Masterclass: Alexi Kenney, violin

Collaborators

Jason Kim, piano
Connor Buckley, piano
Amy Chiu, piano
Lior David, piano

Program

Richard Strauss: Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 18
     I. Allegro, ma non troppo
Alyssa Tong, violin
Jason Kim, piano
Alyssa is a student of Simon James.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major, Op. 47 “Kreutzer”
     I. Adagio sostenuto – Presto
Annemarie Schubert, violin
Connor Buckley, piano
Annemarie is a student of Simon James.

Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 14
     I. Allegro moderato
Catherine Lin, violin
Amy Chiu, piano
Catherine is a student of Chen Zhao.

John Corigliano: Violin Sonata (1963)
     I. Allegro
Erika Aoki, violin
Lior David, piano
Erika is a student of Simon James and Ian Swensen.

This masterclass is presented in partnership with Cal Performances.

About the Artist

Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras in the USA and abroad, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time. Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

Following the 2021/22 season, which included solo appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Alexi devotes the first part of 2023 to the debut of his new project Shifting Ground, bringing it to the Celebrity Series of Boston, Cal Performances, Princeton University Concerts, and the Phillips Collection. Shifting Ground intersperses seminal works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces of our time by Samuel Adams, Matthew Burtner, Steve Reich, Paul Wiancko, and Du Yun, as well as commissions by composers Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón.

Alexi has performed as soloist with the Detroit Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, California Symphony, and Sarasota Orchestra, as well as in a play-conduct role as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, on Carnegie Hall’s ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition and laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition, Alexi has been profiled by Musical America, Strings Magazine, and The New York Times, and has written for The Strad.

Chamber music continues to be a major part of Alexi’s life, regularly performing at festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Kronberg, La Jolla, Ojai, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto, as well as on tour with Musicians from Marlboro and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is a founding member of Owls, a new quartet collective with violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko.

Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received an Artist Diploma as a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein. Previous teachers in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by François-Nicolas Voirin.

Outside of music, Alexi enjoys hojicha, modernist design and architecture, baking for friends (especially this lumberjack cake), and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.