Defiance, romance, beauty, triumph and joy will all be on the program this weekend when acclaimed violinist Mari Lee and the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra perform two concerts featuring music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Max Bruch, and Felix Mendelssohn, conducted by Jorge Martinez-Rios.
“I met Mari about ten years ago and she’s always been incredible,” Martinez-Rios said in this interview on KRWG. “She’s been one of my inspirations to continue to improve musically, particularly when I play chamber music. And the way she plays now has such depth, it just grabs you.”
Lee will perform the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Bruch, a work that she said is usually a “starter concerto,” but her teacher would not allow her to study it when she was a teenager. She believed “it takes musical maturity to bring this music to life and do it justice,” Lee said, so Lee only learned it this year. “It’s a whole different process learning a concerto in your thirties.”
Lee grew up in Japan, went to study in England at the age of 11, began competing internationally at 13, and now has a career both as a touring violinist and as an entrepreneur. But more than a decade ago, she developed an allergy to the rosin that violinists use to provide friction on their bows, which was a potentially career-ending condition. She now uses a synthetic material for her bow, and wears a mask when performing with an orchestra or other string players to protect her from their rosin.
Listen to the interview to hear Lee’s further thoughts on the violin concerto and her background, as well as Martinez-Rios talk about Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3.
The concerts are Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Atkinson Recital Hall.
Musical clips in the interview:
• Max Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, 2nd movement, and later in interview, 1st movement. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg on violin with the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Edo De Waart (EMI cd #49429);
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon cd #429762);
• Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3, 2nd movement, and later 4th movement. Andrew Davis conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Sony cd #45636).
