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Paul Wiancko X Suite for Solo Violin Visual Album
Clara Schumann Three Romances
Bach Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor
Piazzolla Tango Etude No. 3
Strings Sessions: Alexi Kenney Performs with the 1714 ‘Joachim-Ma’ Stradivarius Violin
John Adams: Concerto for Violin
Enescu Octet in Quarantine

“It would be unfair to say that someday Kenney will be a superstar. He already is.”

Cleveland Classical

“When an artist has truly mastered his craft, there’s a level of communication that surpasses the mundane and the misty and speaks directly to the listener. At Friday’s Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concert at Heinz Hall, violinist Alexi Kenney delivered a spectacular account of Bartok’s second violin concerto, his charisma conjuring a conversational style at once bravura and intimate…Truly a marvelous performance.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“His approach to Bach’s music emphasized the emotional core within its rational precision and dancing rhythms, even while retaining the transparency of historically informed performance. Mr. Kenney seems to view — and, more impressively, convey — the sonatas and partitas not at the level of measures or phrases, but entire movements. Yet at no point does his interpretation draw attention to itself…He made it seem … as if this were the only possible way to play the music”

The New York Times

“…American violinist Alexi Kenney’s brilliant, finely finessed performance, [was] the most gripping in memory. His non-vibrato entrance was startling in itself, though subtly so: an icy effect setting us up for a bracing adventure. What followed was almost superhuman technical precision, but also amazing bow arm control that allowed one breathtaking nuance after another. Kenney knew what this music was about, every note of it — what it meant, where it was coming from and where it was going. He conveyed it as naturally, as inevitably, as a great storyteller.”

The Dallas Morning News

“A brilliantly understated soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, his interpretation unmarred by any pretense or artifice. His flawless technique and the masterful tempo and feel of Falletta’s beat brought light and air to the concerto’s first movement, where Kenney’s cadenza eschewed pyrotechnics in favor of impeccable clarity of expression.”

Columbus Dispatch

“He has the warm, sumptuous tone that the Bruch demands, as well as the technique to move through this richly Romantic score as if it posed few challenges.”

Portland Press Herald

“…beautifully phrased and delicate playing…Mr. Kenney’s performance of the suite by Westhoff…also proved impressive for its elegance and liquid trills and the way he conveyed each movement’s dance elements with characterful flair.”

New York Times

“Concomitant technical and musical purity.”

Santa Fe New Mexican

“…beautiful, aching tone.”

Strings

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 around the world, 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.

Highlights of Alexi’s 2023/24 season include appearing as soloist with the Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee Symphonies, leading a program of his own creation with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and debuting a new iteration of his project Shifting Ground at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Ojai Festival, in collaboration with the new media and video artist Xuan. Shifting Ground intersperses seminal works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces by Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Nicola Matteis, Kaija Saariaho, Paul Wiancko, and Du Yun, as well as new commissions by composers Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón. The album version of Shifting Ground will be released in June 2024.

In recent seasons, Alexi has soloed with the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Detroit Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and l’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, 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, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is a founding member of Owls—an inverted quartet hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times—alongside violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko. Alexi is also an alum of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS 2) at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

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 mentors 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 and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.

MARCH 2024