Cello, Is It Me You're Looking For?

• Position: Finalentry - Accountant Blake Oliver - Interview

Blake OliVer is a man of many talents. He co-founded Cloudsourced Accounting, an online bookkeeping service, and writes and curates for Cloud Accounting Weekly (CloudAccountingWeekly.com). He worked as a consulting manager with Armanino LLP until he recently took a new position as senior product marketing manager for FloQast (FloQast.com), which develops close management software. All of his work in the profession earned him the honor of being named to the CPA Practice Advisor's "40 Under 40" for 2016 and 2017.

But all that isn't the reason Oliver caught our attention. It turns out he's a classically trained cellist. (You can sec a young Oliver in action at youtube.com/watch?v=2awTUqAt2-s).

How did you get into playing the cello?

In the fourth grade we had a string orchestra. I wanted to play the violin, but my parents convinced me to pick the cello. They told me years later it was because they thought it wouldn't sound as bad as a violin when I was a beginner. I don't think they imagined I'd end up lugging that cello everywhere. The extra plane tickets really added up!

The great cellists (partial list): Fournier, Rostropovich, Tortelier, Piatigorsky, Ma, Maisky, du Pre. Who wins in a poker game?

Rostropovich, because he'd get everyone to start drinking vodka, and then he'd drink them under the table.

How far back have you traced your cellist teacher lineage?

My teacher in college was Hans Jorgcn Jensen, who studied with Asger Lund Christiansen, Leonard Rose, Charming Robbins and Pierre Fournier. Amazingly, if you go to Fournier's Wikipedia page, you can trace the teacher-pupil lineage all the way back to Arcangelo Corelli in 1703. At that point it gets hazy.

Would you rather play a sonata (cello and piano) or concerto (cello and orchestra)?

A sonata, for sure. I love chamber music. Aside from being intimate and refined, sonatas are something that any cellist can perform, even amateurs like me. I love hearing chamber music performed at house concerts. That's where it belongs--not in a concert hall.

If you could have a lesson with any cellist in history, who would it be and why?

David Popper, because I'd love to see him demonstrate his famous "High School of Cello Playing" etudes (Opus 76). They're fiendishly difficult.

Did you find music theory an interesting subject?

Yes! I wasn't particularly good at it, but music theory is fascinating to me. There's an underlying tension in all music between the

harmonic and melodic elements, and music...