A Terrifyingly Serious Person
- Elena Cheah
- Jul 8
- 7 min read
and how a year of wedding songs lightened her up
The dress was of a shiny taffeta, a material clearly unsuitable for direct skin contact. The Aquafresh toothpaste color and the feel of the dress became one in my mind with the nausea and sense of foreboding; my stomach was upset and I had vomited earlier that day. Nevertheless, with the shade of my face approaching the green of the dress, I was about to play a concert. My white patent leather Mary Janes pinched my toes and I kept tugging at the dreaded frilly white ankle socks. I wanted nothing more than to be playing with my cats at home in my favorite hand-me-down jeans worn smooth in the knees by both of my older brothers.
I was nine years old and playing as a soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony in a children’s concert, the prize for a competition I had won. I enjoyed playing the cello, but I did not enjoy being dressed up as Princess Toothpaste or enduring the fussing adults around me.
I walked out on stage in the stiff shoes and went through the motions I had internalized: I bowed, I sat down, I checked the tuning of my cello. I looked out into the dark red velvet vastness of Heinz Hall as into the depths of a ketchup bottle. The dozens of school groups sitting there were behaving like dozens of school groups. From the twilight that descended over the plush seats I heard other children talking and laughing and their teachers furiously shushing them. It was hard not to imagine that I was the object of their ridicule, dressed as I was and wielding this large, supremely uncool instrument between my legs.
I was appalled at having to perform for other children who had not been schooled in proper concert etiquette. At nine years old, I, who had been going to concerts since I was a toddler, bribed at regular intervals with M&Ms to keep quiet, was already a classical music snob.
Last June, my friend Paul Hankinson, whom I hadn’t seen in many years, texted me out of the blue and asked me if I would be able to come to Berlin to record something. He creates beautiful instrumental arrangements of pop songs for weddings, timed perfectly to include the appearance of flower girls, the bridal party, and the walk down the aisle. He seemed convinced that the 5000 freelance cellists living in Berlin just wouldn’t do.
I couldn’t make it to Berlin at that point—I was in the middle of the summer semester of teaching—but I thought I might be able to record my part at home and send it to him. It was Work Song by Hozier, which I thought was gorgeous until Paul pointed out the similarity to the song in the SNL Tight Pants skit with Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon, which I thereafter couldn’t unhear.
Side note: it’s still a beautiful arrangement and recording, perfectly appropriate even for wedding parties wearing ample trousers.
And so I resurrected my meager recording skills, developed during the pandemic for a homemade podcast, and recorded the cello line to Paul’s pre-recorded piano part. I loved the process immediately, loved the textures and harmonies he created to transform a pop song into a lush, sentimental wedding accompaniment. I loved imitating the human voice, knowing that this song would be heard by people celebrating a momentous, intimate occasion. Recording my part was like weaving a wildflower wreath for someone I love, an action both profound and lighthearted, something I could do with ease and generosity.
Left to my own devices, I have always been a terrifyingly serious person. I always pursued big ambitions, aimed for lofty goals. Even my self-development and spiritual awakening endeavors have often overshadowed the small joys of everyday life. For most of my adult life, I prioritized inquiring into my limiting beliefs and facing my deepest fears over savoring a ripe peach or sitting on a meadow with friends.
I found ways to mix work with leisure time and trips, telling myself that for us artists, there was little distinction between work and play. I brought my partner along on concert tours and called it vacation. I went on serious artist retreats to write serious books. I forgot how to be playful; everything had to have a higher purpose.
As a result, I continued to feel like that kid on the classical music pedestal throughout my career, both competitive with and envious of the other kids who were just having fun and not paying attention to my efforts.
A month after recording Work Song, I discovered a strange insect bite in an unnamed nether region. Days later, I got a Lyme disease diagnosis. For nine months after that, give or take, I was a beetle in a bathtub, climbing laboriously up the slick slope again and again only to fall back down on my back, unable to right myself. I consulted doctors of every ilk and tried proven remedies, experimental therapies, energy healing, anything and everything I could find.
For the better part of nine months, I was at home with my cats, completing a curious full circle to that early memory.
I rarely left the house because it would have meant climbing back up four flights of stairs when I could barely walk across the room without being out of breath. Over the course of the year, Paul continued to send me songs to record for brides far and wide. Each time I got an email from him with sheet music and a recorded piano track attached, my heart lifted a little. I knew I would be able to set up my microphones, put on my headphones, get the cello out, and live in another world for a while, all without changing out of my leggings or leaving my cats, who had become my most loyal companions.
For a few hours, I could lose myself in the music and, beyond that, feel useful in a way I had rarely felt before. I was no longer on the pedestal; I was offstage, shining the spotlight on someone else.
Forty years after my Heinz Hall debut, I see my nine-year-old self and understand why she was so annoyed with the other kids. Maybe it wasn’t snobbery after all.
That nine-year-old just wanted to do her work, do it well, get it over with, and go home. The kids’ disruptions prevented her from doing her work well, and she feared she would never get back to her cats and her comfiest jeans. She believed she had to deserve play and comfort. She resented the kids who got to play while she was working, and she feared they were mocking her for her devotion to such an oddly refined, unpopular pursuit.
I also understand now that she never wanted to be in the spotlight, that she was thrust into it.
An artist friend of mine recently observed that my work is about making space for others to grow—through teaching, mentoring, and writing—an unusual quality for a performer. That’s because I never saw myself as a performer, I said. That was why I was always so uncomfortable being at the center of attention.
I spent decades perfecting the facade that allowed me to be a performer because I believed it was my destiny. The toothpaste-colored dress grew into a shiny suit of armor, but the stomach went on churning underneath and the nervous system went on firing danger signals. No wonder an infected tick was able to knock me out for nearly a year; my immune system had been worn down to zero.
The paradox was that I loved performing. I just didn’t want to be seen as a star. I didn’t want my technical prowess to upstage the direct experience of the music. I wanted to point to the moon, as the Buddhists say, and have people look at the moon, not at my finger.
It has been a complex, sticky process to sift out what was given to me and retain what belongs to me, and those wedding songs played a fascinating role in it. Every time I got a new song to record, something awakened in me that I was allowed to express on my own terms, in my own time, and in a way that felt generous and sensuous. I always pictured the wedding couple as I played, the guests tearing up, the lives that had led up to this point and would be changed by this union.
Being in the background of someone else’s special occasion felt perfect. Here was a way to give people a meaningful gift of music that they would ostensibly remember forever, a way to make space for them to grow into the next phase of their lives. Which, arguably, is what I have always striven to do as a teacher, coach, and mentor.
The collection of songs grew into an album, and I will always remember the making of it.
I’m proud of this album in a different way from other things I’ve created. It’s not just that Paul’s arrangements and piano tracks are gorgeous and fun to listen to. This album announces a new way of living, of trusting in what I love, of believing in the power of creation to heal.
Listen to our Cello Wedding album on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.
If any of this felt familiar
Can you make creative work while recovering from illness or burnout?
Yes, but usually not the ambitious, high-stakes kind. During a year of illness I couldn't have written a serious book, but I could record wedding songs, because they asked nothing of me except generosity. The work that stays available when everything else falls away tends to be the work with no pedestal attached.
Why do some high achievers feel they have to earn rest, play, or joy?
Because they were rewarded early and often for their achievements and came to believe comfort was something deserved rather than allowed. The belief runs so deep it rarely gets examined; you simply keep choosing the profound over the ripe peach without noticing you're choosing.
What's the difference between the work you were given and the work that's yours?
The work you were given is inherited, an identity assigned before you could consent to it, then defended for decades. The work that's yours is what remains when the assigned role falls away and something still wants to be expressed. Telling them apart is slow; sometimes it even takes an illness to force the question.
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