Strings: Anne Akiko Meyers Reminisces on a Childhood Spent in Los Angeles

Strings
Anne Akiko Meyers

Anne Akiko Meyers as a child and onstage at the Emmy Awards Show

To quote Randy Newman, “I love L.A.!” I feel very fortunate to again call Los Angeles my home base. The year-round warm climate, beautiful ocean and mountain views, thriving music scene, world-class restaurants, and friendly people make it a wonderful place to live.

I was born in San Diego, moved to the middle of the Mojave Desert for a few years (my mother drove three hours each way for violin lessons in Los Angeles), and then grew up in L.A. until I was a teenager. It was the perfect place for an aspiring violinist to learn and grow.

When I was seven years old, I began studies with Alice Schoenfeld and had chamber-music coachings with her sister Eleonore. I had bi-weekly lessons, chamber-music studies, and classes at the Community School of Performing Arts (now the Colburn School) on the weekends. When driving around we listened to—and today still listen to—KUSC, with the comforting and friendly voice of Jim Svejda in the car.

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The San Diego Union-Tribune: Meyers triumphs in Schoenberg concerto

San Diego Union-Tribune
Marcus Overton

Commissioned by and written in honor of San Diego native Anne Akiko Meyers, this meditation on age and memory (its title is “Orchard in Fog”) stands a good chance of entering the standard repertory, for it combines evocative tone painting with complex technical demands (like playing on the violin’s highest strings, where faulty intonation is ruthlessly exposed). Its two outer movements, wistful, silvery-gray like a Whistler painting, frame a devilishly syncopated dance movement that almost seems improvised.

Meyers’ playing is what it always has been: a national treasure. Her unshowy approach to her work has saved her from becoming a celebrity, and she has left a trail of unsurpassed achievement behind her in recordings, chamber music and orchestra solo appearances around the globe, as well as authorial collaborations and, best of all, active championing of living composers.

Above all, she is a musical wizard, with astonishing access to every kind of expressive color. Whether within a phrase or on just a single note, she can change tone color in a micro-second from smooth grain to rough, from dark to radiant, from thoughtful to assertive. And she can, like magic, bring new work to vibrant life.

Read the full article here.

Broadway World: Anne Akiko Meyers And San Diego Symphony To Stream World Premiere Of Adam Schoenberg's Violin Concerto

Broadway World

Superstar violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the San Diego Symphony will present the world premiere of Adam Schoenberg's Concerto "Orchard in Fog" for Violin and Orchestra. 2018 Grammy-nominated composer, Adam Schoenberg, wrote this work for violinist Anne Akiko Meyers who will perform with Sameer Patel conducting the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in performances Saturday, February 10, 2018, at 8pm and Sunday, February 11 at 2pm.

The Sunday performance can be viewed at www.facebook.com/theviolinchannel/ at the following local times: 2:00 pm PST, 5:00 pm EST, 10:00 pm London (GMT), 7:00 am Tokyo (GMT+9).

Anne Akiko Meyers is one of the most popular violinists in the world, regularly appearing as guest soloist with the world's top orchestras, presenting groundbreaking recitals and receiving universal acclaim as a best-selling recording artist with 36 albums releases. She has closely collaborated and commissioned composers including Mason Bates, John Corigliano, Wynton Marsalis, Arvo Pärt and Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Composer Adam Schoenberg was recently named one of the top 10 most performed living classical composers by orchestras in the United States. He also received two 2018 Grammy nominations for his self-titled album.

Miroirs CA: In Conversation with Anne Akiko Meyers

Miroirs CA
Leonne Lewis

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers doesn’t just set the standard; she is the standard. Her internationally acclaimed recordings and performances have a distinction that’s all about interpretative sophistication, silky sounds and crystal intonation. She also has a keen interest in promoting and commissioning works by composers of our time.

A child prodigy in the truest sense, Meyers performed with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta at age twelve. Her studies include the Colburn School in Los Angeles with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld, Indiana University with Josef Gingold and The Juilliard School with Felix Galimir and Dorothy DeLay.

Meyers received the Avery Fisher Career Grant award and in 2014 was Billboard’s number one classical charts instrumentalist. She performs a varied repertoire that includes Bach, Bruch, Barber, Prokofiev, Arvo Part and premieres of au courant works such as Somei Satoh’s Violin Concerto, Joseph Schwantner’s Angelfire for amplified violin and orchestra, John Corigliano’s Lullaby for Natalie (for Anne’s first-born daughter Natalie) and cadenzas by Wynton Marsalis for Mozart’s violin concerto No. 3, K. 216.

Meyers plays the legendary Ex-Vieuxtemps 1741 Guarneri del Gesu.

She discusses the importance of playing composers of our time with Editor Leonne Lewis.

HOW MUCH INPUT DO YOU GIVE WHEN COMMISSIONING WORKS BY COMPOSERS OF OUR TIME, SUCH AS MASON BATES’ VIOLIN CONCERTO, EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA’S FANTASIA FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA AND SAMUEL JONES’ VIOLIN CONCERTO?

Each experience is a unique collaboration, which is what makes commissioning new works so interesting and inspiring. At the start of a new project, a commission’s length, orchestration and type of piece (concerto, fantasy, shorter work) will be decided. From there, each composer has his or her own process of creation. The Mason Bates Violin Concerto was the first concerto he wrote for any instrument and he had many questions about playability, technical challenges, harmonics, etc. It was very collaborative work and we went through many revisions until reaching the final version.

I BELIEVE EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA’S FANTASIA HOLDS A SPECIAL PLACE FOR YOU. WHAT MAKES HIS MUSIC SO RELEVANT?

Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote his fantasy in record time, not changing a single note. I reworked the bowings and a bit fearfully asked if he was ok with this. He thanked me for changing them and said he always found violin bow markings super challenging. After I played Fantasia for him in his apartment in Helsinki he smiled and said how beautiful it was. I couldn’t agree more.

There’s a deep spirituality and feeling of transcendence that comes from Einojuhani Rautavaara’s works. His tonal palette is much like that of a master impressionist painter – Monet to be exact! You feel nature’s grand forces in his music and it deeply stirs the soul.

IN FEBRUARY, 2018 YOU WILL PREMIERE ADAM SCHOENBERG’S VIOLIN CONCERTO WITH THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY. COULD YOU PROVIDE A PREVIEW OF THE WORK AND ITS COMPATIBILITY WITH THE VIOLIN. {ADAM SCHOENBERG IS ON THE FACULTY OF OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE IN LOS ANGELES}

Funny you should ask this as I just got the first movement yesterday. Adam showed me a picture of the incredibly beautiful place where he got married. There was an orchard in fog that had a very ethereal quality to it. The first movement is based on that picture, as it possesses a feeling of wistfulness and quiet reflection. He told me to buckle my seatbelt because the second movement will be wicked and super challenging. The last movement returns to the original theme. To be able to discuss the music directly with the composer reveals so much more about a work than just seeing the notes on a printed page.

Miroirs CA: Anne Akiko Meyers with Philharmonia Orchestra

Mirroirs CA
By Leonne Lewis

Anne Akiko Meyers gives transcendent and breathtaking performances in this new release of works by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016), Karol Szymanowski and Maurice Ravel – using her Ex-Vieuxtemps 1741 Guarneri del Gesu - with beautifully crafted support from the Philharmonia Orchestra under Kristjan Jarvi.

Szymanowski’s first violin concerto, Op. 35, Ravel’s Tzigane and Rautavaara’s Fantasia all have the element of fantasy and rhapsodic sweep, particularly Fantasia which Meyers commissioned and premiered in March of this year with the Kansas City Symphony. While this celebrated Finnish composer’s works may not be well known to American audiences, Rautavaara’s early studies did include The Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions.

One may detect in his writing hints of countryman Sibelius with overtones of The Swan of Tuonela, for example, but Rautavaara’s compositional style seems to contain a unique, lush and brooding landscape of intertwining melodies and imitative sequences between violin and orchestra.

From the opening chord, the listener enters a sound world that is absolutely mesmerizing for its dark, overlapping textures where demure to red-hot melodic waves of sonority from brass and strings provide a backdrop of atmospheric tension for Meyer’s flowing passagework. Her tone takes on an ethereal quality that goes right to the heart and core of the work’s veil of mystery.

She also displays an affinity for Szymanowski’s violin concerto (1916), an impressive piece of orchestrated splashes, clashes, interludes of harp, winds, especially flutes and an opening Vivace Assai that conjures up the opening temperament of Ravel’s piano concerto in G major. This composer’s Mazurkas for piano, among other compositions are worth a listen.

Meyer’s account contains a kinda introspective elusivity that includes lingering slides AND a display of turbocharged fingerwork in the Cadenza that has the characteristics of a Paganini Caprice gone avant-garde – of which we might also thank Polish violinist Paul Kochanski for input to this work, to whom it is dedicated.

Meyer’s declamatory bow strokes in the opening of Tzigane combined with rhythmic punch and rich harmonics brought this gypsy inspired work to a frenzied conclusion. It’s not often that collaboration between orchestra and soloist is so perfectly matched but supernova violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Kristjan Jarvi have hit a home run, even a grand slam with this recording!

WCNY: Anne Akiko Meyers

WNYC with host Diane Jones

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers stopped by the WCNY studios to chat with mid-day host Diane Jones about her upcoming performance with Symphoria.  She talked about “Archeopteryx,” the violin concerto she commissioned from composer Mason Bates, as well as finding the emotion in new works.

More information about Symphoria can be found here.

Strings Sessions Presents: Anne Akiko Meyers

Strings Sessions Presents: Anne Akiko Meyers – Strings Magazine

Tucked away in a rehearsal room at the San Francisco Conservatory, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers took time out of her schedule to perform a few audience-favorites for our latest Strings Session. Watch Meyers, accompanied by pianist Jeff LaDeur, perform Ennio Morricone’s “Love Theme” from Cinema Paradiso; Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel,” and Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” (arr. for violin and piano by Claus Ogerman).

Blogcritics: Anne Akiko Meyers 92nd Street Y Concert Review

Blogcritics
By Jon Sobel

“Fantasy” was the theme but versatility and diversity the watchwords the other night at the 92nd Street Y‘s Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York. Celebrated violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Akira Eguchi‘s program ranged from the 28-year-old Beethoven’s teemingly imaginative first violin sonata to an evocative work for violin and electronics, “Wreck of the Umbria,” written in 2009 by the then also 28-year-old Jakub Ciupinski and accompanied by video footage of the sunken Italian ship that, together with Meyers’s commission, inspired the piece. In between, we heard familiar pieces by Arvo Pärt and Morten Lauridsen outside their usual settings, Ravel’s rousing “Tzigane,” and one of the last compositions by Einojuhani Rautavaara, who died only last year.

Anne Akiko Meyers, photo by Vanessa Briceño-Scherzer

Meyers attacked the flashy “Tzigane” with percussive, almost schizophrenic force, her 1741 Guarneri violin’s dark, room-filling lower register resonating like the skin of a drum. Inspired by Hungarian gypsy tunes, the piece netted the most enthusiastic response and a curtain call of its own.

The program’s most substantive selections, though, were the Beethoven and the Rautavaara. The first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in D major, Op. 12 No. 1, was sunny and straightforward but also richly resonant. In the theme and variations of the second movement, the duo displayed exquisite sensitivity to the music’s spaciousness; Eguchi established a delicate rhythmic feel that left plenty of room for shock when the third variation’s minor-key triplets arrived with all the requisite heat. They then leaned into the final variation’s rocking off-beats with a jousting spirit that I suspect would have pleased the composer. And after the laughing finale I felt I could hardly imagine this sonata played any better.

Meyers commissioned Rautavaara’s “Fantasia” and has recorded it in its original violin and orchestra version. Here she presented it in an arrangement for violin and piano for the first time. The piece treads the border between romanticism and modernism and presents the composer in a thoughtful mood. Wandering melodies over gently flowing piano accompaniment evolved into watery complexities, with Meyers conveying supreme confidence and Eguchi showing a fine dynamic sense on the exposed piano passages. A lyrical triplet section near the end combined Mendelssohnian flow with Nordic cool.

It was a relatively lengthy piece to which one could surrender one’s sense of time, and ebb and flow with the music’s pure emotion as Meyers and Eguchi swayed with its strains like a pair of synchronized swimmers.

I’d heard Pärt’s “Fratres” only in its original orchestral version. A violin-and-piano iteration proved transporting, beautiful and ruminative. Meyers’s technique on the arpeggio passages and whistling tone on the high harmonics were marvels. Yet somehow Pärt’s writing rubs out any sense of showiness, instead wrapping the listener in a low-key tension that Meyers and Eguchi sustained masterfully.

At the easy-listening end of the spectrum were a transcription of Lauridsen’s popular choral work “O Magnum Mysterium” and an encore of John Corigliano’s “Lullaby for Natalie,” written for Meyers’s daughter. With its commissions and personal dedications, the concert felt like a family affair as well as a musical celebration. Both musicians are at the tops of their games.

The New York Times: Anne Akiko Meyers at 92nd Street Y

The violinist Anne Akiko Meyers at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times

The New York Times
By Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Classical Music in NYC This Week

ANNE AKIKO MEYERS at the 92nd Street Y (April 20, 7:30 p.m.). Armed with one of the most coveted instruments in the field, this violinist has built her reputation on a polished sound and brilliant technique. For this recital, at which she will be accompanied by the pianist Akira Eguchi, Ms. Meyers will put her Guarneri through its paces with new and recent compositions by Jakub Ciupinski, Morten Lauridsen and Einojuhani Rautavaara, alongside well-loved classics by Beethoven and Ravel.
212-415-5500, 92y.org

BBC Music Magazine: Top 20 Live Events for April 2017

BBC Music Magazine

ANNE AKIKO MEYERS
92nd Street Y, New York, 20 April
Tel: 212-415-5500
Web: www.92y.org

In 2015, the Finnish composer Rautavaara wrote what turned out to be his last score, a violin-and-orchestra Fantasia for Anne Akiko Meyers (right). Meyers and Akira Eguchi present a violin and piano arrangement of the piece in a programme that also features a new arrangement of Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium, plus music by Jakub Ciupinski, Arvo Pärt, Beethoven and Ravel.

See more of BBC Music Magazine's 20 Events for April in North America and more in their April issue here.