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New York, NY (December 3, 2024)—Violinist Jennifer Koh performs Barber’s Violin Concerto with the New York String Orchestra — an ensemble comprising gifted classical musicians ages 16 to 23 — on their annual late-December concert at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage on Saturday, December 28 at 8:00 p.m. Koh’s former teacher and artistic director of the NYSO Jaime Laredo conducts the concert, which also includes Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Prologue and Variations, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 1.
The concert takes place exactly 25 years to the day after Koh made her Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage debut — also with Laredo and the NYSO — as soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto in A Major, “Turkish.” She has since appeared with the NYSO at Carnegie Hall on three subsequent late-December concerts, all conducted by Laredo, performing works by Mozart and Mendelssohn.
Though Koh frequently makes headlines as a commissioner and performer of contemporary music, she also excels in more traditional repertoire; she has performed the Barber Concerto many times in her career, including with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra led by Alasdair Neale (2019), the Marin Symphony also with Alasdair Neale (2017), and the National Symphony Orchestra led by Kristjan Jaarvi (2013). San Francisco Classical Voice wrote of the Marin Symphony performance, “…a sublime Jennifer Koh [was] soloist [in] a graceful, lucid and deeply affecting performance … Right from the start, with Koh unfolding the opening subject in a warm and confiding manner, an air of sensitive, nuanced responsiveness took hold.”
Koh studied with Laredo at the Curtis Institute of Music, and the two have collaborated numerous times in the ensuing years. Notably, their project Two x Four (two violinists and four composers) celebrates the teacher-student relationship with performances of double violin concertos by J.S. Bach, Philip Glass, and newly commissioned double concertos by Anna Clyne and David Ludwig. The project was released on a Cedille Records album in 2014 and has been performed live at venues including the Kennedy Center, where Koh now serves as Artistic Director of the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts.
As much as Koh credits her current success to the guidance of Laredo and her other teacher Felix Galimir, she aims to pay that forward by providing learning opportunities for younger musicians. She recently spearheaded a new festival at the Kennedy Center, Sounds of US, that featured over 40 premieres of new works, including some by composition students who were paired for mentorship with more established composers. Her pandemic initiative, Alone Together, saw established composers donating a micro-work for violin and recommending a freelance composer to compose a work on paid commission. Koh’s regular appearances with the NYSO showcase the importance of mentorship in all directions, as she rejoins her own mentor on stage while providing similar inspiration to the next generation of string players in the orchestra.
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