Jennifer Pike

Jennifer Pike is an English violinist and teacher born (in Stockport, England – Stockport is about five miles southeast of Manchester) on November 9, 1989.  She is known for having been the youngest winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award competition in 2002.  On the occasion of her performance, she played the well-known Mendelssohn concerto - the one in e minor.  She was 12 years old.  Since then, she has forged a solo career, touring the world as soloist in recital and with orchestra, as most concert artists do.  Her violin studies began at age 5.  I do not know who her first teacher was, although it is very likely that it was her father, a violinist and composer.  At age 8 she entered Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester.  She made her debut at age 15 playing Haydn’s fourth violin concerto (the one in G), although by then she had already been recognized as a child prodigy and made public appearances, including one at the Royal Opera House when she was ten years old.  She further studied with David Takeno in London.  She also attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and the University of Oxford (in Oxford, England – about 40 miles northwest of London) from which she graduated in 2012.  Her discography is not extensive but she has recorded a few works for the Chandos and Sony labels.  Pike has played a Matteo Goffriller violin constructed in 1708 for some time but I do not know if she is still playing that violin.  Here is a YouTube video where she is playing a popular piece by William Kroll.

Boris Brovtsyn

Boris Brovtsyn is a Russian violinist and teacher born (in Moscow) in 1977.  He is known for his amazing technique and the use of rubato – in the style of many virtuoso violinists of another generation – violinists such as Mischa Elman, Fritz Kreisler, Jacques Thibaud, Ida Haendel, Nathan Milstein, and Ivry Gitlis.  He began playing the violin at age 4.  At age 6, he made his public debut at the famous Bolshoi Theatre.  His grandfather, a pupil of the famous pedagogue, Abram Yampolski (teacher of Leonid Kogan) was his first teacher.  At age 7 (1984), Brovtsyn entered the Central Music School in Moscow and graduated ten years later.  Then he entered the Tchaikovsky (Moscow) Conservatory where he studied with Maya Glezarova.  From there he graduated in 1999.  He had already made his U.S. debut in 1995 and his U.K debut in 1998.  He had already played for the Pope in 1993.  He studied further at the Guildhall School of Music in London where he won the Gold Medal in 2004.  His main teacher there was David Takeno.  His career has taken him to places all over the world, but especially Europe.  As do practically all concert violinists, he plays at music festivals all over the world.  Brovtsyn plays an 1862 Vuillaume violin.  Here is a performance of his on YouTube – the Mendelssohn concerto in e minor with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.  He gets a tremendous ovation and is obliged to play a very nice encore by Ysaye.  

Pip Clarke

Pip Clarke is a British violinist and teacher who, although concertizing all over the world, has been living in the U.S. since 1990.  She is known for playing in a very Romantic and expressive manner and is frequently compared to legendary violinists Ruggiero Ricci, Jascha Heifetz, and Tossy Spivakovsky.  Her tone has been described as haunting and her style as breathtakingly romantic, though that description might be far too limiting.  She also has in her repertoire a work which is a particular favorite of mine – the Bruch second concerto in d minor, which is seldom played nowadays.  Clarke is also one of only two violinists I know of who does not have a website – Silvia Marcovici is the other.  She has appeared with over 70 orchestras in the U.S. alone and has appeared in recital in the most important venues in Canada, Asia, and Europe.  Clarke began her music studies on the piano at age 5 (in Manchester, England) and her violin studies (with Ruth Parker) two years later.  For six years she studied with Roger Raphael at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, then with Lydia Mordkovitch (pupil of David Oistrakh) at the Royal Northern College of Music and later still with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music in London.  Her public debut was at age 16 at the South Bank Center in London.  She embarked on her very busy career upon graduation and has been concertizing ever since.  Clarke also appeared on British television with English composer and conductor Michael Tippett.  Her American debut took place on October 27, 2007 at Carnegie Hall with the Korngold concerto.  Although her repertoire encompasses all of the standard concertos, she is especially lauded by critics for her interpretations of Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, and the Walton, Korngold, Goldmark, and Dvorak violin concertos.  Reviewing a recent CD release, a well-known critic said: “She blazes impetuously with plenty of dash and brio...she’s no mere purveyor of bland, unruffled, unengaged precision.”  Of her first CD release, Musical Opinion (the oldest classical music journal in England) wrote that it included “one of the most compelling accounts on record of Chausson’s Poeme.”  One of her most recent recordings is of Lee Actor’s brilliant and unabashedly romantic violin concerto, a work commissioned especially for her.  You can listen to it here.  As almost all concert artists now do today, Clarke participates in music festivals far and wide, including the well-known Ravinia Music Festival near Chicago.  Clarke also gives master classes in the U.S. and Europe.  In recital and in recordings, her accompanists have usually been pianists Sandra Rivers (accompanist of Sarah Chang as well), Scott Holshouser, and (composer-pianist) Marcelo Cessena.  Clarke has played violins by Joseph Guarnerius and Matteo Goffriller, but her present violin is a modern (1983) violin by Sergio Peresson.  Other musicians who own or have owned Peresson’s instruments include Yehudi Menuhin, Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Norman Carol, Jaime Laredo, Eugene Fodor, Ivan Galamian, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Jaqueline du Pre.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might recall that Peresson was a Philadelphia violin maker (luthier) whose instruments were in so much demand, he had to stop taking orders for violins in 1982.  As far as I know, their sound is indistinguishable from the very best Stradivarius or Guarnerius violins.