Symphony Hosts Rising Violin Star
For performing musicians, a career is often a gamble, but few begin in a casino. For Elissa Lee Kokkonen, her career really got its start at the Monte Carlo Casino.
There, in a little 500-seat auditorium, the 20-year-old Kokkonen was named co-winner of the 1992 Henryk Szerying Career Award, a prize that recognizes the career potential of gifted young violinists.
Friday, Kokkonen will perform Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 with the Spokane Symphony. Friday’s program also includes Rossini’s Overture to “Semiramide” and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. The orchestra’s music director, Fabio Mechetti, will conduct.
Kokkonen grew up in Hong Kong and Korea, the daughter of a Korean mother and Finnish father. When she was 11, she came to the United States to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Aaron Rosand. She was chosen for the finals of the Szerying competition from a worldwide field of 52 competitors. The competition is named after the distinguished Polish violinist Henryk Szeryng, who died in 1988.
In Monte Carlo, the president of the Szerying jury, Henry Roth, said Kokkonen “set a tremendously high standard” in her performance of Bach’s Chaccone for solo violin and described her tone as “beautifully polished and artistic.”
But Roth and other members of the jury worried about the size of her sound, finding it “a bit small scaled,” owing to the instrument she was then using. Now, courtesy of the Stradavari Society, Kokkonen has the use of a 1735 Guarnarius del Gesu, which was once owned and played by Fritz Kreisler. This Guarnarius is an instrument that relieves any worries about a small-scale sound.
Recently, Kokkonen celebrated her third engagement with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and this summer she was selected to appear in recital in the Rising Star Series at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. Kokkonen also has performed with orchestras such as the Boston Pops, the Minnesota Orchestra and in Europe with the Royal Philharmonic of London and at the Morzarteum in Salzburg. Roth commented that Kokkonen “understands Mozartian style as precious few young violinists do.”
Mozart is best known as a concerto composer for his 27 piano concertos. But in the early stages of his career as the world’s best-known child prodigy, Mozart also was regarded as an eminent violinist. His father, in fact, continually nagged the younger Mozart, even after he left home, “not to neglect your violin.”
Mozart had written five violin concertos in a single year, 1775, but he never returned to the violin concerto thereafter. Kokkonen will perform the third of Mozart’s five concertos.
Mechetti has selected one of Rossini’s most famous overtures to one of his infrequently performed operas, the Overture to “Semiramide,” to open Friday’s program. Rachmaninoff’s last major work, the “Symphonic Dances” of 1940, will close the program.
Leonard Oakland, professor of English at Whitworth College and classical program announcer for KPBX public radio, will discuss the music in a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. in the Opera House auditorium.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane Symphony, with violin soloist Elissa Lee Kokkonen, will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at the Spokane Opera House and at 8 p.m. Saturday at North Idaho College’s Boswell Hall. Tickets for the Spokane event are $13 to $28, available at the symphony ticket office, all G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT. Tickets for the Coeur d’Alene event are $15 and $17; call (800) 4CDA-TIX.