Alexi Kenney, violin

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 Kenney is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

Highlights of Alexi Kenney’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 Kenney 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 Kenney’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.

Maria Włoszczowska, violin

Polish violinist Maria Włoszczowska is recognised for her versatile musicianship, performing as soloist, director/concertmaster, and chamber musician.
Maria Włoszczowska began the 2022/23 season with her solo debut at the BBC Proms performing Kaija Saariaho’s Vers toi qui es si loin with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Dinis Sousa. As Leader of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, she also directs a number of programmes; one of this season’s highlights includes directing and performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Further afield, Maria Włoszczowska makes her Hong Kong debut at the Hong Kong Musicus Festival and joins the violin faculty at Yellow Barn, Vermont.

Last season, Maria Włoszczowska gave her New York recital debut at 92NY with Jeremy Denk performing all six Bach Sonatas for violin and keyboard and they return together this season to the Lammermuir Festival.

She appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and at international festivals such as Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland, Lammermuir Festival and IMS Prussia Cove as well as a residency at Yellow Barn.  Distinguished artists such as Jeremy Denk, Bengt Forsberg and Dinis Sousa have joined her in recital and other chamber music partners have included Thomas Adès, Alasdair Beatson, Philippe Graffin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Steven Isserlis, Steven Osborne, Hyeyoon Park, Timothy Ridout and the Doric String Quartet.  This season also sees the launch of the Valo Quartet, which she leads; they make their debut appearance in Brussels under the auspices of the Festival Resonances.

Recent seasons have seen projects as a guest leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and solo appearances with UK and international ensembles, including symphonic and chamber orchestras in her home country of Poland.   This season, Maria Włoszczowska returns to Leipzig to appear as soloist with Reinhard Goebel and the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum at the Gewandhaus.

Recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Emily Anderson Prize, the Hattori Foundation Senior Award and Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prize, she based herself in the UK after completing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Hungarian violinist and conductor András Keller. In 2018 she won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the XXI Leipzig International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition.
Maria Włoszczowska plays on a violin by Francesco Stradivari.