Violin News: Ray Chen, Capuçon and Koh

This week’s violin news has a useful common thread: strong artistic identities travel across new music, established repertoire and the institutions that support a career. Ray Chen is giving the world premiere of Teddy Abrams’s Seasons of America with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In San Francisco, Renaud Capuçon is playing Mendelssohn inside a programme that reaches from Brahms and Pärt to John Adams. The Cleveland Institute of Music has also announced Eun-song Koh as its new Assistant Professor of Violin. Tanya’s performer take: the violin world moves forward when players make a clear artistic proposition, then present it with the preparation to carry it from stage to audience and screen.

Original Tanya Strings editorial image; it is not a photograph from the reported events.

What makes Ray Chen’s new concerto premiere worth following?

Ray Chen joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic this week for the world premiere of Seasons of America, written and conducted by Teddy Abrams. The LA Phil’s event page places the new concerto alongside Julia Perry, Charles Ives and Gershwin, on performances running October 29 through November 1 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. It describes the work as Abrams’s contemporary American response to Vivaldi’s seasonal idea, with Chen as soloist in the premiere.

The programme design matters. A premiere can feel intimidating to a casual listener, but familiar reference points make the invitation clear: weather, place, American sound and a violinist with a large online audience. Abrams’s own announcement says the concerto was co-commissioned by the LA Phil and Louisville Orchestra and written for Chen. That close composer-soloist connection gives a new work a human story before the first note.

How can a performer borrow that idea?

• Name the thread that links an original arrangement to the rest of a live set.
• Give audiences one visual cue that fits the sound, such as a season, city, colour or rhythm.
• Film one short, well-lit excerpt so the new piece can continue travelling after the show.

Tanya’s take: originality becomes easier to share when the audience can describe it in one sentence.

Why is Capuçon’s Mendelssohn programme a model of contrast?

At Davies Symphony Hall, Renaud Capuçon is the violin soloist in Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Music Director Designate Elim Chan. The orchestra’s official listing confirms performances on October 29, 30 and 31, pairing the concerto with Brahms’s Nänie, Arvo Pärt’s Magnificat and John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony.

For music fans, that is a chance to hear a beloved concerto in a wide frame. The luminous Mendelssohn line does not need to carry the evening by itself; choral writing and Adams’s darker orchestral world create a changing horizon around it. For planners, it is a reminder that contrast is more memorable than a programme of similar temperatures.

Electric violin performers can translate the same thought without copying a symphonic programme. Start a set with an elegant acoustic-leaning tone, open the middle with a rhythmic loop or electronic texture, then return to one strong lyrical melody. The changes should serve a single arc rather than arrive as disconnected tricks.

What does the Eun-song Koh appointment say about career ecosystems?

On October 27, the Cleveland Institute of Music announced that violinist Eun-song Koh will become Assistant Professor of Violin for 2026–27. A CIM alumna who has served as guest faculty since 2025, Koh brings international orchestral and chamber performance experience alongside work at Interlochen and Bolivia Clásica.

This is profession news, not a reason to turn Tanya Strings into a teaching brand. It matters because conservatories, presenters, collaborators and audiences form the infrastructure around performance careers. When institutions appoint artist-practitioners with broad experience, emerging players gain more examples of how a violin life can combine stage craft, chamber listening, travel and community work.

What should performers, planners and fans watch next?

Watch how Chen and Abrams turn a fresh concerto into a continuing story after its first weekend. Listen to how Capuçon keeps Mendelssohn’s directness alive inside a large-scale, mixed-era programme. And notice how career pathways remain wider than any one role: a world-class player may premiere, tour, record, collaborate, lead a room and create content around the work. Tanya Strings brings that performer-first perspective to electric violin shows, original music and polished live content.

Original Tanya Strings editorial image; it is not a photograph from the reported events.