By MIKEL TOOMBS

You had me at “cello.”

Over the next week or so, that instrument, usually featured in a supporting role, takes center stage in a pair of Seattle concerts.

First up, Friday (April 27) at The Triple Door, is “this big horde of cellos called the Portland Cello Project,” PCP founder Douglas Jenkins explained in a 2009 interview, “who put on an eclectic show with Northwest musicians, with Britney Spears and Guns N’ Roses covers alongside some serious classical music.”

If PCP, whose upcoming (May 1) album “Homage” includes a cover of Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “H.A.M.” (as well as a version of live fave “Hey Ya”), is the Weird Al Yankovic of the cello, then Zoe Keating is the, um, er, I’m not sure.

Keating, whose self-profile labels her as both “classical” and “unclassifiable,” has had her concerts described by a hometown San Francisco publication as being akin to “taking a triple-shot of Absinthe before stepping outside of the bar just in time to see the sun exploding.”

OK. Keating, a million-Tweeted entrepreneurial type (her current self-released album, “Into the Trees,” reached No. 7 on the Billboard classical chart) who’s been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, brings her one-woman show to the Neptune Theater on May 3. There, she’ll combine her adventurous cello playing with computerized backing, as befits someone who used to work in the software industry.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Mikel Toombs is a frequent contributor to GeneStout.com. Read his recent post on lullaby versions of songs by The Smiths here.)