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2026-2027 Season

APPALACHIAN SPRING + ALEXI KENNEY

October 17, 2026 • 7:30 PM

/

October 18, 2026 • 3:00 PM

Sunset Center, Carmel Map

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Jayce Ogren, Music Director and Conductor

Alexi Kenney, violin

European iconoclasts meet American masters. Composer Franz Berwald—an erstwhile orthopedic surgeon—stood apart from the early Romantic mainstream, cultivating a distinctly eccentric voice with his overture to Estrella de Soria. Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, an early work from the so-called "bad boy of Russian music," conjures a dreamlike sound world, interweaving introspective lyricism with flashes of steely virtuosity. Completing the program are two pillars of 1940s Americana: the orchestral suite from Aaron Copland's iconic ballet Appalachian Spring and the probing musical argument of Samuel Barber's Second Essay for Orchestra.
- Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

PROGRAM
90-minute program, includes a 20-minute intermission

Franz BERWALD
Overture to Estrella de Soria

COPLAND
Appalachian Spring Suite

— intermission —

PROKOFIEV
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D, Op. 19
Alexi Kenney, violin

BARBER
Second Essay for Orchestra, Op. 17

Alexi Kenney

Alexi Kenney

Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs, commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras around the world, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time.

Alexi's 2025/26 season included return appearances with the Dallas Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony, debuts with the Houston Symphony, Slovak Philharmonic, and Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and a specially curated program at San Francisco Symphony's SoundBox. Highlights of recent seasons include concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Alexi has been featured in a play/lead role with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and New Century Chamber Orchestra, and has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, on Carnegie Hall's 'Distinctive Debuts' series, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, Frick Collection, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Alexi continues to perform and develop Shifting Ground, a multimedia program in collaboration with the video artist Xuan, which weaves together pieces for violin and electronics by J.S. Bach, Rafiq Bhatia, Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Salina Fisher, Nicola Matteis, Angélica Negrón, and Paul Wiancko. Alexi has performed Shifting Ground at the Celebrity Series of Boston, Ojai Festival, and Baryshnikov Arts Center, among others. He also explores his love for period instruments and playing, recently performing the complete Schumann Violin Sonatas on gut strings with Amy Yang on fortepiano.

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 Gabriel Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko. Alexi is also an alum of the Bowers Program 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 studied with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. Previous mentors in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, Alexi has been profiled by The New York Times and has written for The Strad. He plays a violin made by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow made by Charles Espey in 2024.

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.

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