Jennifer Koh

Jennifer Koh description

New York violinist Jennifer Koh is not only celebrated for her dazzling virtuosity and the commanding intensity of her performances but also for actively enriching the repertoire for her instrument. Her most recent album, the Grammy award-winning Alone Together, consists of new short works by revered and emerging living composers. The album’s roots go back to a late-night conversation with composer Missy Mazzoli from which emerged Bach and Beyond, a project that would juxtapose Bach’s famous sonatas and partitas with new commissions written in response to these works.

Mazzoli presented Koh with the haunting Dissolve, O My Heart, which starts with – and quickly departs from – the D minor opening chord of Bach’s Chaconne. A decade and several solo compositions later, this same chord led to the magnificent new concerto you can hear Koh perform with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra elsewhere in the 2023 Festival program.

This superbly conceived recital seems to tell a single complex story, beginning with Bach’s Sonata No. 2 in A minor and its intense prelude and ending with the pure joy of the 3rd sonata’s lilting finale. On the way, Koh negotiates two mighty fugues, the infinite calm of two parallel C major slow movements in Mazzoli’s meditation and the unhinged qualities of her Kinsky Paganini – a brief but explosive nod to Klaus Kinski’s portrayal of the great violinist.

UKARIA’s famed acoustic provides the ideal situation for this intimate encounter with a musician of prodigious technique and intellect.

PROGRAM*
JS Bach: Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor BWV 1003
Missy Mazzoli: Kinski Paganini
Missy Mazzoli: Dissolve, O My Heart
JS Bach: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major BWV 1005

*Please note: The final program above has changed slightly from the version published in the 2023 booking guide.

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