I was very happy to be invited by the West Cork Chamber Music Festival to come perform this July. I hadn’t been to that part of Ireland before and it was a great joy to visit, to make new friends and colleagues, and connect with a new, wonderful audience.

I played six pieces on concerts throughout the week and went to as many of the festival’s events as I had time for. I also did a video interview and gave a masterclass, coaching a promising Irish group on the Prokofiev String Quartet No. 1.

I was especially gratified to get a spontaneous excited response from so many people to my playing of the Six Caprices by Salvatore Sciarrino and a new piece by Irish composer Sam Perkin, commissioned by the festival. I played these on the first two concerts. The rest of the week afterward, I received delighted feedback from people who’d been there. Some of my most satisfying concert interactions recently have been performing new/recent music for audiences who weren’t necessarily looking to hear new pieces or new musical languages. For me, it just confirms my purpose to communicate on my instrument – to all kinds of people – how very enjoyable, beautiful, interesting, and multi-dimensional new music can be. 

It was a lot of fun to be part of performances of Sextets by Penderecki and Brahms with such terrific players. I had not played much of Penderecki’s music before and, in addition to the Sextet, I played his Sonata No. 2 with pianist Joonas Ahonen. Joonas and I had a great time together and we worked to make dramatic shape of this hefty piece during our rehearsal process. After the performance, someone came backstage and told us she’s a musicologist who has worked on Penderecki’s music. She said that she’d never heard the piece played so great!