Debut Album by Violinist Nancy Zhou Reviewed on BBC Music Magazine
The August 2025 issue of BBC Music Magazine includes a review of violinist Nancy Zhou’s debut solo album Stories (re)Traced.
“The checklist is daunting: dances and meters need to be defined and characterized, part-writing clearly voiced, the harmonic narrative cogently drawn... and it all must sound natural. Nancy Zhou achieves almost all these criteria,” writes Jo Talbot.
Stories (re)Traced is an exploration of musical form, concentricity, and vocality in instrumental performance and music-making. "These are notions and ideas that have inspired me as a violinist in the last few years," says Zhou, a passionate soloist based in San Francisco who is also motivated by her interest in cultural heritage and the humanities.
Released on Orchid Classics, Stories (re)Traced presents four seminal and distinctly unique works from the solo violin repertoire. It is a tribute to the versatility of the violin as an art medium. The selections are:
Eugène Ysaÿe: Sonata no. 4
Béla Bartók: Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz. 117 (BB 124)
J.S. Bach: Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002
Fritz Kreisler: Recitativo and Scherzo, Op. 6
