Press Releases

From the moment I played through the piece for the first time,
I felt that X Suite was a representation of myself in musical form

Alexi Kenney

The Borletti-Buitoni Trust has supported 2020 Award winner Alexi Kenney’s first recording project – and it’s not just an audio album, but also a visual experience featuring seven monumental works of art set in the landscape of the Donum Estate in California, Kenney’s home state. X Suite for solo violin is a seven-movement work written by multi-faceted American musician and composer Paul Wiancko specially for Alexi who performed the world premiere at London’s Wigmore Hall in 2019. The Visual Album is released on 16 April on all digital platforms.

Much of the Suite is inspired by Baroque dances which have been whimsically and colourfully re-imagined through a contemporary lens with, as Kenney explains, ‘an electric current of raw emotion running through it and a clarity of thought that transcends the notes on the page and takes on a life of its own’. It is also a virtuosic and innovative feat of composition with all the movements sharing the same DNA – common motifs, techniques, intervals and melodies, warping and morphing constantly throughout the work. In the third movement Canon, for example, the violinist is asked to play two voices on two strings in canon at the unison, while Bourrée features a chorus of eight chattering voices to be played simultaneously.

It is Kenney’s strong belief in the synergy between sculpture and composition that also led him to commission a music video to turn this into a Visual Album. Filmed by photographer, film-maker and cellist Mike Grittani, it is set in the Donum Estate in Sonoma, California which is as renowned for its collection of monumental open-air art works as it is for its winemaking. Each movement was consciously and carefully paired with one of the different contemporary installations, stimulating visual and musical energy between them.

BBT is also supporting Alexi’s next musical innovation entitled [c]ode[x], a set of six new commissions for violin and electronics based on poetry which will be premiered in the 2022/23 season.

X Suite for Solo Violin

Paul Wiancko website

Release date 16 April 2021 on all major digital platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, Bandcamp etc)

X Suite was recorded on 21 February 2020 at the Soka Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo, California by Sergey Parfenov (who also edited, mixed and mastered the album) and was co-produced by Irina Osetinskaya and Alexi Kenney.

X Suite: The Video was filmed by Mike Grittani at the Donum Estate in January 2021 with assistance from Alice Kao and aerial cinematography courtesy of Eric Cheng.

Two of the movements (ii Allemande and vii Orison) have been released as singles and are currently streaming. See below and also via YouTube

Alexi Kenney violin

Alexi Kenney website

• Born 1994 in Palo Alto, California
  Graduate of New England Conservatory, Boston and was a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein. Previous teachers include Wei He, Jenny Rudin and Natasha Fong
• Prizes and Awards include laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition, winner of Concert Artists Guild Competition 2013, Avery Fisher Career Grant 2016 and Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2020
• Soloist appearances include with orchestras such as Detroit Symphony, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Pittsburgh Symphony
• Recital appearances include Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival
• Chamber music is a major focus and he plays at festivals including Marlboro, La Jolla, Caramoor, Kronberg, Ravinia, Music@Menlo and Yellow Barn. Member of The Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
• Recording: His first recording is X Suite, written for him by Paul Wiancko, digitally released April 2021
• Instrument: Plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greinerin 2009

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