Violinist: Rachel Barton Pine Performs Billy Childs' Violin Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl

Violinist
By Laurie Niles

What a pleasure to see Chicago-based violinist Rachel Barton Pine on Thursday night in her debut performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which was also her first performance at the Hollywood Bowl.

It's about time!

And it's no surprise - to someone who has been following her for many years - that she brought something fresh to the stage - a new violin concerto by Los Angeles jazz pianist and composer, Billy Childs. This was just the fifth performance of the concerto, which was composed in 2020 and premiered in 2022. It was commissioned by Rachel and performed previously by her with co-commissioning orchestras: the Grant Park Orchestra, the Boulder Philharmonic, the Anchorage Symphony, and the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra.

On Thursday Rachel - playing her 1742 "ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat" Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesù” violin - brought the concerto to life with her virtuoso chops, musical sensitivity and intense commitment, with French conductor Stéphane Denève at the podium. (Denève, who is Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, starts as as Music Director of New World Symphony in September.)

Read more here.

Violinist: Anne Akiko Meyers in Recital with Pianist Fabio Bidini

Violinist
By Laurie Niles

I am not often moved to tears at a violin recital. 

However on Saturday night, through a combination of fine playing, sincere music-making and thoughtful programming, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Fabio Bidini had audience members dabbing their eyes and sighing "ah," during their recital at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif.

For me tears came from a feeling of connection, after all the isolation of the last two years. This wasn't the first concert I'd seen since the pandemic - though it was the first indoor concert back at the Wallis and the first for many in the audience.

But somehow this was the first where I felt connected to everything they played - connected as a violinist, as teacher, as a person living in Los Angeles, as a mother, as a human. Let's say it put me in a state of COVID catharsis that I'd probably been avoiding. Sometimes you don't want to cry, don't want to think about it all. For the first few concerts after things started opening up again, I just wanted to hear some music, to feel assured that live music still existed and would continue. I didn't necessarily want to "go there" and think about the sadness of the last few years.

Read more here.

Violinist: Live and In-Person, from Bravo! Vail, Colorado: New York Phil Quartet Review

Violinist.com
Laurie Niles

Greetings from Vail, Colorado! For the next few days I'm going be exploring the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, a summer event that has been bringing together fine orchestras and artists from all over the world to this ski town in Colorado's Rocky Mountains for some 34 years.

After last year's limits due to the pandemic, this year brings a full schedule of in-person concerts, and they have quite a prestigious and impressive lineup. Bravo! Vail kicked off in June with a week-long visit from The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Joshua Bell, followed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. After that came the Philadelphia Orchestra, and this week I'm lucky enough to be here for the New York Philharmonic. Guest artists this summer have included some of the best, with violinists Joshua Bell, James Ehnes, Gil Shaham and Augustin Hadelich; as well as pianists Conrad Tao, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, and Yefim Bronfman.

Read more here.

Violinist.com: For the Record, Virgil Boutellis-Taft's 'Incantation'

Violinist.com
Laurie Niles

Welcome to "For the Record," Violinist.com's weekly roundup of new releases of recordings by violinists, violists, cellists and other classical musicians. We hope it helps you keep track of your favorite artists, as well as find some new ones to add to your listening!

Here's a young violinist worth a good listen, and he will also be performing in Carnegie Hall April 28. French violinist Virgil Boutellis-Taft presents a wide-ranging album that includes Bruch's Kol Nidrei; Vitali's Chaconne; Saint-Saëns, Danse macabre (a world premiere arrangement by Paul Bateman); Tchaikovsky's Sérénade mélancolique; Bloch's Nigun (from Baal Shem); Chausson's Poème; and Shigeru Umebayashi's "Yumeji’s Theme" from Wong Kar-Wai's film "In the Mood for Love."

To read the full review, click here.

Violinist: Interview with Anne Akiko Meyers and Adam Schoenberg

Violinist
Laurie Niles

When violinist Anne Akiko Meyers started getting the music for a new violin concerto that she had commissioned from composer Adam Schoenberg, she was in for a rather major surprise.

"The first movement was all done in scordatura, which was a first for me," said Meyers. In other words, Schoenberg's music required that she tune one of the strings of her famous 1741 "Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesù down an entire step. Specifically, the G string would be tuned down to an F. "I thought, what am I supposed to do with this? What happens? Do you read the music the same way? Or do I need a crash course on how to play the violin in the key of F, with an F string?"

Read more here.

Violinist: Interview with Composer Qigang Chen: 'La Joie de la souffrance' Violin Concerto

Violinist.com
Laurie Niles

Of all the instruments, the violin has perhaps the widest capacity to express human emotion, said France-based Chinese composer Qigang Chen.

"The violin's expressive capabilities have developed over centuries, with the accumulation of many very delicate techniques," Chen said, speaking with a group of reporters at his hotel in Shanghai about his new violin concerto, "La Joie de la souffrance" ("The Joy of Suffering.").

"No other instrument can compare," he said. "There are so many variations you can achieve with the violin that are difficult or impossible to achieve with the voice, or with brass and wind instruments."

Read more here.

Violinist: Interview with Cellist Johannes Moser: Shostakovich at the Grand Teton Festival

Violinist.com
Laurie Niles

"This may be a very controversial thing to say to a violinist: I started with the violin at age five, and my exit strategy from the violin was the cello."

German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser, now a soloist who has played with top orchestras all over the world, was telling me how he found his way to the cello. Moser, who studied with the renowned cello teacher David Geringas, was a top prize winner at the 2002 Tchaikovsky Competition and has been involved in commissioning numerous new works for cello, will play this week at the Grand Teton Music Festival, in both a chamber concert Thursday and this weekend as soloist for Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1.

Read more here.

Violinist.com: Applications Open for Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition 2018, with $100,000 top prize

Violinist.com
By Laurie Niles

The Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition is accepting applications for its second-ever competition, which will take place in late summer 2018 in Shanghai, offering considerable prizes including top prize of $100,000.

This year the competition lowered its eligibility age from 18 to 16, with a top age of 32. Applications are due Jan. 31, 2018. Click here for the application. The competition will take place Aug. 8– Sept. 1, 2018.

Mayu Kishima, first prize winner in the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition 2016

Repertoire requirements will focus on the musical over the virtuosic, including string quartet music; sonatas and Kreisler’s works; and a Mozart concerto with originally improvised cadenza. Participants also will be required to learn a newly-written violin concerto, La Joie de la Souffrance by Chinese composer Qigang Chen. The concerto will be premiered Oct. 29 by violinist Maxim Vengerov at the closing gala concert of the 20th Beijing Music Festival, with the China Philharmonic conducted by Long Yu. Based on a Chinese melody dating from the Tang Dynasty, the concerto was co-commissioned by the Beijing Music Festival, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

The jury for the SISIVC 2018 will be co-chaired by conductor David Stern, son of Isaac Stern, and Vera Tsu Weiling, who is professor of violin at both Shanghai and Beijing Conservatories. Other members of the jury will include Lina Yu; Siqing Lu; Maxim Vengerov; Augustin Dumay; Zakhar Bron; Dora Schwarzberg; Daniel Heifetz; Weigang Li; Philip Setzer; Glenn Dicterow and Sreten Krstic; Martin Campbell-White and Emmanuel Hondré. Contestants will be required to clarify if there is any immediate family or pupil relationship with any jury member upon arrival.

Winners in the 2016 competition included first prize winner Mayu Kishima of Japan, with Sergei Dogadin of Russia coming in second and Serena Huang of the United States third.

Violinist: Anne Akiko Meyers releases 'Fantasia,' a last violin work by Einojuhani Rautavaara

Violinist
By Laurie Niles

Anne Akiko Meyers and Einojuhani Rautavaara

Back in the 1990s Anne Akiko Meyers discovered a recording that stopped her in her tracks: Cantus Arcticus, by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.

"I was always flipping through CDs and sheet music at stores, trying to discover new works that were under the radar," Meyers told me last week over the phone. "That's how I came across the 'Concerto for Birds and Orchestra.' I was blown away by the sheer beauty of the music, and the way Rautavaara incorporated nature into a symphony. He actually went into a preserve and recorded birds chirping and singing, and that became an organic part of music. I listened to the recording many, many times on repeat."

The more she explored Rautavaara's works, the more she loved the music.

"I'm a lifelong fan," she said. "I've always been very enamored with these mystical, mythical composers like Arvo Pärt and Rautavaara."

In fact, last year she worked with Arvo Pärt to record his Passacaglia -- it made her think once again about Rautavaara. Might he like to compose a piece for her?

"It was always a dream of mine," she said. "I wondered, what is he up to, these days? I sent an e-mail to (his publisher) Boosey and Hawkes. You can risk getting a 'No' from a composer; it's always worth asking. I've commissioned many composers recently, and found that timing is crucial." The list of composers that Meyers has worked with and commissioned works from is long, and includes Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Jones, Wynton Marsalis Somei Satoh, and Joseph Schwantner.

"I've become more tenacious about it," she said. Her tenacity paid off: "Immediately I got the response: 'He would love to write something for you. How long of a piece would you like?'"

Rautavaara had already written a violin concerto, "so I thought, what would pique his curiosity and be stylistically up his alley? That's when I came up with the idea of a 15-minute fantasy," Meyers said. "He sent me the music at the end of the summer, handwritten on manuscript paper. I was just smitten. Immediately I could sense overtones of Cantus Arcticus, and also his Symphony No. 7, the Angel of Light."

That was in 2015. If she'd waited any longer, their collaboration may never have happened; Rautavaara died in July 2016, at the age of 87. The work Meyers commissioned, called "Fantasia," was among the last pieces he wrote. She recorded it in May with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Kristjan Järvi. Due to his recent death, she has made it available as a single on Amazon. It will be the title track on her upcoming album Fantasia: The Fantasy Album, to be released in spring 2017.

Though Rautavaara did not live to hear the work in concert, he heard Meyers play it in person. After sending her the work, "he invited me to come to Helsinki," Meyers said. "I was so excited to go. I flew out in December 2015 and played the piece for him.

The second I finished, he turned to me, smiled so brightly and said, 'Wow, did I write some beautiful, beautiful music!' (She laughs) I thought that was the sweetest thing ever! Because it really is so deeply spiritual, poetic and beautiful."

"We played it again, and I expected him to say, 'Oh, this note, I'm not so sure...' I was also nervous about the bowings that I had changed, because his bowings were very specifically marked," she said. "The bowings really change the direction and meaning of the phrases."

Rautavaara liked it, though. "He said immediately, 'I love what you did, I don't have much confidence in myself with markings, especially bowings. I think you really brought out the phrasing to make it sing as much as possible, so let's use all your bowings.' That was that! No dynamic changes, no note changes, nothing," Meyers said. He knew what he wanted.

Though his health may have been in decline, Rautavaara was at the height of his composing powers, she said. "There's just so much experience and a rich, vast wisdom that he had, right in his fingertips. I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces ever composed."

Violinist: Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition Begins August 16

Violinists in the 2016 SISIVC, after a "bow draw" on Monday to determine First Round order.

Violinist.com
By Laurie Niles

Violinists from around the world arrived over the weekend in Shanghai, where 24 violinists ages 18 through 32 will begin competing Tuesday in the first-ever Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition, which is offering a record-breaking top prize of $100,000, to be awarded when the competition concludes on Sept. 2.

Watch for Violinist.com coverage from Shanghai, starting Aug. 24 from the semi-finals.

The competition was named after the famous American violinist Isaac Stern (1920-2001), who broke cultural ground when he traveled to China in 1979 -- a time when China-U.S. relations were tenuous at best. Stern gave concerts and also visited China’s Central Conservatory of Music and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The trip resulted in a documentary called From Mao to Mozart, which won an Academy Award in 1980 for Best Documentary Feature.

The competition, two years in the making, will take place at Shanghai Symphony Hall. The 24 competitors represent several countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany and the United States. Nearly half of the competitors are from China, with three from the United States. Of the 21 competitors who are not listed as being from the United States, eight of have strong U.S. connections, having studied in the U.S. at places such as the Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Temple University's Boyer College, Bard College Conservatory and the Aspen Music Festival. One contestant from China is a member of the Oregon Symphony. For full bios of the competitors, click here. (Names of all competitors are listed at the bottom of this article).

Preliminary rounds take place Aug. 16-19, and performances will be available to view afterwards on the competition's YouTube channel. Here is a schedule.. Semi-finals and Finals will be live-streamed on SMG and LeTV -- we'll provide links as they become available.

After preliminaries, 18 competitors will be named semi-finalists. Semi-finalists are required to perform The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, which has achieved modern popularity after being written in 1959 by Chinese composers, He Zhanhao and Chen Gang, while they were students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Semi-finalists will also play Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with a chamber orchestra (original cadenzas required), a sonata, and the first movement of piano trio by Schubert or Brahms. Competition officials report that all semi-final tickets were sold out within one week of ticketing -- I'd like to think this is a testament to the popularity of the violin in China!

Six finalists will go on to the Final Round, Sept. 1 and 2. Besides the record-breaking First Prize of $100,000 USD; other prizes include a Second Prize of $50,000, Third Prize $25,000 and Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Prizes $5,000 each. Another $10,000 will be awarded for the best performance of "The Butterfly Lovers" concerto; and a $10,000 Isaac Stern Human Spirit Award will go to a non-contestant "in any field and from any part of the world - who is deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to our understanding of humanity through the medium of music."

The competition also has promised winning competitors performance opportunities with various orchestras, including Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Jury members for the competition are Zakhar Bron, David Cerone, Martin Engstroem, Daniel Heifetz, Emmanuel Hondré, Boris Kuschnir, Elmar Oliveira, David Stern, Maxim Vengerov, Jian Wang, Zhenshan Wan, Vera Tsu Weiling and Lina Yu.

Competitors in the 2016 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition are:

• Takamori Arai, Japan
• Yu-Ting Chen, Taiwan, China
• Elvin Ganiyev, Azerbaijan
• Fangyue He, China
• Sirena Huang, United States
• Yiliang Jiang, China
• Jee Won Kim, South Korea
• Mayu Kishima, Japan
• Zeyu Victor Li, China
• Richard Lin, United States
• Ming Liu, China
• Kyung Ji Min, South Korea
• Raphaëlle Moreau, France
• Andrea Obiso, Italy
• Dongfang Ouyang, China
• Yoo Min Seo, South Korea
• Ji Won Song, South Korea
• Kristie Su, United States
• Stefan Tarara, Germany
• Xiao Wang, China
• Wendi Wang, China
• Jinru Zhang, China
• Yang Zhang, China