Virtuosa violinist Hilary Hahn on the art and adrenaline of performance
Most people are lucky if they can figure out what it is they were meant to contribute to society in the course of a lifetime. For virtuosa violinist Hilary Hahn, the answer to that eternal question was definitively answered one month prior to her fourth birthday when she picked up a violin and began training in the Suzuki program at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory. At age 10, Hahn was accepted at the elite Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, a nurturing ground for some of the world’s most prominent conductors, composers and instrumentalists. Over the next nine years, Hahn would evolve her nascent talent, completing a rigorous course of instruction and studying extensively with the famed Ukrainian-American violinist Jascha Brodsky. Hahn’s teenage years were peppered with recital debuts and radio and television broadcasts in American, European and Asian cities as news of her talent and potential spread throughout the classical world. Time Magazine crowned the 21-year-old musician “America’s Best” young classical musician in 2001, the same year that Hahn was awarded a Grammy for her recording of the Brahms & Stravinsky Violin Concertos. At 27, Hahn seems to have effortlessly made the transition from precocious child prodigy to professional virtuosa, with a list of accomplishments that could easily serve as the beginning, middle and end of a highly-distinguished career in its entirety. She spends the touring season traveling between continents, soloing in front of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, performing at the baton of the world’s preeminent conductors. Recent ventures have found her crossing over from the classical genre into those of film scores, as soloist for M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 film The Village, and popular music, via collaborations with folk rocker Josh Ritter and singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau. While internationally revered for her flawless technical skill and consummate talent, Hahn is also cherished for her grace, intelligence and humility, her eclectic pairings of coveted classics with those compositions lesser known and her propensity for learning new languages in her rare moments of spare time. Speaking with a steely and articulate confidence, Hahn unequivocally simplifies her relationship with music to a singular role. “I’m a performer,” Hahn states. “I’ve grown up performing.” The violinist is content to leave the composing to the very few, she says, who do it well, and recalls taking only one conducting class in her nine years at the Curtis Institute. “I wound up giggling whenever people looked at me for a beat,” Hahn says. “Because I’m like this is so weird, I’m so embarrassed, I’m supposed to give a beat?” She laughs. “I’m used to looking to someone else for cues, or I’m used to playing and leading, but not conducting. It just feels weird to me and I’m not comfortable telling 100 people how to play.” A generous and attentive performer, Hahn is engaged by her audience and describes in detail her tendency to “feel how the audience absorbs the music” and “get a feel for how it changes the mood of the room.” The performance is what tells me how effectively I’m interpreting the music and it brings out a different element of the music when you can’t stop,” says Hahn. “Everyone knows that they can’t stop and everyone is putting their best effort into it to give it their best shot right then and there. When you have that extra adrenaline, you get new ideas. At least I do. I don’t feel like I know a piece until I’ve played it in front of an audience, and then until I’ve played it several times.” Hahn’s performance is mesmerizing, delivered with impeccable precision, intonation and control, but also with a profound expressiveness that thoroughly explores both an explosive flurry of bow strokes and the churning inner-life of sustained notes. “I don’t really see myself as ‘the soloist’ in capital letters or anything. I just sort of go in and I have a solo part that I play,” says Hahn modestly. “But I’m more trying to work together with everyone to sort of get the music to line up the best way possible.” With limited rehearsal time available before performances, the preparation of pieces is left almost entirely to Hahn, who first and foremost consults her instincts. The history of a piece is sought as minor supplemental material only after Hahn is comfortably familiar with the music and is sometimes avoided entirely. “I know a lot of people look to a composer’s life to tell them basically how to interpret the piece or to tell them what the piece meant to the composer, probably more than the former,” Hahn says. “But I know composers and when I’ve talked to them about stuff, it seems like their music doesn’t always reflect their life, or the elements that they are quoting from their life are not the ones that would be the most obvious … My theory is that for a lot of composers, it’s not exactly a timely reflection of what’s going on in their lives.” Hilary Hahn will perform as part of the UC Santa Cruz Arts & Lectures Series at the Music Recital Hall at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17, at 1156 High St. in Santa Cruz. For more information call 459-2159 or visit artslectures.ucsc.edu . Tickets range from $20 to $40.
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