power, judging from his past performances with the SPCO. He can passionately soar into the highest range of his vocal register before plummeting into a rumbling bass, employing an overtone singing technique from the Xhosa culture called umngqokolo.

"I think what inspires me is deeply embedded in my culture, but it always has universal traits," he said.

"The fabric that binds my pieces to this program are ideas of nature — night and day — faith, as in our interpretation of things we have no control over, and, most of all, improvisation," Selaocoe said, hinting that the Haydn and Boccherini works won't be played strictly as written. "Allowing us to discover new things using old tools and language."

After Selaocoe made his SPCO debut last year, the orchestra's artistic director and principal violinist, Kyu-Young Kim, said that he and the musicians decided to ask him to become one of their artistic partners "practically on the spot."

"If you've had the privilege of being in the audience when Abel is performing, you know that it's an absolutely transformational experience and one that transcends any attempts to categorize it as one kind of music: classical or jazz or world music," Kim said. "It's simply music in its purest form, an expression of the human soul through an individual's sound."

Originally, Selaocoe was scheduled to return this March, but he had to withdraw for family reasons, so this weekend's concerts will be his only Twin Cities performances this season. Kim said that he's currently slated to return for two weeks each in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons.

"Working with Abel is a true collaborative process," said the orchestra's principal bassoonist, Andrew Brady. "His demeanor is so welcoming and inviting that even if some of the musical styles aren't as familiar to the orchestra, he makes us feel at home. His approach with the audience is the same. One can't help but feel the warmth and generosity he radiates with his music making."

With: Cellist and director Abel Selaocoe.

What: Works by Dobrinka Tabakova, Selaocoe, Joseph Haydn and Luigi Boccherini.

When: 7 p.m. Thu., 11 a.m. Fri. and 7 p.m. Sat.

Where: Ordway Concert Hall, 345 Washington St., St. Paul.

Tickets: $12-$55 (students and children free), available at 651-291-1144 or thespco.org.