In 2016, while in Afghanistan, I stepped away from performing on my cello and turned instead toward deeper listening — offering the stages to my students while I listened more closely to the world.
During this time I deepened my engagement with musical concepts of storytelling, researched cultural lineages, and expanded the boundaries of my own musical curiosity and knowing.
The pause became fertile ground — a quiet laboratory of sound, silence, and scholarship.
Now, a decade later, new works are emerging: songs and projects that weave together my own research, memory, and place — rooted in tradition, to be shared through my voice.
Além Cabul
a bridge between Alentejo and Afghanistan
Members: ToZe Bexiga (founder), Ana Santos (founder), Tiago Rêgo, Fazel Sepand, Mili Vizcaíno et moi
A group of musicians from Alentejo (Portugal), Extremadura (Spain), Afghanistan, Brazil, and the United States make up Além Cabul, a musical ensemble harmoniously presenting the sounds of the lands between Alentejo and Afghanistan. Through the Spanish, Portuguese and Persian languages, every song tells stories of people, places, memories, hopes, and community. Following the valleys of the Guidana to the mountains along the Kabul rivers, we embrace what the rivers tell us and use our voices and instruments to sing for a future of freedom and equality.
Visual arts: Kaihan Hamidi & Manuel Passinhas da Palma
“Ryczek is out on the frontier of her instrument’s capabilities, and her virtuosity sometimes casts her in the role a lead guitarist might play in your average rock band, authoring signature intros and outros and melodic lines that tie the songs together. ”