Violin Alone - A solo violin recital honoring the memory of Robert Rachlin
Violin Alone
A solo violin recital honoring the memory of Robert Rachlin
Kevin Lawrence, violin; GMCMF Founding Artistic Director Emeritus
Paul Hindemith Sonata Op. 31, no. 2
Eugène Ysaÿe Sonata Op. 27, no. 3 (“Ballade”)
Wynton Marsalis As the Wind Goes (2018)
Johann Sebastian Bach Partita no. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
~~~~
Shortly after violinist Kevin Lawrence founded Green Mountain Chamber Musical Festival in 2004, he met distinguished Burlington lawyer and music lover Robert Rachlin, who became not only a Festival supporter but also a dear friend. For years, the two played violin and piano recitals together on the Cathedral Arts Series. Now Lawrence will honor Robert Rachlin’s memory by playing a recital for violin alone—a solo program of cheerful good humor, blazing virtuosity, and the sublime transcendence of the Partita in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, with its magnificent Chaconne. Of this Bach masterwork Johannes Brahms wrote: “On one staff, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world.”
All proceeds from this performance will go to the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival for its newly established Robert Rachlin Scholarship.
~~~~
Praised for his "vibrant intensity," (The Times, London) and playing "supremely convincing in its vitality," (Cleveland Plain Dealer) violinist Kevin Lawrence has consistently elicited superlative responses for his performances throughout the United States and Europe—at Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in Houston, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Rome, Prague, Bucharest, Sofia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam, where the Dutch press described him as "simply miraculous" (Het Vaderland).
A lifelong advocate of American music, Lawrence has premiered sonatas by contemporary American compositional voices Laura Kaminsky, Judith Shatin and Lawrence Dillon, and chamber works by Michael Rothkopf and Evan Chambers. His release of the complete violin works of the American composer Arthur Foote on the New World label was "highly recommended" as "beautifully played" by the Washington Post, featured on NPR’s Performance Today, and broadcast by PBS on the Ken Burns series “Not for Ourselves Alone.” His second recording of American violin sonatas on New World was hailed as “vital playing” and “a labor of love” by ClassicsToday.com. With renowned flutist Carol Wincenc he recorded American flute quintets for the Bridge label; this recording was named as Critics Choice by American Record Guide, which praised its “consummate virtuosity.”
Lawrence received his musical education at The Juilliard School as a student of Ivan Galamian and Margaret Pardee. While at Juilliard he also studied chamber music with Felix Galimir and continued his chamber music study with Josef Gingold at the Meadowmount School in Westport, New York. In 1980, Galamian appointed Lawrence to the Meadowmount faculty, where he taught for 14 summers. After serving as artistic director of the Killington Music Festival, he founded Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in 2004; since retiring as festival director at the conclusion of the 2021 season, he serves as artistic director emeritus.
Lawrence is string chair at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1990. He has given master classes throughout the United States, and in Canada, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Israel, Costa Rica, Venezuela, China, Thailand and Korea. He spent this past spring in Romania as a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award.