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Master Class with Violinist Li Lin - Starling-DeLay 2023

May 26, 2023, 1:31 AM · Violin pedagogue Li Lin doesn't let anyone breeze along in their comfort zone - this was clear from his master class Thursday at the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at the Juilliard School.

He relentlessly shook things up, demanding that students get their entire bodies involved in making music, then insisting that the music they were creating would elicit a true response in a listener.

"If I'm thinking, 'Hmmm, nice violin playing,' that's not enough of a response," he said at one point. "Bring a tear to my eye, make me feel happy, or out of breath. Don't just play beautifully, get beyond it."

Lin has been on the violin faculty at The Juilliard School since 2014, and he also teaches at the Perlman Music Program and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. A native of Guangzhou, China, he mentioned during the class that his father is a master of tai chi, and his teaching seemed to reflect some principles of that art, such as directing and balancing the flow of energy in the body. Keep reading...

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Master Class with Francesca dePasquale - Starling-DeLay 2023

Laurie Niles

May 24, 2023, 11:26 PM · NEW YORK: Posture, rhythm and energy - these were a few of the topics covered in a master class Wednesday by Francesca dePasquale, as part of the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at the Juilliard School.

DePasquale teaches as a faculty member at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Juilliard Pre-College and the Heifetz International Music Institute. She is a graduate of Juilliard and Colburn, having studied with Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho and Robert Lipsett.

In her master class she focused on topics such as finding the most ergonomic and tension-free way to play, harnessing the energy of performance, and zooming in on details such as rhythm and articulation to affect the larger musical picture.

Twelve-year-old Maxwell Brown took the stage first, with a wicked-fast performance of the third movement of Wieniawski's Concerto No. 2 in D minor.

I'd actually seen Maxwell play an entirely different type of music -- at the ASTA Conference in March, when he performed a fancy fiddle tune at a master class with Darol Anger. Max and the other participant (cellist Marco Melendez) proceeded to improvise a jam together with Anger - already showing some great improv skills that many seasoned violinists don't have.

In the Wieniawski on Wednesday, Brown's thrill-ride speed appeared to cause him no stress, nor did it force any compromise in his accuracy. His ease and joy were contagious. Keep reading...

Master Class with Joel Smirnoff; Recital Featuring Rachell Ellen Wong - Starling-DeLay 2023

Laurie Niles

May 24, 2023, 1:40 AM · NEW YORK - The first in-person Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies in four years began on Tuesday at The Juilliard School with an insightful master class by former Juilliard Quartet member Joel Smirnoff followed by an extraordinary recital by violinist Rachell Ellen Wong and colleagues.

The Symposium runs through Saturday, with additional master classes scheduled with Francesca dePasquale, Li Lin, Catherine Cho and Danielle Belen; a Q & A with Itzhak Perlman; workshops with Curtis Stewart, Jennifer Johnson, Dana Fonteneau, and Symposium Director Brian Lewis; and a recital featuring Randall Goosby.

Smirnoff, a violinist, pedagoque and conductor who played in the Juilliard Quartet for 23 years, started the master class with a few words about his former teacher, Dorothy DeLay, the Juilliard violin pedagogue for whom this symposium is named.

"Dorothy DeLay set a wonderful example for us," Smirnoff said. "First, she was always decked out and well-dressed! Her curiosity was boundless, and she was perceptive, bright and kind. Her teaching was extremely organized, and that helped us be organized."

During the master class, Smirnoff focused intently on the details of each student's performance, using his conducting skills to bring out both musical and technical details in their playing while also dropping so many wonderful pearls of wisdom about violin-playing - he had everyone scrambling to write them all down.

The first young artist to perform was Claire Arias-Kim, who played the first movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, accompanied with great energy by Pamela Viktoria Pyle.

"Your intonation was really harmonically-based," Smirnoff said, "and you have a natural lyricism to your playing."

The first thing Smirnoff wanted to address was how to have a commanding stage presence, with freedom to move about on stage. Keep reading...

The Week in Reviews, Op. 401: Philippe Quint; Rachell Ellen Wong; Robert Chen

Laurie Niles

May 23, 2023, 8:30 AM · In an effort to promote the coverage of live violin performance, Violinist.com each week presents links to reviews of notable concerts and recitals around the world.

Philippe Quint performed Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Santa Barbara Symphony.

Edhat Santa Barbara: "I personally thought Yehudi Menuhin was channeling through Philippe Quint during his amazing performance, and as my mother was a devotee of Menuhin and I grew up listening to records of his performances....I began to cry and felt my mother Rose was sitting in the seat next to me. It just does not get any better than that!"
Performing Arts Review: "Quint’s intensely personal approach to the cadenza at the end of the first movement confirmed his appropriately meditative approach to the work as a whole; a sincere understanding of the many years of angst involved in the concerto’s creation."
Santa Barbara Independent: "...Quint dove assuredly into the ultra-familiar strains of the opening theme and rose to the score’s challenges and varying heat level of pyrotechnics and romantic gymnastics. Pining spirits in the first and second movements give way to the calm, then brisk, buoyant spirits of its finale, in an emphatically major key."

Keep reading...

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