Stefan Jackiw                                                    Roman Kim

Over the long weekend I spent a lot of time listening to violin music, and I came across a couple more prodigies that I’m happy to know about.

The first is 30 year old Stefan Jackiw, an American who lives in New York.  He’s steadily become a favorite soloist playing with symphonies throughout the country, and I believe his career is on an upward trajectory – he doesn’t seem to have peaked too early, in other words!  His technical mastery is beautiful, he’s not overly showy, and I kind of want to just meet the guy – seems like a cool cat.  Recently, I’ve become obsessed with Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp Minor for violin, arranged in the 1930s for the instrument by Milstein – something about Jackiw’s style reminds me of Sarah Chang.

Roman Kim is a young Russian violinist who also writes and arranges showy compositions.  He’s about 20, though I can’t seem to find a birthdate (prodigies like to maintain their youth as long as possible, just like all of us, I suppose!).  He loves cramming as many notes into a measure as possible and his cadenzas seem never to end.  The talent is immense, though he also indulges in the trappings of style that can come along with prodigious personalities.  This, his own arrangement of Paganini’s Introduction & Variations on ‘Di tanti palpiti’ from Rossini’s Tancredi, is a music video versus a performance proper.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan