MEET THE SOLOIST: Rachel Barton Pine

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine performs Billy Childs' Violin Concerto No.2

April 12 at 7:30PM

Background: The acclaimed American concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills international audiences with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and emotional honesty. With an infectious joy for music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music. She is a leading interpreter of the great classical masterworks and of important contemporary music.

Pine performs with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Vienna, and Detroit symphony orchestras. She has worked with renowned conductors that include Teddy Abrams, Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi, Christoph Eschenbach, Erich Leinsdorf, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Tito Muñoz, and John Nelson. As a chamber musician, Pine has performed with Jonathan Gilad, Clive Greensmith, Paul Neubauer, Jory Vinikour, William Warfield, Orion Weiss, and the Pacifica and Parker quartets.

Highlights of Pine’s 2024–25 season include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiere of José White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp Minor with conductor Jonathan Rush, a tour of Israel with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Lalo’s  Symphonie Espagnole with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the world premiere of Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis’ Violin Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony and conductor Daniel Raiskin, Billy Childs’ Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Rhode Island Philharmonic and conductor Radu Paponiu, and the French premiere of Earl Maneein’s violin concerto  Dependent Arising  with the Orchestre National de Bretagne and conductor Nicolas Ellis. Over the season, Pine will also perform concertos by Brahms and Sibelius, and music by Wynton Marsalis, Jessie Montgomery, and Mark O’Connor, among other living composers. As a chamber musician, Pine will appear in recitals in Chicago, Phoenix, Kalamazoo, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, and Tel Aviv.

In September 2024, Cedille Records released Pine’s new album, Corelli Violin Sonatas, Op. 5, a two-disc set with the 12 sonatas for violin and continuo that constitute the Baroque composer’s opus 5. Pine performs on violin and viola d’amore, holding the violin against her chest, which history suggests is the way Corelli performed (rather than holding it on the collarbone, the way today’s baroque violinists usually do). The different performance style resulted in subtle changes in tempos and timing because of the slightly different use of the left hand and of the bow arm. The approach led to a different tone compared to that of Pine’s 2007 recording of the third sonata with Trio Settecento, featuring John Mark Rozendaal and David Schrader, who join Pine again in the new recording. Rozendaal plays violoncello and viola da gamba and Schrader plays positive organ and harpsichord. Brandon Acker joins the trio on archlute, theorbo, and guitar. Pine improvised all her ornaments, using a historically informed approach.     

She performs on the “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat” Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesù” (Cremona 1742), on lifetime loan from her anonymous patron.

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