The last time I saw violinist James Ehnes was at Carnegie Hall.
The Manitoba musician had just graduated from the Juilliard School of Music, in May 1997, and he and his classmates were giving a huge Franz Schubert recital. Ehnes played the wonderful Phantasy for Violin and Piano, and his performance was silken and enthralling.
Tonight he plays a fistful of showstoppers in the Edmonton Symphony's Lighter Classics series at the Winspear Centre. Violin works sometimes played as encores will be the main event, including Sibelius's Humoresque No. 1, Paganini's La Clochette: Rondo, and Caprice No. 24, Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un Lieu Cher, and two Viennese lollipops by Fritz Kreisler.
"The advantage is that I can treat them with the respect they deserve, not toss them off," Ehnens said, from his home in New York. "These are relatively short pieces but they're certainly not small. It gives me the opportunity to play pieces I seldom play, and lets the listener have a chance to hear different sides of my playing."
INTERNATIONAL CAREER
Ehnes, now in his mid-20s, has played with Canadian orchestras many times because there's so much support for our young virtuosos. But these days he's having an international career, playing in the European capitals with such conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy and Sir Andrew Davis, with whom he makes his BBC Proms debut next summer.
He's played a lot of chamber music in Seattle over the past several summers, and has his orchestral debut there in January.
"That will be very special because I have so many musician friends there, some of my closest. I'll play the Tchaikovsky Concerto," he said.
Some violinists only keep three or four concertos active for a season, but "that would drive me mad," Ehnes said. "I can't keep playing the same pieces, I want to get all excited again about a piece. Variety is really important to me. Last spring I played 15 different concertos - and that was a lot of work. But I'm feeling more and more comfortable with more repertoire."
Among his major works this season are concertos by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Brahms, and Korngold.
LEANS TO MODERN MUSIC
Ehnes would like to play more modern music, but in the big leagues, "realistically, it doesn't happen. I get paid to play the great Romantic concertos. When I lived in Canada, I had the constant positive pressure of CBC to play new music, and (Toronto composer) Omar Daniel is writing a concerto for me and a cellist for the Winnipeg New Music Festival."
In his spare time, Ehnes likes to keep active and is fond of basketball. His roommate plays in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and they sometimes take little out-of-town trips.
"When I'm not working I'm really not working," he said.
