It’s not often that an audience will come out to see the instrument as much as the player, but on Saturday, November 15, the celebrated violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn will be in a popularity context of sorts with the very instrument she holds: the legendary 1720 “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius, the Christie’s auction of which in 1990 is said to have inspired the 1999 Academy Award–winning film The Red Violin.
The program includes a world-premiere performance of composer Sara Carina Graef’s new work, Blue Vishuddha (2014), as well as Franz Schubert’s Rondo for Violin and Piano (“Rondeau Brillant”); Gabriel Fauré’s Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano; Franz Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 for Violin and Piano. The recital will take place in the acoustically superb Sosnoff Theater at Bard’s Fisher Center.
Born in 1973 in Pennsylvania, Pitcairn made her New York debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2000 with the New York String Orchestra, and appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music. She made her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut with the California Philharmonic and performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She returned to China to perform the Bruch Violin Concerto with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra.
This season she gives recitals in New York and Pennsylvania with pianist Barbara Podgurski, in Hungary with Aniko Szokody and in Mexico with Louise Thomas, and makes her Fisher Center recital debut with Cynthia Elise Tobey. She performs in Bulgaria with the Classic FM Orchestra, and will record the Bruch and Beethoven Violin Concerti conducted by Maxim Eshkenazy.
Tickets cost $25 to $40 can be ordered online at https://fishercenter.bard.edu or by calling the box office at (845) 758-7900.