Rachel Barton Pine
“Striking and charismatic…she demonstrated a bravura technique and soulful musicianship”
-
This season, Rachel Barton Pine celebrates the 25th anniversary of her 1997 Cedille Records album of music by Black composers of the 18th & 19th centuries with a new Silver Anniversary Edition updated with her new recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Jonathon Hayward).
Rachel’s recent highlights include premiering Childs: Violin Concerto No. 2 co-commissioned by the Grant Park Music Festival, the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, and the Interlochen Orchestra; recording Jandali: Violin Concerto with the Vienna Symphony & Marin Alsop; and – with 3 1/2 hours notice – stepping in for Midori at Ravinia, to perform Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Marin Alsop.
-
From July to December 2020, she presented the live, weekly series “Family Fridays with RBP.” From January to June 2021, Pine performed the entire solo violin part of 24 different violin concertos, live and unaccompanied, for her weekly series “24 in 24: Concertos from the Inside with RBP.” Also in 2021, she led “RBP on JSB: the Bach Masterclasses,” joining Sphinx Laureates and other rising-star violinists representing schools including The Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Rice University’s Shephard School of Music, and Yale School of Music to work on Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. She also gave virtual masterclasses for organizations, including the Chicago Youth Symphony, National Orchestral Institute, and Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
-
She has premiered concertos written for her by Fairouz, Goddard, and Maneein. This season, she premieres “Violin Concerto No. 2,” written for her by Billy Childs through a co-commission by the Grant Park Music Festival, the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, and the Interlochen Orchestra.
-
An active philanthropist, Pine has led the Rachel Barton Pine (RBP) Foundation since 2001. Early in her career, she noticed that young people learning classical music seldom have the opportunity to study and perform music written by Black composers. Over the last 20 years, Pine and her RBP Foundation’s Music by Black Composers (MBC) project have collected more than 900 works by 450+ Black composers from the 18th–21st centuries. MBC curates free repertoire directories on its website and publishes print resources, including pedagogical books of music exclusively by global Black classical composers and the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation Coloring Book of Black Composers. Additionally, the RBP Foundation assists young artists through its Instrument Loan Program and Grants for Education and Career. Pine also serves on the board of the Sphinx Organization and other not-for-profits.
The acclaimed American concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills international audiences with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and emotional honesty. With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music. She is a leading interpreter of the great classical masterworks and of important contemporary music.
Pine performs with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Vienna, and Detroit symphony orchestras. She has worked with renowned conductors that include Teddy Abrams, Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi, Christoph Eschenbach, Erich Leinsdorf, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Tito Muñoz, and John Nelson. As a chamber musician, Pine has performed with Jonathan Gilad, Clive Greensmith, Paul Neubauer, Jory Vinikour, William Warfield, Orion Weiss, and the Pacifica and Parker quartets.
Highlights of Pine’s 2024–25 season include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiere of José White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp Minor with conductor Jonathan Rush; a tour of Israel with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto; Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra; the world premiere of Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis’ Violin Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony and conductor Daniel Raiskin; Billy Childs’ Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Rhode Island Philharmonic and conductor Radu Paponiu; and the French premiere of Earl Maneein’s violin concerto Dependent Arising with the Orchestre National de Bretagne and conductor Nicolas Ellis. Over the season, Pine will also perform concertos by Brahms and Sibelius, and music by Wynton Marsalis, Jessie Montgomery, and Mark O’Connor, among other living composers. As a chamber musician, Pine will appear in recitals in Chicago, Phoenix, Kalamazoo, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, and Tel Aviv.
-
In September 2024, Cedille Records releases Pine’s new album, Corelli Violin Sonatas, Op. 5, a two-disc set with the 12 sonatas for violin and continuo that constitute the Baroque composer’s opus 5. Pine performs on violin and viola d’amore, holding the violin against her chest, which history suggests is the way Corelli performed (rather than holding it on the collarbone, the way today’s baroque violinists usually do). The different performance style resulted in subtle changes in tempos and timing because of the slightly different use of the left hand and of the bow arm. The approach led to a different tone compared to that of Pine’s 2007 recording of the third sonata with Trio Settecento, featuring John Mark Rozendaal and David Schrader, who join Pine again in the new recording. Rozendaal plays violoncello and viola da gamba and Schrader plays positive organ and harpsichord. Brandon Acker joins the trio on archlute, theorbo, and guitar. Pine improvised all her ornaments, using a historically informed approach.
Dependent Arising, Pine’s previous album on Cedille (2023), revealed surprising confluences between classical and heavy metal music by pairing Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Earl Maneein’s Dependent Arising, written for Pine and performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Tito Muñoz. Pine’s recording of Malek Jandali’s Violin Concerto No. 2, performed with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, was also released in 2023 on Cedille. The previous year, the label released Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries: 25th Anniversary Edition, featuring Pine’s new recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Jonathon Heyward, and reprisals of her 1997 recordings of masterworks by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1775), José White (1864), and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1899).
In the 2023-24 season, Pine joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Stéphane Denève at the Hollywood Bowl for a performance of Billy Childs’ Violin Concerto No. 2, written specially for her. She also performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Toledo Symphony, National Symphony of Uruguay, and Minas Gerais Philharmonic. In recital, Pine appeared at the Kennedy Center, Ravinia Festival, and the Festival Internacional de Música de Guadalajara. Her early-music appearances included a performance with the Syracuse Orchestra and her daughter, Sylvia Pine; San Francisco Early Music Society with harpsichordist Jory Vinikour; and in Virginia with Trio Settecento.
Pine’s discography consists of over 40 recordings, including Blues Dialogues, with a program of blues-influenced classical works by 20th- and 21st-century Black composers (Matthew Hagle on piano); Dvořák and Khachaturian Violin Concertos (Teddy Abrams and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra); Brahms and Joachim Violin Concertos (Carlos Kalmar and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), and Elgar and Bruch Violin Concertos (Andrew Litton and the BBC Symphony Orchestra). Pine and Sir Neville Marriner’s Mozart: Complete Violin Concertos, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and her Bel Canto Paganini both charted at #3 on the classical charts. Testament: Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach, and Violin Lullabies both debuted at #1.
Pine frequently performs music by contemporary composers, including major works written for her by Billy Childs, Mohammed Fairouz, Marcus Goddard, Earl Maneein, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Daniel Bernard Roumain, José Serebrier, and Augusta Read Thomas. In addition to her career as a soloist, she is an avid performer of baroque, renaissance, and medieval music on baroque violin, viola d’amore, renaissance violin, and rebec.
Pine has also substituted for fellow soloists on short notice for a number of concerts. Most notably, in 2021, with just 3.5 hours’ notice, she performed Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, replacing Midori, to critical acclaim.
The violinist has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, PBS NewsHour, Prairie Home Companion, NPR’s Tiny Desk and All Things Considered, and Performance Today. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She holds prizes from several of the world’s leading competitions, including a gold medal at the 1992 J.S. Bach International Violin Competition.
Pine writes her own cadenzas and performs many of her own arrangements. With the publication of The Rachel Barton Pine Collection, she became the only living artist and first woman in Carl Fischer’s Masters Collection series. During the pandemic, she performed the entire solo violin part of 24 different violin concertos, live and unaccompanied, for her weekly series “24 in 24: Concertos from the Inside.”
An active philanthropist, Pine has led the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation for over two decades. Early in her career, she noticed that young people learning classical music seldom have the opportunity to study and perform music written by Black composers. Since 2001, Pine and her Foundation’s Music by Black Composers project have collected more than 900 works by over 450 Black composers from the 18th–21st centuries. Music by Black Composers curates free repertoire directories on its website and publishes print resources. In 2024 the project released Violin Volumes 2 and 3 for elementary-level students, the second installment in a series of pedagogical books of music exclusively by Black composers. The Rachel Barton Pine Foundation also assists young artists through its Instrument Loan Program and Grants for Education and Career. Pine has also served on the board of many non-profits, including the Sphinx Organization.
She performs on the “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat” Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesù” (Cremona 1742), on lifetime loan from her anonymous patron.
For more information, visit www.rachelbartonpine.com
August 2024 – Please do not edit without permission.
Videos
Programs & Repertoire
Recitals
-
This program celebrates the close-knit friendships and musical partnerships among Clara Schumann (1819-1896), Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Amanda Maier (1853-1894), and Marie Soldat (1863-1955). Brahms performed his own Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor with both Marie Soldat and Amanda Maier, and made numerous revisions to the score based on Maier’s advice. Clara Schumann was a close musical collaborator and lifelong friend of Brahms. The violin on which Pine performs, the “ex-Bazzini ex-Soldat” 1742 Guarneri del Gesu, was chosen by Brahms for Soldat, his protégé and one of the greatest violinists of her day. Beyond her instrument, this music is very close to Pine’s heart because her teacher in Berlin, Werner Scholz, was a student of a student of Joseph Joachim, Brahms’s best friend and collaborator and the teacher of Soldat.
Read a recent review of this program from The Strad.
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 78
Amanda Maier: Violin Sonata in B minor
*****
Clara Schumann: The Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 -
Rachel Barton Pine and Jory Vinikour are both renowned for their interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach. They are also lifelong friends. The two musicians enjoy getting together to read sonatas whenever they are in the same city, and in 2018, realized a longtime dream of recording Bach’s six sonatas for violin and keyboard. Their subsequent touring led to their exploration of more recent works for their instrumental combination. In this program, they compliment the baroque sonatas with three of their favorites from the 20th century.
The Schnittke is a fun and clever deconstruction of baroque-style dances. Hailstork, born in 1941, is one of the most important African-American composers of his generation. His joyful suite also pays homage to baroque style while infusing his own unique language. Adler is a distinguished and prolific composer who studied with Piston, Thompson and Copland; his music has an appealing Americana flavor.
Schnittke: Suite in the Old Style
Bach: Sonata No. 4 in C minor
Ligeti: solo harpsichord works
*****
Adolphus Hailstork: Baroque Suite
Samuel Adler: Sonata No. 2
Handel: Sonata in D major, Op. 1, No. 13, HWV 371 -
Black musicians have shaped classical music for centuries; this recital honors and recognizes the artists and art forms who have shaped our cultural heritage. Dvorak’s Sonatina is one of his American-flavored works, particularly inspired by the music of African Americans. Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 was written for and premiered by the Black European virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower. Still and White’s works are important jazz-inspired masterpieces of the 20th century. Written for Pine, Childs’s Incident on Larpenteur Avenue, is a single-movement violin sonata/tone poem written as a response to the killing of Philando Castille by police.
Antonin Dvořák: Sonatina in G major, Op. 100
Beethoven: Sonata No. 9 in A major Op. 47, “The Bridgetower Sonata”
*****
Dolores White: Blues Dialogues
William Grant Still: Here’s One
Billy Childs: Incident on Larpenteur Avenue
William Grant Still: Suite -
This program is a classical celebration of the violin’s American folk music roots, traversing the European dance music of early immigrants to its transformation into a uniquely American style thanks to the influence of African-American music-making.
Solo Violin
Bach: Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006
Scottish traditional: Air-March-Strathspey-Reel
Noel da Costa: A Set of Dance Tunes
Mark O’Connor: Caprice No. 1
*****
Darol Anger: Rag from American Partita No. 1
Bruce Molsky: Waltz from American Partita No. 1
David Wallace: John, Son of Zebedee from Personas
Coleridge-Taylor: Deep River, arr. Maud Powell
Perkinson: Louisiana Blues Strut (A Cakewalk)
Daniel Bernard Roumain: Hip-Hop Dance I
Vieuxtemps: Souvenir d’AmériqueViolin and Piano
David Baker: Blues (Deliver My Soul)
Dvořák: Violin Sonatina in G major, Op. 100
Florence Price: The Deserted Garden
Clarence Cameron White: Levee Dance, Op. 26, No. 2
William Grant Still: Suite for Violin and Piano
*****
Percy Grainger: Molly on the Shore
Mark O’Connor: Strings and Threads Suite
Harry Burleigh: Southland Sketches (movement I and IV)
Libby Larsen: Blue Piece
Ravel: Sonata (movements II and III)
Concertos
-
Rachel’s Music By Black Composers project places Black classical composers and much of their previously overlooked music into today’s cultural consciousness. Since 2001 Rachel and her RBP Foundation have connected with ethnomusicologists and researchers from around the world to find and publish works by Black composers, ultimately collecting more than 900 works by 450+ Black composers from the 18th -21st Centuries.
Please visit Music by Black Composers for information about each work’s length and instrumentation, links to recordings, programming suggestions, and information about where to obtain the music.
* indicates that the work was written for and/or dedicated to Rachel Barton Pine
Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges):
Violin Concerto Op. 5 No. 2 in A major (c. 1775), others*Billy Childs:
Violin Concerto No. 2 “Romance/Rejoice, Remorse, Resilience” (2020)Samuel Coleridge-Taylor:
Violin Concerto in G minor, Op 80 (1911)
Romance in G major, Op. 39 (1899)Roque Cordero:
Violin Concerto (1962)Wynton Marsalis:
Violin Concerto in D major (2016)Florence Price:
Violin Concerto No. 2 (1952)Daniel Bernard Roumain:
Voodoo Concerto (2002)William Grant Still:
Suite (1943)George Walker:
Poeme (1991)Jose White:
Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor (1864) -
Please contact us for scores and demo recordings for the Bodorová, Chesky, Childs, Fairouz, Goddard, Jandali, and Maneein.
* indicates that the work was written for and/or dedicated to Rachel Barton Pine
Sylvie Bodorová:
Concerto dei fioriDavid Chesky:
Violin Concerto No. 3, “The Klezmer Concerto”*Billy Childs:
Violin Concerto No. 2 “Romance/Rejoice, Remorse, Resilience” (2020)John Corigliano:
Violin Concerto, “The Red Violin” (2003)
The Red Violin Chaconne (1997)*Mohammed Fairouz:
Violin Concerto, “Al-Andalus” (2014)*Marcus Goddard:
Violin Concerto (2018)Malek Jandali:
Violin Concerto (2018)*Earl Maneein:
Violin Concerto, “Dependent Arising” (2017/2022)Wynton Marsalis:
Violin Concerto (2015)Mark O’Connor:
Fiddle Concerto (1993)
Strings and Threads Suite (1986)Arvo Pärt:
Fratres (1977)Daniel Bernard Roumain:
Voodoo Concerto (2006) -
Please visit this playlist to listen to the works in this list that Ms. Pine has recorded.
Franz Clement:
Violin Concerto in D major (1805) - in playlistSamuel Coleridge-Taylor:
Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 80 (1911)
Romance in G major, Op. 39 (1899) - in playlistJoseph Joachim:
Violin Concerto in D Minor, No. 2, Op. 11, "Hungarian" (1857) - in playlistAlexander Mackenzie:
Pibroch Suite, Op. 42 (1889) - in playlistAmanda Maier:
Violin Concerto in D minor (1875)John McEwen:
Prince Charlie Rhapsody (1924) - in playlistXavier Montsalvatge:
Poema Concertante - in playlistJose White:
Violin Concerto (1864) - in playlist -
Johann Sebastian Bach:
Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041
Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042
Violin Concerto in G major, BWV 592
Double Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043
Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, BWV 1060
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048
Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050Samuel Barber:
Violin Concerto, Op. 14Béla Bartók:
Violin Concerto No. 1
Violin Concerto No. 2
Rhapsody No. 1
Rhapsody No. 2Ludwig van Beethoven:
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61
Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56
Romance No. 1 in G major, Op. 40
Romance No. 2 in F major, Op. 50Alban Berg:
Violin ConcertoLeonard Bernstein:
Serenade (after Plato's Symposium)Johannes Brahms:
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Op. 102Benjamin Britten:
Violin Concerto, Op. 15
Double Concerto for Violin and Viola in B minorMax Bruch:
Scottish Fantasy in E-flat major, Op. 46
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26
Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 44Ernst Chausson:
Poème, Op. 25John Corigliano:
Violin Concerto, “The Red Violin”
The Red Violin ChaconneAntonín Dvořák:
Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53Edward Elgar:
Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61Alexander Glazunov:
Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 82
Meditation, Op. 32Franz Joseph Haydn:
Violin Concerto in C major, Hob.VIIa:1
Violin Concerto No. 4 in G major (Hob. VIIa/4)Aram Khachaturian:
Violin Concerto in D minorErich Wolfgang Korngold:
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35Édouard Lalo:
Symphonie espagnole in D minor, Op. 21Pietro Antonio Locatelli:
Violin Concerto in B-flat major, No. 7, Op. 3
Violin Concerto in D major, No. 12, Op. 3, “The Harmonic Labyrinth”Felix Mendelssohn:
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364/320d
Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major, K. 207
Violin Concerto No. 2 in D major, K. 211
Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216
Violin Concerto No. 4 in D major, K. 218
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219
Rondo in C for Violin and Orchestra, K. 373
Adagio in E major for Violin and Orchestra, K. 261Carl Nielsen:
Violin Concerto, Op. 33Niccolò Paganini:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 6
Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 7
Le Streghe, Op. 8
And many other piecesArvo Pärt:
FratresSergei Prokofiev:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19
Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63Maurice Ravel:
TziganeCamille Saint-Saëns:
Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28Pablo Sarasate:
Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25
Zigeunerweisen in C Minor, Op. 20
And many other piecesFranz Schubert:
Rondo in A major for Violin and Strings, D. 438
Polonaise in B-flat major, D. 580Robert Schumann:
Violin Concerto in D minor, WoO 23Dmitri Shostakovich:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77Jean Sibelius:
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47Igor Stravinsky:
Violin Concerto in D majorKarol Szymanowski:
Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35Pyotr Tchaikovsky:
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35Vaughan Williams:
The Lark AscendingHenri Vieuxtemps:
Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor, Op. 31
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A minor, Op. 37Antonio Vivaldi:
The Four Seasons
And many other concertos for violin & orchestra
Complete concertos for viola d’amoreWilliam Walton:
Violin ConcertoFranz Waxman:
Carmen FantasieHenryk Wieniawski:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 14
Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22
Scherzo-Tarantelle, Op. 16
Polonaise in D, Op. 4
Polonaise in A, Op. 21
And many other piecesJohn Williams:
Theme from Schindler’s List -
Love and War, Baroque Style
Rachel Barton Pine serves as soloist and leader, transforming the symphony into a baroque orchestra in this program full of colorful and evocative music. Repertoire includes Battalias by Biber and Peruvian composer Zipoli, a dance suite by Pisendel, concertos for 12-string viola d’amore by Vivaldi, a Handel concerto grosso, and the daring “Harmonic Labyrinth” concerto by Paganini’s predecessor, Locatelli.Dancing Together: Classical Violin Meets Scottish Fiddle
Rachel Barton Pine is featured as soloist in lush, Romantic classical works full of gorgeous traditional Scots tunes by Bruch and Mackenzie, interspersed with Celtic-flavored symphonic works. A longtime fiddler herself, Rachel is joined by a National Champion Scottish fiddler for fiery twin fiddle medleys accompanied by the orchestra.
Projects
