Alexi Kenney and Amy Yang
Violin and Piano
Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras around the world, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time. Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.
Highlights of Alexi’s 2023/24 season include appearing as soloist with the Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee Symphonies, leading a program of his own creation with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and debuting a new iteration of his project Shifting Ground at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Ojai Festival, in collaboration with the new media and video artist Xuan. Shifting Ground intersperses seminal works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces by Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Nicola Matteis, Kaija Saariaho, Paul Wiancko, and Du Yun, as well as new commissions by composers Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón.
In recent seasons, Alexi has soloed with the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Detroit Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and l’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, as well as in a play-conduct role as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, on Carnegie Hall’s ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition and laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition, Alexi has been profiled by Musical America, Strings Magazine, and The New York Times, and has written for The Strad.
Chamber music continues to be a major part of Alexi’s life, regularly performing at festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Kronberg, La Jolla, Ojai, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is a founding member of Owls—an inverted quartet hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times—alongside violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko. Alexi is also an alum of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS 2) at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received an Artist Diploma as a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein. Previous mentors in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by François-Nicolas Voirin.
Outside of music, Alexi enjoys hojicha, modernist design and architecture, baking for friends (especially this lumberjack cake), and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.
A “jaw-dropping pianist who steals the show…with effortless finesse” (Washington Post), pianist Amy Yang aspires to affirm connections between the arts and our inner humanity through her committed expressions of music and leadership on and off stage.
In Spring of 2023, she joined forces with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä playing Schumann’s Piano Concerto at Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center. Additionally, she gave the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s “Four Portraits” for solo piano at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she is the Associate Dean of Piano Studies and Artistic Initiatives.
2023 summer brings her to Chamberfest Cleveland, Texas Music Festival, Curtis on Tour, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kingston Chamber Music Festival, and Perelman Music Festival. Her recent appearances include solo and chamber recitals for Hawaii Concert Society, Coastal Concerts (DE), Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Santa Fe Music Festival, Wigmore Hall, Gardner Museum, Cal Performances, Rockport Music Festival, and to the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis Series.
In the height of the pandemic in 2020, she was invited by Anne-Marie McDermott to share a unique summer of 41 concerts with Yefim Bronfman, Paul Neubauer, and the Dover Quartet in a myriad of performances at Bravo! Vail. Additionally, she gave her debut solo recital as well as joined forces with the Jasper String Quartet in piano quintets by Tania Léon and Joan Tower for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s 35th season. She was also featured in a full episode with Emmy® Award-winning producer Jim Cotter of Articulate, aired on PBS in 2021.
Collaborating with trailblazing musicians, Ms. Yang toured with Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Tito Muñoz and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and premiered a large chamber work by Michael Hersch at Cal Performances, Ojai Music Festival and Aldeburgh Festival. Further exhilarating collaborations include those with Richard Goode, Anne-Marie McDermott, Ida and Ani Kavafian, Miriam Fried, Paul Huang, Alexi Kenney, Bomsori Kim, Tessa Lark, Roberto Díaz, Kim Kashkashian, Paul Neubauer, Tara Helen O’Conor, David Shifrin, Joseph Silverstein, Philippe Tondre, Danbi Um, members of Guarneri String Quartet, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Dover Quartet, Aizuri String Quartet, Jasper String Quartet and A Far Cry. In addition to working with Dame Mitsuko Uchida at Marlboro School of Music, she was chosen to participate in her Carnegie Hall Workshop on Mozart’s Piano Concerti.
Ms. Yang’s energetic exploration of contemporary voices has brought forth giving world premieres of music by Caroline Shaw, Richard Danielpour, Avner Dorman, Michael Hersch, Ezra Laderman, Paul Wianko, and commissions from Edward Babcock, Alistair Coleman and Hua Yang. Festival experiences include Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Prussia Cove, Verbier Academy, Bravo! Vail, Chamber Music Northwest, Chelsea Music Festival, Caramoor, Olympic Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, Twickenham Fest, and Saltbay Chamberfest. She has loved soloing alongside the collective voices of Houston Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony, Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Mansfield Symphony and Orquesta Juvenil Universitaria Eduardo Mata at UNAM.
Her discography includes her solo album Resonance (MSR Classics), a world premiere recording of piano music by Ezra Laderman (Albany Records), a world premiere recording of Michael Hersch’s I hope we get a chance to visit soon (Live from Aldeburgh Festival, New Focus Records), and albums with violinists Itamar Zorman (BIS Records), Tessa Lark (First Hand Records), Danbi Um (Avie Records), Carol Jantsch, and José Franch-Ballester (iTinerant Records).
Ms. Yang is an alumna of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and the Yale School of Music, where she received the Parisot Award for Outstanding Pianist and the Alumni Association Prize. Her past teachers include Li Qing, Timothy Hester, Claude Frank, Robert McDonald, and Peter Frankl. Ardent to champion young voices on this pedagogical legacy, her own students have soloed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and entered Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Bard Conservatory, Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, Eastman School of Music, Peabody Institute, and Indiana University. She has given masterclasses at UCLA, Mannes College of Music, University of Oklahoma, The Suzuki School, and for New York Youth Symphony. She won the 2018 Musical Fund Society prize and the Kosciuszko National Chopin Piano Competition. At Curtis Institute of Music, she previously held the roles of program director and faculty of Curtis Summerfest’s Young Artist Summer Program for nine summers.
When not serving the various keyboards related to her roles, her intentionally incognito presence may be revealed by a quivering Micron pen as she sketches from the back of concert halls. The work of a lifetime is where she hopes to question, explore, and linger.
