Tracy Silverman
Stage Door Cabaret Series/Sponsored by Huntington Bank All Tickets $28.50
Thursday, March 8, 2012 • 8:00 pm Friday, March 9, 2012 • 8:00 pm
Lauded by the BBC as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin”, Tracy Silvermanʼs groundbreaking work with the 6-string electric violin has redefined string playing and influenced an entire generation of string players.
Shortly after graduating from the Juilliard School in 1980, Silverman built one of the first-ever 6-string violins and began a lifelong adventure as a musical pioneer: designing, building, commissioning new instruments, and performing on an instrument that did not previously exist. While developing this new instrument, Silverman discovered that he had also developed a new approach to string playing. “Itʼs been a workin progres s for about 30 years now. New possibilities keep revealing themselves—the instrument teaches me how to play it. The additional 2 lower strings open up a door not just to a lower register but to a completely new approach as a chordal instrument like the guitar, which in turn taught me a more complete and integrated way of using the bow which I call ʻStrum Bowingʼ.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adamsʼ electric violin concerto “The Dharma at Big Sur”, written expressly for and with Silverman, ("the closest thing to a genuine collaboration I've ever done with a performer"--John Adams,) single-handedly legitimized the electric violin in 2003. Recorded by Silverman on Nonesuch Records with the BBC Symphony with Adams conducting, he has performed it at New Yorkʼs Lincoln Center, for the gala opening of Los Angelesʼ Walt Disney Concert Hall, Royal Albert Hall in London, Palais des Beaux Artes in Brussels, Adelaide Festival Theater and the Cabrillo Festival, among many others. In the liner notes, Adams writes, ”Tracy has developed his own unique style of violin playing--a marvel of expressiveness.” At the premier, Mark Swed of the LA Times raved, “Inspiring. Silverman is in a class of his own.” The Chicago Tribuneʼs John von Rhein wrote of Silvermanʼs “blazing virtuosity. You will be astonished that anybody can play a fiddle like that.”
“The journey of the 6-string came from the fact that I was interested in non-classical music—rock, jazz, music from India, Brazil—it was lucky that I couldnʼt play guitar or saxophone and was limited to finding a way to get all those sounds out of a violin instead. I entered Juilliard wanting to be the next Jasha Heifetz but I left wanting to be the next Jimi Hendrix. The irony is not lost on me that my musical odyssey has brought me full circle—from classical roots to rock to jazz to world music and now back to the classical world as a soloist—a destination I might not have achieved if not for the untraditional journey I took.”
A missing link between the classical and vernacular worlds, Silverman is also an in-demand composer with commissions and performances with orchestras all over the world. Silvermanʼs “Electric Violin Concerto” has been described by the Wichita Eagle as "the ideal piece for todayʼs symphony”, and has been choreographed in itʼs entirety by Henrique Rodovalho in a fully mounted production with the Bale Teatro Guaira in Brazil. Silvermanʼs 2nd electric violin concerto, “Between the Kiss and the Chaos”, premiered in 2010.
Silverman has recorded with a virtual whoʼs who of the new music, jazz and rock world. As first violinist with the innovative Turtle Island String Quartet, Silverman toured internationally and established a long-standing relationship with Windham Hill Records, where he appears on dozens of compilation CDʼs. His 1999 self-produced Windham Hill release, "Trip to the Sun", has become a cult favorite which Billboard Magazine heralded as "the most adventurous Windham Hill album ever."
A true eclectic, Silverman has recorded and performed with artists as varied as composers John Adams and Terry Riley, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussein, violinists Rachel Barton Pine and Daniel Bernard Roumain, pop pianist Jim Brickman, singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman, the rock band Guster, alt-country band Big and Rich, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones percussionist Roy “Futureman” Wooten, Tuck and Patty, classical guitarist Eliot Fisk, jazz pianist Billy Taylor, Irish rock star Bob Geldof, and as a soloist with major orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony conducted by Neemi Jarvi, the LA Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen, with conductors Marin Alsop, Kent Negano and many others.
An international touring artist, Tracy has performed at major concert venues from Sao Paulo to Vienna, from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl. In 1999 he was awarded Artist in Residence status by the city of Hamburg, Germany and is a frequent concert attraction in Brazil. The Rhein Zeitung wrote "technically brilliant to the fingertips, but overthrowing all the usual preconceived ideas". The London Times raved, “His deep engagement with the music coursed through his strong, supple virtuosity."
Silverman produced and performs on Jim Brickmanʼs hit CDʼs "Simple Things", "Lovesongs and Lullabies", “Escape”, “Homecoming”, “Beautiful World” and on 5 of Jimʼs popular TV Specials. His many appearances on national radio and television include NPR's “Performance Today”, Minnesota Public Radio's “St. Paul Sunday”, many appearances on “A Prairie Home Companion” and was featured as a violinist and record producer on “CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood”. He has taught at Macalester College in St. Paul, and at the MacPhail Center for the Arts in Minneapolis and regularly gives workshops all over the world, including the Stanford Jazz Workshop, Jazz in July at Amherst, Oberlin Conservatory and many others. Silverman has long been a favorite instructor at Mark OʼConnorʼs annual fiddle camp and he currently holds teaching positions in jazz violin and composition at Belmont University and Vanderbilt Universityʼs Blair School of Music in his home of Nashville, TN.
Tracy is currently touring internationally as a soloist with orchestras, with his solo one-man concerts, with his rock ensemble, “Eclectica”, which features 5-time Grammy winner Roy “Futureman” Wooten, and with Three Part Invention with pianist Philip Aaberg and cellist Eugene Friesen. He lives with his wife and 4 children in Nashville, TN.
Series Sponsor
The Stage Door Cabaret Series
Thanks to the support of Huntington Bank, The Midland Theatre is proud to present such performers as Tim Farrell, Steve Forbert, Minas, Christine Lavin and Tracy Silverman. learn more
