Asheville Symphony Debuts New Artist Residency

From March 12-18, 2024, Asheville Symphony will present the first-ever Artist Residency celebrating the impact and the legacy of the violin and featuring world-renowned violinists (and husband and wife) Noah Bendix-Balgley and Shanshan Yao.

An Asheville native, Bendix-Balgley is First Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, widely regarded as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. He tours both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. A laureate of the 2009 Queen Elizabeth Competition, he also won top prizes at the Long-Thibaud Competition in France and the Postacchini Competition in Italy.

Bendix-Balgley will be joined on several events during the Artist Residency by Shanshan Yao, who joined the roster of the New York Philharmonic in 2013. She has won numerous competitions including the Calgary Concerto Competition and the Morningside Music Bridge Concerto Competition.

Asheville Symphony’s Artist Residency is a biennial initiative that honors and explores one musical instrument in collaboration with a preeminent musical artist. Through an exploration of genre, instrumentation, solo performance, and more, this week-long residency offers programs for a wide range of audiences with an emphasis on education. At each residency, Asheville Symphony audiences will discover new ways to appreciate and understand a musical instrument and its role in an orchestra.

“The Artist Residency has a distinct focus on education,” says ASO Executive Director Daniel Crupi. “We wanted to create an opportunity to embed world-class artists in our community in a variety of different contexts to give audience members the chance to learn about and appreciate one specific instrument, which this inaugural year is the violin. We are thrilled that Noah Bendix-Balgley, who leads one of the best orchestras in the world, is returning to his hometown for the inaugural Artist Residency alongside his wife, Shanshan Yao, who is also a lauded violinist.”

Asheville Symphony’s Artist Residency: A Celebration of the Violin will feature nine events from March 12 to March 18, 2024.

Bendix-Balgley will kick off the Artist Residency with an ALT ASO chamber concert at the Asheville Masonic Temple that features the range of genres in which you can find a violin. He will also play a recital of technically challenging pieces, including Bela Bartók’s “Sonata for Solo Violin” which was composed in Asheville.

Yao will lead a free masterclass open to all strings students in Asheville City and Buncombe County schools, and then she and Bendix-Balgley will play together for Asheville Symphony’s “Masterworks 5: Violin Virtuosi” on an all-violin, all-concerto program.

Bendix-Balgley will end the residency playing as concertmaster for the Asheville Symphony Youth Orchestra—a rare opportunity for student musicians to be led by one of the top concertmasters in the world.

Audiences will also have a chance to hear from Musicologist and Associate Dean at Oberlin Conservatory Christopher Jenkins, who will deliver a lecture on the history and evolution of the violin as a globally influential instrument at UNC-Asheville’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

During the week of the residency, the Asheville Symphony Symphonettes, a high school service group, will run an instrument drive to collect unused instruments to repair and donate to local public schools. If you have an instrument you’d like to donate, email ASO at [email protected].

“Whether you are a music student, a lifelong fan of the violin, or just curious to learn more about and appreciate music, the Artist Residency is for you,” said Crupi. “Our aim is to deepen audiences’ insight and increase esteem for this amazing instrument’s place in the musical canon.”

The full list of events, tickets, and more information is available at www.AshevilleSymphony.org, or by calling the Asheville Symphony box office at (828) 254-7046.