Violinist Ioudenitch joins GTMF on musical trip to Britain – JH News&Guide
Aside from soothing savage beasts and giving love something to feed upon, music has a special knack for transporting listeners to a time or a place, and triggering moods and feelings.
This weekend at the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Festival Orchestra and Music Director Sir Donald Runnicles will take audiences over the Atlantic Ocean with “Melodies of Britain,” performed Friday and Saturday in the Jackson Hole High School auditorium.
“It’s a program that is close to my heart,” Runnicles, an Edinburgher, said. “As a Scottish conductor who has spent 20 years making music in Jackson Hole, I enjoy bringing a little of my musical heritage to my American home. This program offers an opportunity to share some of the richness of British music while also celebrating the remarkable versatility of our Festival Orchestra.”
On the program are Scottish composer James MacMillan’s whirlwind tour through “Britannia” (1984) and Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 (1795), usually referred to as his “London Symphony,” although the German wrote many others during his stints in England.
In between, guest violinist Maria Ioudenitch will play the virtuoso solo part of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (1844), which, while having nothing to do with Great Britain (Mendelssohn would travel there in 1822, which inspired his “Hebrides Overture” and “English” Symphony), is as thrillingly transportive as music gets.
“It’s definitely a concerto everyone learns early on,” Ioudenitch said from none other than London, where she had just finished performances at Wigmore Hall. “It’s kind of an ideal concerto. It can really open your heart when you’re a kid.”
Ioudenitch was born in Russia to pianist parents. A few years after her father, Stanislav Ioudenitch, won the gold medal in the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the family moved to the United States, first to Cleveland, then to Kansas City, Missouri.
She first picked up the violin at age 3. She said her parents made a point of giving her a well-rounded education — “I loved school work,” she said, “all sorts of topics.” When she turned 16 she chose to devote herself to the violin.
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