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Longtime Heifetz Institute Director Benjamin Roe Announces Retirement
Heifetz International Music Institute President and CEO Benjamin K. Roe announced today that he will retire this fall after leading the organization for 12 years.
He will conclude his tenure following the Heifetz Institute’s 30th Anniversary season and will assume the title of President Emeritus, continuing to advance the Institute’s mission, support strategic initiatives, and help ensure a thoughtful and seamless transition to new leadership.
Headquartered in Staunton, Va., the Heifetz International Music Institute is a training program for exceptional young string players, featuring a summer festival and year-round concerts. The program is named after its founder, the violinist and pedagogue Daniel Heifetz, who started it in 1996 with just 20 students and a bold idea: that students should learn performance and communication skills alongside the technical skills they learn on their instruments. By now, the program has expanded greatly and more than 2,200 "Heifetz alumni" perform on international stages, serve on leading conservatory faculties and lead the industry as musical entrepreneurs.
Roe joined the organization in 2014, guiding the Institute through a remarkable era of expansion and innovation in close partnership with founder Daniel Heifetz and Artistic Director Nicholas Kitchen. Keep reading...
Joint ASTA and SAA Conference Begins Wednesday in San Francisco
String teachers from all over the Americas are gathering this week in San Francisco for a conference of two of the profession's largest associations: the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) and the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA), which together are presenting their second co-located national conference.
I will be there as well, writing for Violinist.com about the event and various workshops and performances, and representing Los Angeles teachers as President of the LA Section of CalASTA. Please say hello if you see me!
Thousands of educators, exhibitors, performers, and supporters will be participating in the event, which takes place Wednesday through Saturday (Feb. 25-28) at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square in San Francisco, Calif. The conference will also include an exhibit hall with nearly 100 exhibitors. Keep reading...
For the Record, Op. 371: Alena Baeva, Isabelle Faust, Turtle Island Quartet, Alberto Bologni, Anzû Quartet
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! Click on the highlighted links to obtain each album or learn more about the artists.
Beethoven Violin Sonatas
Alena Baeva, violin
Vadym Kholodenko, piano
Alena Baeva and Vadym Kholodenko present three of Beethoven's most popular sonatas for violin and piano. Baeva, an international violin soloist, and Kholodenko, a Gold Medalist at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition, have performed as a duo for the last 10 years. The three sonatas featured on this recording (Op. 24 "Spring," Op. 47 "Kreutzer," and Op. 12, No. 3) were composed between 1797 and 1803, a period that brought Beethoven both his first recognition on the European stage and the first signs of his deafness. Baeva performs on the 1738 "ex-William Kroll" del Gesù violin and the pair used the 2020 Bärenreiter edition to inform their interpretative choices on phrasing, ornamentation and tempi. BELOW: Alena Baeva and Vadym Kholodenko perform Beethoven Violin Sonata No .9 "Kreutzer," Op.47.
Keep reading...
Minnesota Orchestra Appoints Violinist Leonidas Kavakos Principal Guest Conductor
On Thursday the Minnesota Orchestra announced the appointment of Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos as its principal guest conductor, beginning in the fall of 2027.
The three-year appointment will feature Kavakos in three weeks of subscription concerts each season, including conducting the orchestra at least twice a season. He also will appear in additional concerts and artistic projects as soloist or chamber music collaborator.
Originally from Athens, Kavakos, 58, has more than 30 years of history with the Minnesota Orchestra, having debuted with the orchestra in March 1995, playing the Stravinsky Violin Concerto. He returned over the next five years for 16 performances across the season and summer and has been a regular soloist ever since, including appearing with the Orchestra in performances of the Sibelius Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall in May 2009. As a conductor, he first led the Minnesota Orchestra in a May 2023 program featuring Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1. For his most recent appearance, last October, he led as a soloist for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 and conducted Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15.
"I am thrilled to be joining the Minnesota Orchestra as its principal guest conductor," Kavakos said in a statement. "As a young music student still forming a musical identity, I was deeply inspired by the Minnesota Orchestra’s recordings with the legendary Dimitri Mitropoulos."
"I first conducted the Orchestra in 2023 and the rehearsals and performances were pure joy," he said. "I felt an immediate chemistry with my colleagues, and together we've found the sense of expressive freedom that every musician aims for." Keep reading...
