Recognized for its artistic creativity, the Tarab Cello Ensemble is dedicated to the commissioning and performance of new music written for eight cellos by American composers, with the overall goal of establishing a vital contemporary repertoire for this richly deserving instrumentation.

Since its inception in 2000, the ensemble has commissioned works from Larry Bell, Garrett Byrnes, Dennis DeSantis, David Liptak, Brad Lubman, Gregory Mertl, Joe Michaels, Sam Pellman, Martin Scherzinger, Aaron Travers, and Dan Trueman; the ensemble’s repertoire also includes such works as Pierre Boulez’ Messagesquisse, Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and Luciano Berio's Korot. Tarab Cello Ensemble has performed concerts in New England, New Jersey, New York, Florida and France; their broadcast performances have included those for public radio stations WMBR (Cambridge, MA), WXXI (Rochester, NY), WCNY (Syracuse, NY) and WGDR (Plainfield, VT). In 2003 the ensemble was invited to participate in the Boston Conservatory New Music Festival. Recently, Tarab Cello Ensemble was a guest ensemble in residency at Princeton University and at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

This piece was composed by Berlin-based American composer Dennis DiSantis. He describes the piece as follows: "Cog is a piece in which a timbrally homogeneous ensemble is asked to become even more homogeneous by having each cellist play the same kind of material. It's a study in teamwork, in making a whole greater than the sum of its parts. There is very little in the way of a traditional 'melody-and-accompaniment' hierarchy here- when players have 'solos' they are quickly echoed by other members of the ensemble and then subsumed by the texture. My interest in writing this piece came from my fascination with the way machines make music."

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