I'm at that age.
So I understand this is not your first time performing with the La Crosse Symphony.
How many times have you been a guest with the La Crosse Symphony and when was the last
time and what did you play?
I was last with the La Crosse Symphony in October of 2018 when we collaborated, no sorry that's
wrong, it was October 2016, okay let me say that again, okay that's alright.
I was last with the La Crosse Symphony in October of 2016 when we collaborated, ugh okay let's
have to get in the groove.
I was last with the La Crosse Symphony in October of 2016 when we collaborated on the third violin
concerto of Camille Sassan and so it's wonderful to be back but actually my collaboration with
Maestro Alexander Platt goes much farther back than that.
I have performed with his Waukesha Symphony a couple of times and we actually collaborated
on my 2004 album Scottish Fantasies recorded with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, all of
these wonderful Scottish flavored serious concertos for violin and orchestra and even though
I've made dozens of recordings since then, it seems to be a perennial popular favorite
with the public and so it's always fun to reunite with Alexander because I just love
his musicianship, his passion for music, his dedication and commitment, it's always wonderful
to work with a musician who just loves music so much and of course this may, well let me
say that again and it was in May of 2004 that we recorded our CD together, I shouldn't
say CD, it was in May of 2004 when we recorded our album together so this is actually the
album's 21st anniversary, wow yeah he spoke about that when we interviewed him as well,
now where was that recorded?
The recording that Maestro Platt and I did of the Brooke Scottish Fantasy and other Scottish
favorites, the recording that Maestro Platt and I did of the Brooke Scottish Fantasy and
other Scottish flavored works for violin and orchestra was done with the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra in Edinburgh at the Usher Hall so it was a real Scottish project and yeah he
just really helped bring that special Gallic flavor to life.
Have you worked with him in any other, other than the Waukesha Symphony and the La Crosse
Symphony and the recording, have you had a chance to work with him on other projects
or other places?
Yeah.
Well what makes you want to keep coming back to La Crosse because you've been here two or
three times in the past I believe?
Well I always love soloing with orchestras in Wisconsin, it's such a beautiful state and
I live in Chicago, I'm a lifelong Chicagoan so I have a special patriotic feeling in
my heart for anything in the Midwest but you know there's such a wonderful enthusiasm
from the public of orchestras like the La Crosse Symphony, it makes it not just an artistically
rewarding but also a very personally rewarding experience for me as a touring artist.
That was wonderful, thank you.
What will you be performing this weekend with the La Crosse Symphony?
I never want to say that one single concerto is my favorite because I love so many different
violin concertos but I have to admit I have a soft spot for the Brahms concerto, I studied
with a student of a student of the concerto is a dedicatee Joseph Joachim in Berlin during
my teenage years and in my lesson he would say well my teacher said that Joachim said
that Brahms said to play it like this so that was pretty amazing but I'm also lucky to play
an instrument with a special connection to Brahms, I mean I loved the Brahms concerto
long before that and actually it was when I was about to record the Brahms violin concerto
with the Chicago Symphony in 2002 that I was first lent this amazing instrument for
that occasion and I fell in love with it and didn't want to give it back and luckily the
owner decided he liked me and the recording and I've been playing it ever since.
So this violin was made in the year 1742 by Guinari del Jesu of Cremona, Italy, Guinari
and Stradivari are considered to be the two greatest makers ever and it's really just
a matter of taste which one you prefer Stradivari's have a very buttery sound, very golden tone
quality and Guinari's are kind of deeper and darker, very rich sort of sound, very powerful
instruments and there are fewer of them than there are of Strads so if your taste lies
in that direction there aren't enough to go around so I'm very lucky to be using this
one.
It's called the ex-bazini ex-sol-dot after two of the great artists who played it in
the past, Antonio Bazzini, an early 19th century Paganini style virtuoso and then
Marie soldot, one of the women violin soloists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
and she was actually discovered as a teenager by Brahms who became a mentor to her for the
remainder of his life, she was part of his inner circle of chamber musicians with Brahms
at the piano and Marie soldot playing violin, it means this violin got to jam with Brahms
and in fact Brahms himself chose it for her, even back then these instruments could be
priced such that they really weren't possible for artists that might deserve them to be
able to buy them for themselves so Brahms found an aristocratic family who agreed to
buy an instrument for Marie soldot's use and Brahms chose this instrument so it's amazing
to play Brahms's music on an instrument whose voice Brahms particularly loved but it's
also amazing to play the Brahms concerto on an instrument that was one of the first
instruments to ever play the Brahms concerto because of course the world premiere performance
in Berlin, Joseph Joachim, the dedicatee played the solo part in Brahms himself conducted,
the second performance in Berlin, Joachim conducted and Marie soldot played the solo
part so she was right there championing this concerto at its beginning and it's just such
an honor to be able to play this violin, it not only does everything that I could possibly
imagine but it even suggests things to me that I would have never thought of.
So this violin has been playing this symphony for a lot longer than any of the musicians
on stage.
Well none of us were alive when Brahms was but this violin sure was and it used to play
chamber music with Brahms.
Wow that's amazing.
What is it that makes the Brahms concerto so special to you?
Every violin concerto has it something special about it and you know just like you could
never eat your, there's something special about each violin concerto and just like you
could never eat your favorite food for every single meal, you know having variety is really
key.
One week I might play you know the elegant and drama of Mozart and the next week I might
play something dark like Shostakovich or something really personal like Tchaikovsky or just something
celebrating beauty like Mendelssohn.
Brahms for me is not as personal and intimate as some of the violin concertos, it's I feel
like it's less about describing the human condition and human emotions and more about
celebrating something that's larger than ourselves, it feels like it's celebrating
the majesty of creation and you just feel so elevated when listening to it.
What's really interesting about the Brahms concerto is that practicing my own part acapella
to prepare for a concert is not as rewarding as with other concertos because Brahms doesn't
always give the solo part the melody even though you know supposedly I'm the star of
the show.
In this case it's actually been called a symphony with violins so it's not you know
main person and backup band by any stretch, it's really closer to a chamber music collaboration
where sometimes a section of the orchestra or a single wind or brass player will have
the melody and I'll be playing some kind of a counter melody and so it's actually in
a way more fulfilling to play it within orchestra because you're really part of things and
you have this deep musical satisfaction but certainly playing a counter melody without
the melody going when you're practicing your part alone in your room, it's not as automatically
appealing as something like Tchaikovsky but you know it's definitely worth it.
And I imagine that with the orchestra there being so many other solo instruments that
it changes from orchestra to orchestra playing with them, is that the case?
Absolutely, so one of the great things about the fact that the Brahms concerto is so symphonically
crafted, the fact that there are important moments, beautiful melodies from oboe or from
cellos or you know all around the rest of the performers on stage is that every time
I play it with a different orchestra it's different musicians playing and it's a little
bit different and so I could never get tired of this piece, I could never get bored with
it, it feels fresh every time no matter how many times I've ever played it before because
it's a new collaboration each time.
And challenging I imagine too, you mentioned in your 24 by 24 recordings about having
to follow the oboe and having the oboe play the melody and then you having to follow that
at points.
So I'm just trying to think, what would you be watching for and listening for with this
concerto?
Is there anything special or anything specific that you want to point out?
I think for the audience to truly appreciate this concerto it's not just a question of
giving all of your attention to me with the orchestra in a supportive role because it
is such a partnership between my part and everybody else's part.
I think if you've just taken the big picture and listen for all the music that's happening
all around the stage with of course the solo violin being at the forefront but almost more
as a tour guide than as just the main event.
And so you're going to really get a rich tapestry of colors and textures and there's
something very transporting about that.
I understand that you write your own cadences, what goes into writing a cadenza?
Do you, is it written out, note for note or are you improvising like a jazz musician
might and does it change over time?
Great question.
So often in violin concertos there are moments when the violin is playing all by itself.
It's a little bit equivalent to the guitar solo in a rock song except that in the case
of cadenzas the instrumentalist is completely alone but they are playing some you know just
you know fooling around with the different arpeggios and stuff playing derivations of
material that's been heard in the music heretofore.
And in the olden days in the time of Mozart people used to actually improvise their cadenzas
based on you know general rules of how one does that but you know just kind of make it
up on the spot.
Very few people do that these days.
I think primarily because we're playing so many different styles of music even if all
we do is classical we're playing music from many many different centuries and countries
and so we're not as steeped in just one narrow musical language like they were in the
late 1700s but then in the 1800s people started composing cadenzas for these moments whether
they were from the concertos from the 1800s to the romantic concertos or whether they were
going back to the classical period and writing cadenzas for the concertos from the 1700s
and that continued into the 20th century and at a certain point most composers stopped
leaving these sort of empty holes for the performer to do their own thing.
Now there are still cadenzas there are some absolutely great ones in more recent concertos
but composers started writing them themselves and doing it in a little bit different way
where architecturally the orchestra would kind of flow into the cadenza and then connect
back out of the cadenza so that it wasn't as much like the orchestra stops and then
there's this big solo thing and the solo thing kind of ends and then the you know it's not
as cut and dry. Brahms was really one of the last concertos ever written for violin
where there was this big pause with a cadenza opportunity and so of course the very first
performer of the concerto Joseph Joachim, his dedicatee wrote a cadenza and many people
will play Joachim's cadenza. I particularly also like the ones by Fritz Chrysler, Eugenie
Zai and my violin hero Mod Powell from America from the time of Brahms but there's nothing
more personal than writing your own cadenza because each of us as performers plays each
concerto slightly differently based on not only the traditions of the time and what we
believe to be the composer's intentions but also based on our own individual personality.
Each of us is unique as a human and so therefore only your own cadenza can be truly integrated
with your own interpretation and so I used what I was younger I used to worry that gosh
if I write a cadenza it might not be as good as the classic ones by Joachim and Chrysler
and then I realized I was looking at it all wrong that only my cadenza could be the truest
to myself and it's not about comparing mine to anybody else's because only mine is the
most me and therefore I always try to encourage young artists to write their own cadenzas
because it's just such a fun way to personally express yourself in music. I'm not a real
composer like my daughter I don't have original melodies pouring out of me I'm never going
to write a string quartet or a symphony but I love taking composers' melodies and making
arrangements and making cadenzas and just fooling around with the music it's a great
way to be creative and also to give something a little bit fresh to the audience that they
haven't heard before even if they've heard the Brahms concerto a million times. Do you
ever go back and slightly change the cadenza over time that you've written? Definitely as
you know I live life and my artistry continues to evolve through performances and collaborations
and you know just experiencing the ups and downs of existence you know my interpretation
start to change and that of course includes the interpretations of something I myself
have written I haven't yet significantly changed my interpretation to a piece such that I would
need to write a new cadenza to reflect my new approach but if that ever did happen
absolutely I would and actually there was one concerto that I never wrote my own cadenza
to for a long time the Paganini first because I just loved Sore's cadenza and I just felt
like you know I would do something similar but not as good if I just tried to write my
own but then I totally changed my interpretation of the Paganini after studying with an Italian
vocal coach who really knew about the Belkanto style in Italy from that time that influenced
Paganini and after that I realized that my interpretation didn't fit with the Sore
cadenza at all even though I still loved it as a piece and so at that point then I wrote
a cadenza for Paganini one that was quite a bit different and really fit with my new
way of playing Paganini that's great I love to hear about how these things evolve and
come into existence and change during the pandemic you started your 24 and 24 concertos
from the inside web series are you currently working on anything similar for social media
and you know what other projects do you have in the works right now?
hmm the pandemic was of course such a difficult time for everyone but there were many silver
linings I loved the fact that I could do things online that reached people in countries that
I've never visited and maybe never will for a long time I loved the fact that people could
watch concerts who were maybe too old and frail or ill or too young and wiggly to go
to a concert and just this you know access was such a beautiful thing and I do hope that
at some point the world will evolve such that there are more hybrid types of things I totally
understand why everybody was burned out on zoom and streaming and all that and it's
so there's nothing that can beat live performance being in the same room as the performers and
just getting caught up in the collective emotion of everybody experiencing the concert with
you even the acoustics of hearing an orchestra on stage in a live acoustic can never be replicated
digitally but there's something beautiful about also being able to just watch a variety
of things online that you can't get to in person and educationally I loved being able to give
masterclasses to people in you know other states and other countries and I've done a little bit of
that you know there was gosh a couple months ago a random high school in Kentucky who would never
have been able to afford to fly me in and put me up just to have me do a workshop with their
kids but I did it over the screen and it went really well and I felt that it was of great value
and I I really enjoyed myself too so I hope to continue doing more of that maybe one day we'll
transition to holograms who knows but in the meantime I'm so busy traveling and performing in
person that I don't get to do a lot of online concerts per se but I'm always searching for
for different ways to connect I recently made a bunch of videos for a really popular website
called Tone Bass which gives kind of lessons that you can watch on different technical aspects of
violin playing or different pieces of repertoire and so some of the things that I talk about a lot
with students about certain kinds of approaches to scales and double stops I was able to make
those videos so that students that I haven't worked with one-on-one can still see me talk all about
it and so that was really exciting. It is a great teaching tool a way to reach beyond dealing with
people in person. Can you tell us a little bit about the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation? When did
it start and what are its goals and how has it grown through the years? I started my Rachel Barton
Pine Foundation in 2001 as a way to really give back and pay it forward for some of the help that
I had received as a student. I came from a very economically struggling family with a father who
was unemployed for most of my childhood and my mom was raising me and my younger sisters and so
you know just being able to pay for lessons was basically impossible and I was able to continue
my studies thanks to scholarships but all of the extra things that you need to do. Scholarships
don't actually cover those whether you're talking about strings for your instrument,
borrowing an instrument itself so you have something to play on, gas to put in your car to drive to
your lessons. Concert clothes, piano accompanist's fees, sheet music that you have to buy in order
to study it. Audition recording sessions, the list goes on and so I was able to scrape by and
make it work thanks to various generous supporters, extended family, my church and so I started my
foundation to be able to help young artists who are also aspiring to a life in music doing really
well with their studies but facing extreme financial difficulties and then once I had a not-for-profit
going I realized that I could do other things too and back in 97 I had made an album of violin
concertos by black composers of the 17 and 1800s and that really struck a chord with people.
Students, parents and teachers started asking me where they could find this repertoire and people
just hadn't known that these composers existed from way back when and I realized there were
literally hundreds of wonderful composers of African descent from all over the planet from all
throughout the centuries and there is a lot of fantastic work being done in this area of music
history by various researchers but it really wasn't filtering out into the general population
with usable pedagogical materials and access to music that might exist only in manuscript
because of lack of opportunity back in the day or it might be out of print so I started my music
by black composers project also in 2001 and it's just been really exciting to be able to
publish violin beginner books and now more advanced books to be able to create all of our free online
databases of everything from podcasts about you know diverse repertoire children's books
our coloring book of black composers and there's just so much that you can find on our website
and we've got lots more to do and you know during the pandemic I didn't have to Netflix binge or
bake I could just keep on going with my research and we've got flute volumes that are about to
come out now we just had some piano books of music by the Chevalier de Saint George
Joseph Bologna from The Time of Mozart in France there's just one exciting thing after the other
and I just love that I can do something that kind of weds my my love of history and music research
with my love of classical music access and of course music education and so there's there's
resources for performers for teachers for students and yeah we've we've done a lot I'm so proud of
the work of my colleagues who've been helping with the project and so grateful to all of the
generous donors who've helped make it all possible and I'm so excited about all that we are still
planning to do. Do you ever sleep? It seems like you've got so much going on that just
so many different things and so many different avenues that you are touching people with music
that just it's incredible. I feel so incredibly lucky to be living my dream really this is
the life I always wanted to have being able to play lots of concerts for people and in the concert
halls and beyond I have a concert next week at a homeless shelter and you know that means just
as much as a big one thousand seat concert hall and you know being able to uplift people's spirits
with music is what it's really all about and then being able to encourage the next generation
and explore different repertoire whether it's newly written pieces or historic things that have
been here to for under recognized you know it's it's just so exciting to be able to get to do all
that I do and I just it's just so amazing that I get to live my life this way. Thank you I just
have one more question I couldn't let you go without asking you about that I read in addition
to classical music you have an affinity for heavy metal and what are some of your favorite heavy
metal bands I understand you have collaborated with some of the musicians can you talk a little
bit about that? Well classical of course is my number one favorite kind of music my second
favorite music is Chicago blues and my third favorite music sorry my fourth favorite music is
Scottish fiddling and right in between there my third favorite music is heavy metal specifically
certain subgenres particularly thrash so I love you know guys like Slayer anthrax mega death
Pantera Sepultura and you know this is the music that I grew up with ever since Santa Claus brought
me a transistor radio when I was 10 years old and I started exploring up and down the dial and
found metal and that was that and I always thought it was just something to kind of
get pretty far away from classical after studying classical all day then I would just rock out
but it turns out that a lot of the you know more complex subgenres of heavy metal are actually
very indebted to classical music very inspired by it and I've had the opportunity to meet many of
my favorite bands and hear about their favorite classical composers and they don't just stop at
Bach and Beethoven they're talking about Izzie and Laccatelli and Tartini and you know barely
is rekmon enough in list and you know it's like okay you know this is this makes sense because you
can hear it in their music when you stop and actually analyze it which sometimes I don't I just rock
out but and it's fun to play that music on my violin not as any kind of a crossover artist because
that's not really where my heart is but as a way to show the connections between rock and
classical and encourage my fellow rock fans to give classical a try because actually one of the
coolest stories is the Brahms violin concerto the one I'm playing with La Crosse Symphony because
I was in Germany one day hanging out with the lead guitarist of the scorpions Lee John Roth one
of the really legendary electric guitar players and he was telling me how there's this moment
halfway through the first movement of the Brahms concerto that has this kind of lick
and he started using that lick in his guitar solos and then Eddie Van Halen started copying
him and then everybody of course started copying and Van Halen and now when you hear that lick
it actually is from the Brahms violin concerto and everybody uses it so there's there's this
incredible influence that classical's had beyond its own genre which is so cool and of course
it's also fun to just play loud and for a number of years I was a member of earthen grave
and we you know we were just straight up classical I was playing a six-string electric violin so I
could play the lead solos what would have been a guitar solo except I was doing it I could play
the really low riffs and I could I could you know have a clean sound and do it with the vocalist in
a more lyrical way so electric violin is actually so much more versatile than any other instrument
of a band and you know we made an album that I'm still very proud of and we got to open for
Megadeth one time which was really fun that was actually in Wisconsin and we got to have all kinds
of adventures so that was I was really really grateful for those years and that what was particularly
rewarding was the process of collective songwriting because in classical one person composes everybody's
parts but in a band one person might have an idea for one riff one person throws in another
you might all decide how many times you do something before you go to the bridge you each add your
own layers of your own parts on top of the main riff and it's this collective process of developing
a song and having you know combined creativity and that's that's something that was a really new
and really interesting experience for me when you play heavy metal on a violin you detune it
like so many guitarists do for every metal actually my band earthen grave was doom mixed with thrash
and so we did down tune but since I didn't have the guitar notes of my strings in the first place
I just stayed with my normal strings D is actually a really good key for the violin in some ways
better than E so so I was perfectly happy to keep the violin with its usual notes
well that's I think that's everything unless there's anything that you wanted to say about
performing with the lacrosse symphony but I I think I've kept you here long enough you have
been wonderful thank you so much all right um I just uh