{"id":6199,"date":"2020-02-09T16:21:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T16:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=6199"},"modified":"2020-02-21T16:23:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T16:23:19","slug":"review-a-violinist-connects-the-dots-from-bach-to-the-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/review-a-violinist-connects-the-dots-from-bach-to-the-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: A Violinist Connects the Dots From Bach to the Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rising musician Alexi Kenney juxtaposed Baroque and contemporary solo works in a recital that revealed a kinship among them.<\/em><\/p>\n

From The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

By Joshua Barone<\/p>\n

For his recital at the 92nd Street Y on Friday, the young violinist Alexi Kenney engaged in something like that pointless but nonetheless fun thought experiment: Which people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party?<\/p>\n

At this party, the guest of honor might be Bach \u2014 the looming Baroque master whose music, Mr. Kenney wrote in a program note, transcends its time to become something more spiritual, holistic and worldly. His works for solo violin are the summit for any student, though for many they remain a lifelong project.<\/p>\n

Who else to invite? On Friday, Mr. Kenney, 26, assembled a group of seven more composers: one who predated Bach, and others who came long after. His hope, in putting together a program of selections from Bach\u2019s sonatas and partitas alongside contemporary works, was that \u201ca kinship between them will emerge,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

So the Adagio from Bach\u2019s Sonata No. 1 that opened Friday\u2019s program had both remarkable clarity and feeling, with the lightness of a dance among clouds. If its humanity was barely hiding below the surface, then Mr. Kenney ripped it out in Gyorgy Kurtag\u2019s brief \u201cRuhelos\u201d from \u201cKafka Fragments\u201d (1987), which shares the Bach\u2019s double stops but adds the performer\u2019s shouting voice.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Mr. Kenney closed the program by pairing Thuridur Jonsdottir\u2019s \u201cInni\u201d (2013) and the Chaconne from Bach\u2019s Second Partita. \u201cInni\u201d had some people in the audience giggling \u2014 it features a field recording of a baby, like Aaliyah\u2019s \u201cAre You That Somebody?\u201d but somehow more endearing \u2014 yet it was one of the evening\u2019s most beautiful works, the audio accompanied by Mr. Kenney\u2019s intimate phrases of soft-spoken awe.<\/p>\n

The Chaconne, however, was vastly more urgent. Mr. Kenney\u2019s peaks and valleys of passion, and his more modern approach to the score, stood out even among his other interpretations of Bach. He made it seem, though, as if this were the only possible way to play the music: Because if \u201cInni\u201d took a moment to marvel at life, then this Chaconne aimed to do no less than summarize its entirety.<\/p>\n

Read the full review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rising musician Alexi Kenney juxtaposed Baroque and contemporary solo works in a recital that revealed a kinship among them. From The New York Times By Joshua Barone For his recital at the 92nd Street Y on Friday, the young violinist Alexi Kenney engaged in something like that pointless but nonetheless fun thought experiment: Which … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3671,4208,3670,3612,3669],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6200,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6199\/revisions\/6200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}