Author Archives: Ryan Libel
My Return to Symphony Center
The Chicago Symphony’s covid hiatus felt interminable. But a couple of weeks back, fifteen months after my last visit, I triumphantly walked the three blocks to Symphony Center for one of the three-weekends-only live and in-person productions the CSO decided to mount indoors before decamping for their annual Ravinia residency. The run-up announcements requested we […]
2021 Inaugural Post
I have not had a violin lesson since March 2020, when the veil of pandemic descended. My last post was on my birthday, eight months ago. A few things have changed in that time – I passed a playing anniversary – 7 years on the instrument last November – and we all started a new […]
Bach via Trifonov
There’s a rare genius in the playing of Daniil Trifonov – he becomes the music, fusing himself to the instrument and the works, forging unified art with the tools of a keyboard and masterful compositions. The almost 29-year-old’s matinee performance last Sunday at Chicago’s Symphony Center marked the second time I’ve had the privilege of […]
Mutter and Orkis play Beethoven
I discovered the Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano via Youtube recordings – Anne-Sophie Mutter and renowned pianist Lambert Orkis recorded the cycle of 10 works back in 1998 at a series of live concerts in Paris. The album that resulted won a Grammy in 2000, and somehow, about 8 years ago, the whole series […]
From Bach to The Boy Paganini
In this past week’s lesson, as we have for months, Teacher and I played the Bach Concerto for Two Violins, the final piece in Suzuki Book Four, together. Happily, I did better than ever, despite having a rather lackluster practice record the week before. When we finished, she said, “I know you’ll keep working on […]
Rudolph Buchbinder and Beethoven
During its current 2019-2020 season, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is commemorating Beethoven’s 250th birthday (which is technically in December 2020, which will be in the CSO’s 2020-2021 season, but who’s quibbling) by programming a staggering number of the composer’s works. I wish I could see them all, but I’m pleased to be off to a […]
Reading Music and Shifting
Violin music is often annotated with fingerings that, amongst other things, indicate when position shifting is necessary. Suzuki books do a lot of marking fingerings for beginners, but other scores do it too. As I’ve progressed, I’ve gained more and more ability to do shifting on the fly – while it’s been slow going, as […]
Hilary Hahn with the CSO
There’s a list of legendary violinists, and then there’s a list of the best violinists right now – on that second list, Hilary Hahn is at the very top. I was thrilled to get to see her play alongside the Chicago Symphony last night under the baton of Marin Alsop, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conductor […]
Ryan Libel 