I’ve just put up a video below of our last tour to Germany back in July, where we were gearing up for the concert playing Vivaldi:
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Honestly, it was one hell of a collabouration of the conductor Manfred Honeck and the violinist Ray Chen. The fact that a lot of us including them were individuals of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds made the process all the more challenging for us to drive through.
It was evident from the start these two outstanding musicians critically found themselves on the crossroad of the artistic journey upon which both perspectives need to be respected and reconciled with one another. My mission as concertmaster was to read between the lines and grasp what sort of stylistic vision they were attempting to represent in order to be able to establish it in a collective ensemble.
I don’t know if you can catch it from the screen, but Ray sure unloaded tons of water from his body in the earnest to blast the sound almost entirely. I also begin sweating from five minutes into the concerto oftentimes, but I believe he could achieve some world record with that! 🙂
Whatever.
Check out the video (is it playing okay for you??) and enjoy!
Hikaru
HIKARU MATSUKAWA 