Prometheus Symphony 1/25/2026 - Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto Op. 64, Noelle Lai, violin soloist скачать в хорошем качестве

Prometheus Symphony 1/25/2026 - Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto Op. 64, Noelle Lai, violin soloist

On Sunday, January 25, 2026, at Valley Center for the Performing Arts, Oakland CA the Prometheus Symphony presented Noelle Lai as Violin Soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 Felix Mendelssohn 1809-1847 02:20 Allegro molto appassionato – 15:12 Andante. 23:03 Allegretto non troppo. Allegro molto vivace. Noelle Lai, Violin Soloist Fourteen-year-old violinist, Noelle Lai, is an eighth grader at the Crowden School. She studies violin with Eugene Chukhlov and Eric Chin. Since beginning violin at the age of three, Noelle has gained a wide range of experiences in the world of music, including giving solo recitals, leading orchestras as concertmaster, and numerous chamber music performances. This season, Noelle will be performing “Winter ” from Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires with the Crowden School Orchestra. She has performed in masterclasses for renowned violinists Midori and Chee-Yun Kim, presenting the ;ast two movements of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 as well as Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy. Last summer, she attended Center Stage Strings, where she studied with violinist Fabiola Kim and performed the final movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor. In addition to her solo and orchestral work, Noelle is a passionate chamber musician. She loves exploring the chamber repertoire, from Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven to Shostakovich, Schumann, and Haydn. She has collaborated multiple times with Eric Chin and Jeremiah Shaw of the Telegraph Quartet, and has premiered new works including Capybaralogy by Gabriella Smith and Arches by Samuel Adams, performing the latter alongside violinists Nora Chastain and David McCarroll. She has also participated in chamber masterclasses with Randall Goosby and the Cavani Quartet. Outside of music, Noelle enjoys photography, spending time with friends, baking, and playing with her dogs and cats. *Extracted from the program note by Dale DeBakcsy: * It is an interesting question — why do we love this piece so much? Why is that first theme instantly at our fingertips in a way that few others in the violin repertoire are? Certainly, part of the answer lies in Mendelssohn's novel structure. While classical violin concertos most often feature a stately and elegant opening section during which the soloist stands to the side, staring profoundly into the middle distance while wondering how the finger sandwiches in the green room will keep, Mendelssohn in this concerto has the soloist hop in from the start with the Good Stuff. Mendelssohn also shuffled the cadenza fireworks earlier into the first movement, before the traditional recapitulation section, and, in collaboration with concertmaster and friend, Ferdinand David,, wrote out the cadenza in full, thereby saving future audiences from the uneven improvisations of soloists more interested in showing off their technical skill than producing music seamlessly united with what comes before and after. And then, to accentuate the feeling of this work as a unified whole, Mendelssohn did something truly risky—he linked the three movements of the work together to keep the audience from breaking into applause between the movements. Audiences liked doing this to show their appreciation (as we see in the case of Dvořák), but Mendelssohn felt that the habit jolted both musicians and audience away from the spell of the music. And so, resolutely, almost defiantly, he makes the bassoon hold a B between the first two movements to head off the applause and keep us all focused on the music and the lush garden of sound awaiting us as we transition to the Andante. It took seven years of meticulous rewrites and close consultation with his soloist, but the work finally debuted on March 13, 1845, though Mendelssohn was too ill at the time to conduct it. That performance was a resolute success, and the international music community has held this work close to the heart ever since. The public's love of Mendelssohn's symphonies might come and go. There might be decades at a time when we feel entirely fine with giving Elijah a miss. But we will always show up for this concerto, aptly described by the great violinist Joseph Joachim as the “heart’s jewel” of the 19th century German violin tradition. We weep at its beauty, feel our pulses quicken at its storms. And when we approach the final Allegro and it is time to have a bit of spritely fun, there is no better companion than our friend Felix, the gentle genius who loved the elegance of musical ages past, and who found a way to bring that spirit, wrapped in new clothes, to the audiences of his time, and to audiences of every time thereafter.