Hanako Yamaguchi: Hello, I'm Hanako Yamaguchi. Tonight Alexi Kenney joins us in the studio to perform part of a special program he crafted for solo violin combining new works with Bach on this edition of the McGraw Family's Young Artist Showcase.
Good evening. Since 1978 and through the pandemic, the Young Artist Showcase has continued to find a parade of rich talent made possible thanks to the faithful underwriting of the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Family Foundation. Let me introduce myself. My name is Hanako Yamaguchi. And for many years I've had the pleasure of working with a plethora of wonderful performers as I was a classical music presenter and artistic producer.
And since 2021, I've been fortunate to work with WQXR to develop the Artist Propulsion Lab, which supports emerging and mid-career artists through creative work and broadcast opportunities, and that's why I'm here with you tonight. I'm happy to have one of its members violinist Alexi Kenney with me in the studio Now, Alexi's well on his way with a promising career.
He studied at the New England Conservatory of Music with Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein, and he has also received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and Borletti-Buitoni Trust award. And he's no stranger to us, for back in 2015, Alexi Kenney made his first appearance here on the Young Artists Showcase.
But something that's really striking to me about Alexi is that he's constantly thinking about the visceral experience of making music and thinking about the connection between the performer and the listener. And given my own experiences as a classical music presenter, he stands out. As we get to Alexi, you'll hear why.
But first, let's hear some music. Alexi, what are we going to start with?
Alexi Kenney: We're going to hear a little mashup of Bach and Paul Wiancko. This is two Allemandes by JS Bach, the D minor allemande from the Partita number two, followed by Paul Wiancko's X Suite for solo violin.
MUSIC- Bach: Allemande from Partita in D minor, BWV 1004
Wiancko: Allemande from X Suite for Solo Violin
Hanako Yamaguchi: Wow. I love that contrasting pair of Allemandes. The first was from Bach's Partita in D minor, followed by the Allemande from Paul Wiancko's X Suite for Solo Violin performed by violinist and Artist Propulsion Lab member Alexi Kenney. So the program you're playing here tonight comes out of a larger recital program as you refer to just now entitled, Shifting Ground.
And it's a project that's near and dear to your heart, and I wanna hear more about it. I wanna know how you came about creating it and how is it different from a conventional recital program?
Alexi Kenney: This program is really an exploration of what it means to listen to a concert and to be a listener. I think there's something so sacred about performing and about sharing and connecting to an audience and through Shifting Ground, it's actually in five acts and I've envisioned the program being sort of like a, almost a cinematic journey. So you think of something like, well, watching a film or reading a book, or going to a, an art gallery where a curator has like laid out these pieces, pieces of art for you, or the writer has, you know, come up with a, a, a grand story to tell you over the course of 300 pages, you know, this sort of idea that why should music be any different from other arts?
Hanako Yamaguchi: Right.
Alexi Kenney: Was the crux of what I wanted to explore. And so the other, the other kind of major piece of this was the Bach Chaconne, which I think every violinist would say is one of the hardest but also most rewarding pieces in our literature. It's a 13 minute kind of exploration of life and death and afterlife and everything in between. And I mean, you name it, it's in there.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Absolutely.
Alexi Kenney: Bach is, is kind of delightful in that way for me, cause as with the piece you just heard, the Allemande there's just not only infinite ways to play it, but I feel like everything is in context and every decision, every intuition that you make in every moment leads somewhere else.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Right.
Alexi Kenney: And so there's just this feeling of, like, you are just absolutely at the edge of possibility and it's yours to grasp and it's yours to take. And, the only limitation is your creativity.
Hanako Yamaguchi: And you this became sort of the basis of the recital or the culmination of the program.
Alexi Kenney: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, little by little over the course of some years, the program got fleshed out in my, in my mind and, you know, started listening to a lot of different pieces and hearing the Chaconne and hearing Bach and hearing ripples throughout history and, you know, through my work with contemporary composers and just a, having a, an interest not only in playing the music of the past, but, but really bringing to life new newness and new art, and supporting creativity. I, I decided to to make this program.
Hanako Yamaguchi: So next up, we have a new work commissioned by Alexi Kenney by the Brooklyn based Puerto Rican composer Angelica Negron. Angelica has written delightfully idiosyncratic works for orchestra and choirs, accordions, toys, electronics, and even everyday objects such as house plants.
Angelica's work today is called The Violinist. It's the only piece on the program that has text and sort of tells us a story. Can you give us a quick summary of the story of The Violinist?
Alexi Kenney: So what you're going to hear is this short story called The Violinist by Ana Fabrega, recorded, narrated by Ana Fabrega, set to music by Angelica Negron.
So we've all had this nightmare, some of us. For some of us, it's a recurring nightmare that we are being asked to do something in public that we've never known how to do. This story examines just that. In the case of Ana Fabrega, who is a comedian, but is being asked in her dream to play the Brahms violin concerto with New York Philharmonic and is shoved out on stage, finds herself in the dressing room... you'll see what happens.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Thank you. Now let's join Alexi on this surreal adventure with a work by Angelica Negron called The Violinist. The story and narration are by Ana Fabrega.
MUSIC- Negrón: The Violinist for violin and electronics (Due to right restrictions, we are unable to include this work in the program on our website)
Hanako Yamaguchi: The Violinist for violin and electronics, composed by Angelica Negron with a story read and written by Ana Fabrega. We'll continue in a moment with violinist Alexi Kenney after this short break here on the McGraw Family's Young Artists Showcase.
I'm Hanako Yamaguchi, and you're listening to the McGraw Family's Young Artists Showcase. I'm here tonight in the studio with violinist Alexi Kenney, a member of WQXR's Artist Propulsion Lab. The next set of three works begins with a short work by the Alaskan born composer, sound artist, and eco-acoustician, Matthew Burtner.
It's a sound painting about the Muir Glacier in Alaska. Alexi, I'm very intrigued by this next piece. Can you tell us what we're hearing?
Alexi Kenney: So this piece overlays the violin on top of a field recording that Matthew Burtner made of the melting Muir Glacier, which actually melted in 2009. So the subtext of this piece is Muir Glacier (1889 to 2009) and you'll also hear a few synthesized sounds that are over the top of this recording that the violin also harmonizes with, in a, in a very, very beautiful way. This is also a sort of excerpt from a larger piece called, um, Muir Glacier, without the Elegy part, that is just for the field recording and the electronics.
So it has no live instruments, but he created this version for live violin on top of it, and I think it's just such a gorgeous, heartbreaking, poetic meditation.
Hanako Yamaguchi: And when you say the glacier melted in 2009, it basically disappeared.
Alexi Kenney: Yeah.
Hanako Yamaguchi: It's very moving to think about. The set concludes with a work called Hikari by a young New Zealand composer named Salina Fisher, which you, this is another work that you commissioned for the Shifting Ground recital program.
I'm curious what led you to commissioning her and what resonated about it?
Alexi Kenney: So this piece is called Hikari, it's um, light and Salina Fisher is a violinist and she had also never written a solo piece. And so I actually approached her with the idea to write another piece for violin with electronics. And she said, actually, would it be okay if I wrote a solo piece cause I would love, it's, I've never done it and I would love for this to be the project.
And of course I said yes. And I had just given her sort of the general gist of this project, that it was based on Bach and that it was going into the, the Bach Chaconne in the end. And she was really inspired by Bach to write this piece. And I, I think you'll also hear a lot of the open resonance of the violin is, is used really, really beautifully, which of course, Bach, Bach was kind of the master of like knowing how to write for an instrument.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Alexi Kenney: Make it sound, you know, sometimes you'll hear in Bach that the violin is playing four voices at once, and of course you can do that with the help of kind of some tricks and using an open strings resonance to carry over the sound for more than just one beat and that kind of thing. So Selena Fisher has taken that idea and really ran with it, and I love this piece. I think it came out so beautifully.
Hanako Yamaguchi: So to complete the set, which is three pieces, there's another piece that you put in the middle. Sort of as a transition.
Alexi Kenney: The, the piece that's in the middle, um, is by Nicola Matteis, who was roughly a contemporary of Bach. And this particular piece is called Alia Fantasia, and it's as the name Fantasia would suggest it's, you know, this kind of like unfolding, meandering piece that that kind of goes in all these unexpected directions.
And I think for me, this piece sounds very contemporary.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Mm-hmm.
Alexi Kenney: Like it could have been written yesterday and it's sort of like, it's weird, weird harmonic corners that it discovers and, and just kind of like, goes in, in strange directions and I've used this piece, I, I've used it like many, many, many times in many different programs.
Hanako Yamaguchi: It's very short.
Alexi Kenney: Yeah, it's about three minutes and it, it sort of acts as this bridge, energetic bridge between things that I'm really interested in.
Hanako Yamaguchi: So, let's listen first to Matthew Burtner's Elegy, Muir Glacier (1889 to 2009) followed by a short work by Nicola Matteis, and then a brand new work by Salina Fisher called Hikari, commissioned by Alexi Kenney.
MUSIC- Burtner: Elegy (Muir Glacier 1889-2009) for violin and electronics (Due to right restrictions, we are unable to include this work in the program on our website)
Matteis: Passagio roto
Fisher: Hikari for solo violin
Hanako Yamaguchi: A powerful and moving experience here in our studios. Three works performed by Alexi Kenney on the McGraw Family's Young Artists Showcase. Matthew Burtner's Elegy, Muir Glacier (1889 to 2009) for violin and glacier sonification. Alia Fantasia by Nicola Matteis and Hikari by Salina Fisher. Finally, we get to the Chaconne, which closes the program tonight.
The Mount Everest of violin works. We've already spoken on it, so, so we don't need to say too much except for the fact that it's an astounding masterpiece. One of the most spectacular works ever written, as you said, structurally, musically, technically, and spiritually. This piece though, is a piece that encompasses a lifetime and experience. So you're growing as a person, and I can imagine that you think about it differently.
Alexi Kenney: Yeah, and I think this, this program also was designed in a, in a way for the listener to kind of receive the Chaconne. You know, actually the, the Bach Chaconne exists in a Partita. So it's at the end of a five movement piece.
Hanako Yamaguchi: That's right.
Alexi Kenney: Solo piece by Bach.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Mm-hmm.
Alexi Kenney: Which I think I often forget.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Yes.
Alexi Kenney: Playing this program, right?
Hanako Yamaguchi: Yes.
Alexi Kenney: So it's, it's already kind of preceded by some things that I think help the listener open their ears...
Hanako Yamaguchi: Right.
Alexi Kenney: In the original version. But for me, I wanted to kind of pluck out that spiritual element.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Mm-hmm.
Alexi Kenney: And you know, all the pieces that come before it. The Salina Fisher, that set you just heard. Mm-hmm. The Matthew Burtner. And then what will proceed it with now, which is this sort of very, very brief, almost chant like anonymous, single lined piece of music that just kind of to me echoes or prefaces the Chaconne in a way that like, alright, we're getting you ready to hear D Minor. We're getting you ready to hear something that you may have heard before. You may not have, but to me it's kind of like, all of a sudden the Chaconne explodes into color, whereas we've been kind of in this like desaturated zone and the chaconne is like this just instant, like turning on of the lights.
Hanako Yamaguchi: So shall we hear it?
Alexi Kenney: Let's do it.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Are you ready to play it?
Alexi Kenney: Ready or not!
Hanako Yamaguchi: Okay! So let's hear Alexi Kenney play his arrangement of an anonymous work called Nitida Stella, followed by the Chaconne from the Partita in D Minor by JS Bach.
MUSIC- Anonymous (arr. Kenney): Nitida Stella
Bach: Chaconne from Partita in D minor, BWV 1005
Hanako Yamaguchi: That was Bach's Chaconne from the D Minor Partita, and before that, a Baroque song called Nitida Stella. Played here in the studio by Alexi Kenney. Well, we look forward to everything up ahead, Alexi. Thank you so much for today's amazing performance and beautiful program.
Alexi Kenney: Thank you for having me.
Hanako Yamaguchi: This week's edition of the McGraw Family's Young Artist Showcase, as always generously underwritten by the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Family Foundation. Here's Terry McGraw with more.
Terry McGraw: Good evening everyone. It's great to be with you and it's always great being with the Young Artists Showcase and to hear these really wonderful and inspiring musicians as they continue to share their incredible gifts with us every week. I can't wait to hear the fabulous talent coming up on the showcase, and I am so pleased to be able to support the series all through its well over four decades on WQXR. And there's so much more to come.
Hanako Yamaguchi: Thank you, Terry. And also thank you to Alexi Kenney for presenting us with this beautiful and thoughtful program. Join me again next week as we invite fellow Artist Propulsion Lab member, Vladimir Fung, to the studio. He will bring us a solo cello program featuring folk music of Bulgaria, China, and the United States.
Our production team includes Eileen Delahunty Max Fine, Jade Jiang, and Laura Boyman. Our session engineer tonight is Irene Trudell. I'm Hanako Yamaguchi, and thanks for listening.
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