It's not every day that you encounter a musician who, at a young age, found a passion for both classical and heavy metal music. Rachel Barton's story is a testament to the power of music to transcend boundaries and genres. Conductor Devin Patrick Hughes sits down with one of the great violinists of our time, Rachel Barton Pine.
A Musical Prodigy Meets Heavy Metal
Rachel started her journey with the violin at three and a half years old, debuting with the Chicago Symphony at age 10. Around this time, she discovered heavy metal music, which marked her first encounter with the music of Shostakovich. Rachel reflects on her early years, "I enjoyed a variety of music beyond classical. My parents played blues at home, and I was really drawn to heavy metal, especially thrash."
A Turning Point: Performing at a Chicago Bulls Game
A pivotal moment came when Rachel played the national anthem at a Chicago Bulls playoff game. Her unique rendition caught the public's attention, leading to a realization. "People started approaching me, amazed by the violin's versatility. It was then I realized my mission: to bring listeners to classical music using rock genres."
Cross-Genre Exploration: From Heavy Metal to Classical
Rachel's journey took an interesting turn as she started exploring heavy metal and other genres on her violin. "I didn't consider myself a crossover artist," she clarifies, "I'm all about performing classical music, but I use my interests in rock to bring new listeners to classical."
Intersecting with Bands and Musicians
Rachel discovered that many of her favorite bands listened to classical music. "It was enlightening to tell someone, 'Hey, your favorite band likes these composers.' It's a powerful message." This intersection led her to create arrangements of rock songs for chamber and orchestral performances, a unique approach to bridging musical worlds.
Educational Outreach: A Lifelong Passion
A crucial part of Rachel's journey has been her commitment to educational outreach. "I've always believed in going into schools and teaching children about music," she says. Rachel's efforts go beyond young audiences, as she strives to introduce classical music to adults who might not usually engage with the genre.
Shostakovich and Heavy Metal: An Unexpected Connection
Discussing her unique connection with Shostakovich, Rachel shares, "Heavy metal fans adore Shostakovich for his intensity and darkness. I love pairing his works with contemporary pieces to show the depth and range of classical music."
Working with Contemporary Composers
Rachel's work with living composers has given her a deeper understanding of interpretation. "Working with contemporary composers helps me interpret the works of classical composers more effectively. It's a fascinating process to bring their intentions to life."
The Vibrancy of Chicago's Music Scene
Reflecting on her roots, Rachel speaks passionately about Chicago's diverse music scene. "Chicago has everything - from blues to industrial, house to classical. The city's music scene is incredibly supportive and vibrant, making it an ideal place for musicians."
A Musician Without Boundaries
Rachel Barton's career defies conventional boundaries, proving that music can be a powerful tool for connection and understanding. Her journey from a classical violin prodigy to an artist who bridges genres is a remarkable story of passion, innovation, and dedication to music's universal appeal.
highlights from the interview.
Rachel, it's great to have you on One Symphony today. Can you share your history with cross-genres?
I started playing the violin at three and a half, debuted with the Chicago Symphony at 10, and around that time, I discovered heavy metal. My journey into combining genres began at a Chicago Bulls game where I played the national anthem. People were amazed by the violin's versatility, which inspired me to bring classical music to new audiences through rock genres.
How did this realization affect your approach to music?
I realized most people's exposure to classical was limited. So, I began reaching out through rock radio stations, playing rock music on my violin, then transitioning to classical pieces. I discovered that many of my favorite bands listened to classical music, which helped me bridge these genres.
What about your work with contemporary composers?
Working with contemporary composers deepens my understanding of music interpretation. It helps me interpret classical works more effectively and brings a fresh perspective to music creation.
How do you view classical music's relevance today?
Classical music is intense, exciting, and universal. It transcends boundaries and is meaningful to people of all races and ethnicities. It's a way to understand each other even if we don't speak the same language.
Tell us about your collaboration with Malik Jandali and working with Marin Alsop.
I participated in recording a violin concerto by Malik Jandali, blending Middle Eastern and Western styles. Working with Marin Alsop was enlightening. The concerto has Middle Eastern elements, like the oud, but it remains a Western orchestra piece.
How has your approach to playing changed over the years?
I've learned to balance the composer's intentions and my interpretation. Working with living composers has made me a more effective interpreter of classical music.
Can you talk about your latest project, "Dependent Arising," and pairing it with Shostakovich's work?
This album includes a piece by Earl Maneein, inspired by Buddhism and the acceptance of death. We paired it with Shostakovich's work because of his popularity among metal fans and the emotional depth in his music.
What are your thoughts on workshopping in classical music?
Workshopping is essential, even for experienced musicians. It's a process of growing with a piece, trying new things, and evolving one's approach.
What is your favorite Chicago staple, aside from the symphony?
For me, it's Chicago blues. My parents loved blues, and it has a special place in my heart. Chicago’s music scene is incredibly diverse and supportive, making it a fantastic place for musicians.
Full Interview
Devin Patrick Hughes: Rachel, it's so awesome to have you on One Symphony today. I'd love to start by asking you about your history with cross-genres. You began playing the violin at three and a half years old. Your Chicago Symphony debut was at the age of 10 with the Saint Saëns Intro and Rondo Capricioso. Around that time, you also discovered heavy metal, marking your first encounter with the music of Shostakovich, which we'll delve into later on the show. You've led a life of merging genres, something that wasn't quite as acceptable 20 years ago. I believe it's long overdue that orchestras are now embracing such diversity.
Could you talk about that personal journey and how it has affected the industry and you?
Rachel Barton Pine: I didn't consider combining genres for many years. I enjoyed a variety of music beyond classical. I got my first transistor radio for Christmas and started scrolling up and down the dial. My parents played blues in the home as I was growing up. That was really the only other kind of music, besides classical, that I was ever exposed to, except maybe pop music in the air.
When I started discovering my own tastes beyond blues and classical, I was really drawn to heavy metal, especially more extreme genres like thrash. However, it never occurred to me to play anything but classical on my own instrument. The thought never crossed my mind. There wasn't as much visibility. I knew there was such a thing as country fiddling, but I had no idea that there were all these sub-genres of traditional fiddling styles. I knew nothing. And so what happened?
It was really all inspired by a Chicago Bulls playoff game. During the Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen era, I was invited to play the national anthem for one of the playoff games, which was a huge opportunity to get great tickets to the game and get to meet the guys. How amazing is that? I didn't think about the fact that millions of people would be watching me on TV.
Of course, I had created some kind of Paganini-ish version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” because if you just play it straight up on the violin, it sounds like Suzuki Book One. So, I added double stops, runs, harmonics, and left-hand pizzicatos—all this fun stuff while not obscuring the melody, but just showing off all the cool things a violin can do. And literally, people started coming up to me, strangers approaching me on the street, saying, "Hey! I saw you on the Bulls. I never realized the violin was so awesome." And I was like, "Yay!" because I've been very committed to community engagement since I was a young teenager, starting to tour on my own and doing different outreach back then with the orchestras I would solo with.
I always thought if you can go into schools and teach children about music, you can get them hooked. But once someone's a grownup and if they're not into classical, there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do. Then I realized, wait a sec, most people's exposure to classical is the Pachelbel Canon in a dentist's waiting room or something. They have no idea that there are Mahler symphonies and Brahms violin concertos and all this cool stuff. So I thought, how can I reach potential classical listeners among my peers? I started going on rock radio stations and, as a rock fan, talked about some of my favorite bands and played some of their stuff on my violin.
Then, I would transition from that into some Paganini or some Ysaÿe sonatas, encouraging people to come out to the orchestra concert and give it a try. There's nothing more rewarding than that first-time listener who says, "Hey, I've never been to the symphony before, but I loved it."
So that was really my mission. Even though I don't consider myself to be some kind of crossover artist (not to disparage those who are—there are some brilliant ones out there as well as some cheesy ones), it runs the gamut like anything else. I'm all about performing classical music, whatever else I might be listening to, but bringing listeners to classical and using rock genres as a way to do that.
What I discovered while hanging out with some of my favorite bands is that they also listen to a lot of classical music. So being able to tell someone, "Hey, your favorite band likes these composers, so why don't you check them out?" is just such a great message. I try to do that as much as I can.
Eventually, it evolved into some chamber and even orchestra solo stuff where I made arrangements of rock songs. What's a better way to say "bait and switch"? "Hey, come here for these quartet arrangements of Led Zeppelin, ACDC, and Metallica," and then accidentally encounter Shostakovich and realize that it's every bit as amazing, and hopefully, they come to the symphony.
So that's really what I've been involved in. Of course, I've also now gotten into all kinds of different fiddle styles, also because of the Bulls. Mark O'Connor is a big basketball fan and saw me play that same national anthem. Then he heard about some of the rock stuff I was doing on the radio and felt like I was a kindred spirit. He invited me to start teaching at his fiddle camps. Obviously, I wasn't teaching fiddle, but it doesn't matter if you're playing bluegrass or Celtic—you still need a good bow hold. So he always had a classical teacher on the faculty. I would do that plus some heavy metal and maybe some Baroque ornamentation; how to jam on Bach. I ended up learning how to do some of that stuff myself along the way.
Actually, it's really interesting to see how through that experience, not only are many genres inspired by classical, like thrash metal, but also a lot of classical is inspired or incorporates elements from other genres—all the traditional and folk music that's been incorporated into classical throughout the centuries, whether it's Dvorak and Czech music or Bartok and Hungarian music. Now, starting to really combine my two loves again—not crossover, as far as I'm concerned, this is straight up classical, but classical inspired by metal, as yet another thing that can be incorporated into classical. What's really cool is that classical inspired by metal means it's classical inspired by something that was inspired by classical in the first place.
So there is a group that I was listening to in one of your interviews. You talked about a group called “I Headbanged To Shostakovich.” I was doing a little research and trying to find it, and that page no longer exists, but…
Not a band. We're talking about a Facebook group called “I Headbanged To Shostakovich,” and it was around for lots of years.
It took me down a rabbit hole of people listing all the things that you could headbang to. When I think about it, headbanging is just an expression of something that deeply penetrates our soul, right? You hear music, you have to move to it.
One of the things that came up is Rite of Spring. Someone said, "I can't believe Rite of Spring hasn't ever been mentioned." Then someone else mentioned, "it's hard to headbang to mixed meter." I thought about that, the mixed meter as a composer's way. For example, from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring to the piece I'm doing now, Anna Klein’s Masquerade. It's an idea of a 500-year-old ball. But now, when people are dancing, they don't necessarily like to be thrown off the meter. So I think it's really interesting.
There's all, like Meshuggah and stuff like that. There are plenty of bands that use mixed meter all over the place.
Yeah, for dancing and maybe even for headbanging as well. But I'm curious, going back to "I Headbanged to Shostakovich," when we think about classical music, a lot of mainstream culture or people who are more hesitant to have classical music in their lives think of it as being beautiful, and serene, and something that takes you out of modern-day reality and has to soothe the savage beast in a way.
It's really ironic. I spent all these years saying classical is just as exciting, epic, and intense as your favorite rock music. Then what did I do? My baby was born, and I made an album entirely of lullabies designed to put you to sleep. So now I don't say classical is not just pretty music that puts you to sleep because that was my first number one on the Billboard album, and it's for putting you to sleep. Now, I just say classical does everything.
When Rite of Spring premiered, there were riots, fistfights, the police had to be called, people had to be taken to the hospital. Just transitioning to your new album that's got an incredible world premiere, but also a piece of Shostakovich's. Anyone who knows anything about Shostakovich, and maybe you can talk about this, Shostakovich was writing in the Stalin regime, right? In Russia, in the 30s and the 40s, where other artists were not only being told what to write but were sometimes being arrested and executed for free expression. Shostakovich's music bears this heavy, almost oppressive, almost impossible to keep going…
He was able to create and poke fun at Stalin. He expressed himself and the desires of his people. Can you talk a little bit about music as something that is needed for survival, as opposed to just being icing on the cake, not just entertainment?
Absolutely. These days in classical music, there are various compositions that deal with social justice issues, whether it's environmentalism, Black Lives Matter, etc. People say, "Oh, this is a modern development or something," but not at all. You could go back to Haydn advocating for workers' rights and the farewell symphony about employment conditions. Shostakovich was not Jewish himself, but many of his works show solidarity with the plight of Jewish people in fascist regimes, whether it's the eighth string quartet or the Babi Yar symphony. Even this violin concerto dares to have a reference to Klezmer music as a way of drawing attention to what's going on.
Music is used to shine a light on injustice and to make us feel things that go beyond words. Music can be so powerful in that way, even without lyrics. That's one of the reasons why music is so important to humanity, and also, on a purely emotional level, to express what's going on in our lives through the medium of music. Shostakovich, and so many citizens of that time and place, with capricious persecution that could strike at any moment, expressed fear, anger, doubt, restlessness—all these things that he's living through. Now, of course, what does it mean as a performer and as a modern listener? There is no more USSR, but there are still messed up places in the world and personal stresses that each of us has at various times in our own lives. We can never put ourselves truly in the shoes of someone from the past who experienced a very specific moment in history, but we can still feel these feelings and often absolutely relate to them. So I think it still serves an ongoing purpose in our lives to have this music exist, to have it played, and have it heard.
We think we know so much about history, but obviously, it's one person's account. It's been changed, etc. When you listen to the music, for example, Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, what was it like to live after the French Revolution in a society that was being overrun by one person who wanted to become the emperor of the world? Then Shostakovich, we may not know what it feels like to keep a bag under your bed because you could be arrested at any moment, but with Shostakovich's music, we can feel that. We can feel the feelings that happen, and it's not just reading about it. It's, you talk about this a lot in terms of music connecting all of us across not only different genres but different times and different cultures, etc.
Absolutely. It's a little cliché to say classical is a universal language, but still, this art form that originated from white male Europeans is now created by, performed by, and has meaning to people of all races and ethnicities from all over the planet. It is something that can bring us together, help us understand one another, even if we don't speak the same language.
One of the really cool recent recordings you've had is by the Syrian composer, Malik Jandali. He talks about borders not existing for him. I would love for you to talk a little bit about that recording project and that experience. Also, you were working with Marin Alsop as the conductor and recording in Vienna.
Thank you for mentioning that particular album. I'm super excited about this concerto; I actually have yet to perform it. Every chance to get word of it out there, including this podcast, can only help in that regard. Once it hits the concert stage, I think it's going to really take off and hopefully with other soloists as well.
Alexander Lee is of Syrian descent; he's from Syria, lives now in the U.S., where he has some wonderful music education projects with his charity and is a piano performer. But he's composed a lot of chamber music and orchestral music. I was very lucky to participate in this album for the CD label, with his clarinet concerto played by Anthony McGill, obviously one of the great clarinet players of today, and then his violin concerto.
Marin Alsop has been a big advocate of his music for a number of years. She and I have worked together a couple of times, most recently at Ravinia two summers ago when I got called in on three and a half hours' notice to play the Prokofiev First Violin Concerto. That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Can you be on stage performing in three and a half hours because you're right down the street? Not exactly. In Friday night traffic, it was more than an hour just to get to Ravinia from downtown Chicago. Yeah, I studied the score while my husband drove the car, and it was quite an adventure. So it was nice to reunite with her when we actually had some breathing room to rehearse and prepare.
But this concerto is, just like I was saying, about anything can become classical music. So here is this Middle Eastern Arabic-sounding violin style and musical style in the context of a Western instrument and orchestra. Though in my violin concerto, he does one cool thing. He includes an oud, which is the plucked lute. It's typical to a lot of Arabic music. I'm sure you might not have ever heard the word oud, but if you hear the instrument, you'll instantly recognize its timbre. I'm sure you've heard it numerous times, whether it's been on soundtracks in hummus restaurants, all kinds of places where you've encountered the oud in the air. Having it pop in from time to time in the score of the orchestration actually adds a very special characteristic flavor.
But the violin part itself has a lot of augmented seconds and slidey things. It doesn't go so far as to demand that we string players play any of the quarter tones or alternate tunings that are so typical of the use of the violin in most Arabic kinds of music. Thank goodness. That would have been a real challenge, something I would love to learn more about, but I'm not yet very experienced with it.
Despite not going that far, he really conjures up this sound world that very much feels authentically Syrian while being completely a Western orchestra. It's wonderful, and again, I wouldn't call it crossover; crossover would be if you had a band of traditional Arabic instruments playing their tunes accompanied by an orchestra or some kind of mishmash like that, which could be absolutely great but isn't what this is.
This is classical music that happens to be inspired by Syrian music, just like classical music has been inspired by all kinds of other ethnicities . I feel like there hasn't yet been enough Arabic-inspired music. I was fortunate to work with the Egyptian and Lebanese descended young composer Mohamed Fayrouz about a decade earlier; he wrote a fantastic unaccompanied suite for me that I have recorded. Also, a violin concerto that I've performed and not recorded, as opposed to this one that I've recorded and not performed. And that also approached the puzzle of taking Arabic music and wedding it to the symphony in its own slightly different way, but also very effective and wonderful. I just love being part of these kinds of projects. And I absolutely adore this new violin concerto by Malek Jandali.
We've done a piece by Farooz, Pax Universalis, a fun little overture, a really exciting piece. One of the things I love about your career is you're not just a traveling violin virtuoso solo artist; you're bringing it to the people in terms of your reaching out educationally, historically. You're making connections like what this music, why did Brahms compose the Brahms violin concerto? What is your favorite concerto? You're able to bring the people to you in terms of bridging that divide that can exist between performer and audience. You have a podcast; you have a video series that you've put on about a bunch of different great violin concertos that people should check out on YouTube. But one of my favorite episodes has a strong connection to you and your career is when you talk about Brahms, the Brahms violin concerto. You said if you had an hour left to live, you would play the Brahms violin concerto. At the same time, I know when you talk about symphonies, it's really hard to choose a favorite piece. There are so many great pieces. I always answer my favorite piece is whatever I'm conducting at the moment.
Exactly. But with what would you conduct if you had an hour left to live?
It's the piece that nobody ever lets me conduct. It would probably be like Bruckner four or Bruckner seven or Bruckner eight, but nobody, the string players never want to do tremolo for that long. So we never play that.
Oh my gosh. So one time at Ravinia, I was doing the Bruch Violin Concerto Number One, and the other half was the Bruckner. I forget which one. And the newspaper printed it wrong. And they said I was going to do a Bruckner violin concerto. I was like, Bruckner, who had that idea, right?
Maybe a Bruch symphony because Bruch has a great symphony.
So we said it was a newly discovered violin concerto entirely of tremolo.
You play a lot of notes, at least a lot more than any other concerto. So getting back to Brahms, Brahms has a very, and since you've commissioned music with composers, we were just speaking about John Dilley, Brahms has this famous collaboration with Yosef Joachim, which also has a connection to your violin. Can you talk a little bit about that collaboration and Marie Soldat?
Absolutely. So, I was about to record the Brahms violin concerto and the concerto that inspired it by Joachim. People think Brahms was inspired by Beethoven, but the truth is Joachim was inspired by Beethoven and then Brahms was inspired by Joachim. It was the first-ever pairing of those two concertos on the album. And I did that in 2002 with the Chicago Symphony.
I was borrowing a different del Gesù from a Swiss patron at the time, and somebody I knew who had previously lent me a Strad was like, “Hey, I've got, I know this guy who has a violin that has a connection to Brahms. Would you be interested in using it for the recording?” And I was like, “Oh, that sounds pretty intriguing.” So I met this 1742 del Gesù that Brahms had personally chosen for his protege, Marie Soldat. And so it was a cool historical connection, but more importantly, the voice of that instrument was just like everything I'd ever been looking for.
I just completely fell in love with it and didn't want to give it back. And luckily, the owner has let me use it ever since. But it's amazing to think that this is a violin whose voice Brahms himself selected. It's great in any rep, but I always loved particularly playing Brahms on it, needless to say.
And so the Albert Spalding arrangement, the great American violinist at the turn of the early 20th century, his arrangement of the Brahms lullaby is the first track on my lullabies album. And I always love to play that piece. And besides the sonatas and the chamber music and the concerto, but playing the Brahms lullaby on this violin by Brahms when the violin just sings it's so special and still puts my daughter to sleep every night.
One of the things you get into a lot is different styles of different concertos and playing, trying to recreate the voice of the composer and maybe virtuosity versus profundity. And, speaking of Brahms, he's a composer that was, in a big debate in terms of the progressive camp versus the conservative camp and the idea of program music versus absolute music. How do you use your historical knowledge or your knowledge passed on from teacher to teacher to interpret different pieces, whether it be Prokofiev, whether it be Brahms or Beethoven or even maybe a newer violin concerto?
So first of all, from Brahms's era, in terms of violin playing, you had concertos by performers, right? By violinists writing for themselves and then concertos by composers who were primarily keyboard players. Maybe they'd played a little bit of a string instrument, but they weren't writing for themselves to get up there and play the solo part. It's great to have both because you have things that are sometimes awkward, non-ergonomic that a violinist would have never written, but actually have a musical effect that's very important. And so it's good to get those outside perspectives.
But then, of course, the violinists come up with things that are absolutely idiomatic that the pianist would probably not think of. So it's good to have all of that in our rep, and you take a guy like Wieniawski, right? He wrote triple stops in the Brahms violin concerto. There are passages of triple stops.
Now the Brahms Violin Concerto, the triple stops are about weight and harmonies, and they're supposed to be played with a seriousness of purpose and a musical line. In Wieniawski, the main point is, Hey, look, "I can play some very impressive triple stops. And that's not to say that it's empty, flashy trash. It's just about, What's the word kids use these days? Swag, right? It's about flair and that's a type of expression as well. And so people who play Brahms too showoffy are doing him a disservice.
And people who play Wieniawski too seriously are doing him a disservice. You're supposed to, he's got gorgeous soaring melodies as well, but then when you get to one of these crazy passages you're supposed to do it with ha, check this out, fun swagger. And so even if that's, and it's interesting to work with kids, cause sometimes, they'll feel like if I do that, I'm portraying an egotistical attitude on stage that doesn't fit with my personality or who I want to be. And I always argue wait a sec, you might be in a bad mood, but you've still got to play the cheerful, bubbly last movement of the Mendelssohn. Or you might be perfectly joyful, and yet you've got to play the tragic opening of the Chasson poem.
We're always being actors. So even if you're a humble person, you need to be an actor and portray Wieniawski's whatever a little bit of arrogance there, right? It doesn't mean that's who you are. It just means that's the character that you're inhabiting.
But there is some kind of a marriage, in a way, between your personality and the composer's personality, and where do you draw that line? And sometimes, in the past, artists have just always sounded like themselves, but their Mozart was not really any different than their Bach. And they didn't really even think about its historical, Style or any of that. And now sometimes we try so hard to go in the opposite direction that we prefer, forget to put ourselves into it, so trying to find that balance.
And then there's a third component that sometimes gets entirely missed, which is the dedicatee and what was their personality like Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. If you think about Bruch and his German compositions and his grumpy personality, you would think, okay, the Scottish fantasy should be played, Brahmsian. But then you think about the fact that it was written for Pablo de Sarasate, one of those elegant, flashy soloists. And Sarasate himself toured in Scotland, which Bruch didn't do. At least not until after he had already written the Scottish Fantasy, but he wrote it for Sarasate knowing that Sarasate had hung out with guys who were playing Strathspeys in pubs and that Sarasate would know the Celtic inflection of these tunes. I actually think it's more correct to, and more effective, which is more important than being correct is it effective, to play the Bruch Scottish Fantasy with a Celtic flair because that's what Sarasate would have done because you can't be in Scottish pubs and then play your Scottish tunes German after that.
Fast-forwarding to present times, the more living composers I work with, the more I get a sense of how much leeway is there between their intentions on the page in the print and what leeway they are comfortable giving the interpreter. They put a certain tempo down on the page. Are they wedded to that? Or is there some flexibility? What about strict pulse versus taking rubatos—just so many little details of bringing it to life.
Sometimes the composers don't think of all the interpretative options that might exist. And, the best pieces I believe can be interpreted in a variety of different ways and be effective depending on who the performer is within certain boundaries, of course. So, while every composer is unique, having worked with now of a large quantity of them, I can now feel like I have a better idea in mind when I'm going. And doing the Schumann concerto or something and thinking, “okay, if I was talking to him, what might be his answer to a question I would ask him?” Can't know for sure, but you can certainly have a much better idea of the freedom of both the responsibility to obeying the composer, but also the freedom that might exist within that.
I feel like I've become a more effective and more brave interpreter of dead composers. The more living composers I have the chance to work with.
I'm curious about your project of tying a classical masterwork piece to a new piece on your, in particular on this new album, Dependent Arising you've got this collaboration with Earl Maneein, who is a heavy metal guy, but he's also a trained violinist.
It’s happenstance how it came about, and it brings in Buddhism, it brings in the Heart Sutra, and this idea of acceptance of death. And I would just love to hear about how that collaboration came about and why you decided to pair it with the Shostakovich A minor Violin Concerto.
Things don't start as vinyl anymore these days, right? So you don't have your A side and your B side. We still talk about B sides, and sometimes people don't realize, like my Mendelssohn Schumann record, I really wanted to record the Schumann with this particular conductor, Christoph Muller. And then it was a question of what do I pair it with? And the Mendelssohn was the B side. People just assume it's the other way around.
In this case, while the Shostakovich was definitely on my wish list of things that I plan to or hope to record in my lifetime, the impetus for the project was Earl's concerto, and then it was a question of what do I put it with. And there was really only one possible answer because there's no composer more beloved by metal fans than Shostakovich and more dark and powerful in that same kind of way.
There are really only about a handful of electric heavy metal violinists in the U.S., and Earl and I are two of them. So we knew each other, not from the fact that he graduated from top conservatories. We knew each other from the metal scene, and I was a fan of his Guitarless Band Resolutions 15, which is like metal core death metal kind of vibe. And I knew that he was the songwriter for his band. And I wanted something of his to be able to play in a classical concert. I was working with my band at the time Earthen Grave. That's Earthen Grave. Not earth in grave or earth in grave, but earthen grave, which was a mixture of doom metal and thrash metal.
We knew of each other, and I was like, "Hey, can you write something for me for unaccompanied violin?” Because unaccompanied violin rep is so flexible. You can bring it to a radio station; you can bring it to a school visit; you can bring it to a private soiree. You can play it for an encore after a concerto. You can throw it on to a violin-piano recital as an unaccompanied piece in the mix. It's just so many more opportunities to play an unaccompanied piece. So I asked him to write one for me, and it was absolutely brilliant classical music, but inspired by all these sorts of languages of metal.
And Tito Munoz, the music director of the Phoenix Symphony, an old school friend of Earl's, was in the audience when I played it in a recital in New York, straight up, normal classical recital in New York. And I did normal stuff and happened to throw Earl's piece into the mix as the contemporary number for the night. And Tito heard it and was like, "Whoa, that was such an awesome piece and different than most other composers in a great way." And so he was like, "Hey, Earl, can you write something for the Phoenix symphony?" And so that's how that came about.
As soon as that existed, what was particularly gratifying was that we—Tito, I think I just have to really hand it to him—didn't put it on some kind of new music concert or some kind of rock concert; he just put it on a masterworks concert as a contemporary concerto, and the audience for the weekend that we premiered it with Phoenix a few years back were all different ages, from seniors to young adults, and I would guarantee that most, if not all the people in the audience had never heard death metal, let alone, perhaps heard of death metal; they didn't know the roots of what they were listening to. Just like a lot of people who hear a Bartók piece haven't ever heard actual Hungarian folk music, right? You don't have to know the roots to appreciate its classical derivation. So they just heard this as a newly written violin concerto, and people went crazy for it. People loved it. I'm sure if you played actual death metal for a lot of these seniors, they would not appreciate it whatsoever, but they loved what Earl had done with this symphonic work, and it was very successful.
And we all loved it, but we aren't objective. And so then Tito and Earl and I were like, "Whoa, I think this has potential here, this was really well received, and we got to do something more with it." I ended up soloing with an orchestra in France, and then I just became really convinced that it had to be recorded and shared more widely. So we put the album project together, and I couldn't be more thrilled with how it came out.
And one of the things I love about it is that it really employs the acoustic instruments. And this is what you've been doing going back a few decades; you have become this heavy metal rocker, but with just a simple violin, right? An acoustic instrument. And that's the great thing about this concerto is that it's not bringing in a, not that I don't love drum sets, but it doesn't have a drum set. It doesn't have any kind of electronic; it's just the acoustic sound of the orchestra transmogrified into this concerto.
Exactly. So when it comes to the violin, when I'm playing with my metal band, I'm playing a Flying V six-string. Earl plays a seven-string with his metal band. And neither of us considers that we're playing classical music when we're doing that, right? We're playing metal and we happen to be doing it on a violin, but it is metal as opposed to this, which happens to be classical inspired by metal and on acoustic. And so actually when I first started doing this stuff on radio, it was not on an electric violin.
You're absolutely right. It was on a four-string acoustic violin. And in my case, an Amati, and then a Strad, and then the first Guarneri, and then the next Guarneri. I actually, in the late nineties, was one of the first people to ever figure out how to do things like pick slides and distortion on an unplugged acoustic bowstring instrument. I was coming out with some of my stuff at the same point in time that Apocalyptica, the plugged-in cellists, were doing some of their things.
So it was really early years, very experimental, and it's been fun to teach people all through the years at pedagogical conferences and things like that, how to make rock sound effects on an unplugged acoustic instrument. And it's so much fun. So we had the big decision for this. I knew I was going to play on my Guarneri and not on an electric violin because that's a different instrument. And in fact, there are concertos for electric violin. Tracy Silverman has a career as a classical electric violinist with concertos written for him by John Adams and Nico Muhly.
The big question is: “do we use a drum kit?” And that unfortunately just creates this domino effect of problems because the drum kit is too loud for an orchestra, even if it's not amplified. So then you've got to put it behind plexiglass, but then they can't hear everybody. So then you've got to put a monitor, which means you've got to put microphones around. And then a lot of great drummers aren't used to following a baton. It's just a can of worms.
So we were like, “let's see if we can do this without that whole thing.” So then it was like, “okay, should we just use the instruments of the symphonic timpani and percussion to replace the kit, like cymbals and a bass drum instead of the rock cymbals and bass drum?” And that didn't work at all. Earl can tell you more about that, but we were very blessed that Arizona State was willing to do some workshopping with us. And we got to experiment with different options and see what didn't work. And ultimately, Earl came up with just amazing genius solutions to how to get things like a blast beat with just strings and trombones and all these, and how to create those things. It's amazing to say after all these years of classical music he was breaking new ground, doing things with an orchestra that had never been done before. It was so exciting to witness that happening.
I hope everybody listens to this album. Not only Dependent Arising but of course, the Shostakovich. How you play the emotion and the kind of fear and elevation that you bring to it is incredible.
As a solo violinist, and as a recording violinist, people always see the final product. They see somebody playing the brook violin concerto or with a new piece, you turn it on your Spotify and you hear it. But you talked about this idea of workshopping, and I know you've played many concertos probably hundreds of times with different orchestras. Can you talk about that workshopping process that even classical musicians at the highest level have to go through or any kind of stories you have around any experiences?
No matter how prestigious you become, to have someone in your life whose opinion you trust, who can tell you like it is, whether it's a respected colleague, going back to your former teachers while they're still alive.
For me, I am very blessed that I still do have my teachers in my life and often when I'm prepping a program, whether it's something I haven't played in a while I'm going back to or something that I'm having new thoughts about, something I've never performed, I'll either go and maybe play it in a music school or play it for my teacher's studio class with their current crop of students. And I always laugh because I always say that whatever the students get to hear me do in the studio class is always my least good playing because if something is already sounding great and is prepared, I have no reason to go and play it in studio class. They're going to have to come to my real concerts to hear me sounding my best.
But this very Friday, I'm actually going to my former teacher's studio class to play the Florence Price Concerto which I played quite a bit last season, but I haven't yet played this season and didn't play last summer, and I just want to see how it's feeling and where it's at because it is fairly new, not only in my own life but in the life of the world; it was only recently rediscovered and only a handful of violinists have yet taken it up. It's only been recorded one other time, though I know a couple more are about to come out. It expedites the process of it growing with you to get in front of an audience. And it's not really fair to a ticket-buying public to experiment in front of them to a certain degree.
So I can do that in front of the students and try some things out with timing and colors and just work with this concerto a little, record myself, listen back, see how it came out, see what I like, don't like. So that hopefully my approach to the piece is continuing to evolve even past the commercial recording that I already made of it.
And last question, you are born in Chicago and lived there your whole life. Obviously when you're not touring, I grew up in Springfield, Illinois, my whole family's from Chicago, and I spent my life, divided loyalties between the Cubs and the Cardinals, etc. I would just love to hear: what is your favorite, aside from the Chicago symphony, what is your favorite Chicago staple?
Gosh. There's deep-dish pizza, which my New York friends always fight me whether it even ought to be called pizza.
It's pretty darn good pizza. I'll say that.
No, for me, it's Chicago blues because my parents, before I came along and ruined their fun, their date night was always going to a blues bar and seeing great blues bands and listening to blues records. And whether it's the outdoor blues at blues fest and neighborhood fests or going to blues bars, and the blues, of course, is at the root of so many different kinds of music that came later, but the Chicago blues has a very special place in my heart. And I feel like that's my wonderful local music, even though I certainly love a lot of other local music, whether it's being a teenager, back when I used to go to underground clubs and dance to industrial music and house music back when those were new flavors on the scene.
There's just so much going on in Chicago, you name a genre we have a scene for it. Things people wouldn't even imagine. We have a country music scene. That's not my cup of tea most of the time, but we have one and I couldn't be prouder of the fact that we've got everything going on.
I love the fact that Chicago has so much sophistication and depth. Whether you're talking about our early music scene between the medieval and Renaissance stuff at the Newberry Consort and the Haymarket Opera, which is unique in the country presenting period opera with period staging. We've got an incredibly vibrant new music scene. And of course, the symphonies and opera not just one, but multiple opera companies, great orchestras all around the region, youth orchestras, not just the one, but we've got multiple fantastic multi-level youth orchestras great music schools.
We've got so much. What I think sets Chicago apart is the friendliness and supportiveness. All of the new music collectives and series and groups get together and have, mutually supportive activities and collaborations and all the early music people are friends with each other. There's just this, sophistication of a major city on the East coast, but married with the friendliness of the Midwest. And I just think it's the perfect place to be a musician, that and a gorgeous skyline. You can't go wrong.
Thanks so much, Rachel, for being a guest today. And I'm looking forward to sharing your music and following you in the future.
Thank you, Devin. I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the most important things about Chicago, which we've been talking about this whole conversation. Our unique not-for-profit label, Cedille Records with which I've made so many of my albums, and I couldn't be more grateful to them for their amazing artistic collaborations that unlike most labels, they've really permitted me to follow my vision with all of these different project ideas that other labels would have probably dismissed as unviable commercially, but Cedille has allowed them to flourish. So yet another great thing about Chicago. And thank you so much for mentioning so many of them in this chat.