Tales Interwoven

Violinist Nancy Zhou trips the folk fantastic

By George Cahlll

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"An album can be as much a personal statement as a response to the current cultural and social climate we live in,” says violinist Nancy Zhou, 32, describing the impetus behind her latest recording. “My love for both folk music as acultural and social force, and the violin as such a versatile means of expression, inspired me to make the record.”

On her sublime debut effort, STORIES(re)TRACED (Orchid Music), the Texas-born, New England Conservatory- and Harvard-educated daughter of Chinese immigrants selects Bartók to anchor a program of scrupulously researched solo violin works that also includes virtuoso numbers by Bach, Ysaÿe, and Kreisler. The album showcases Zhou’s remarkable command of dynamics, from the whisper-soft sweetness of the Melodia movement of Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin to the to the double-stop stabs of Kreisler’s Recitativo & Scherzo-Caprice. Her exquisite reading of Ysaÿe’s yearning Sarabande (Quasi lento) from his Sonata No. 4 in E minor, Op.27/4, alone is worth the price of admission. In terms of sonics, this is a very live-, very present-sounding recording, the tracks laid down at George Lucas’ renowned Skywalker Ranch studio in San Rafael, California.

During her productive career, Zhou has won numerous competitions, performed at top music festivals, and appeared with major symphonies, including the Shanghai and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras. and the China and Hohhot Philharmonics, performing Western and Chinese repertoire while bridging a cultural gap between the United States and China. Her teachers include Miriam Fried of the New England Conservatory and her father, San Antonio Symphony violinist Long Zhou. Strings asked Zhou about the new album and her connection to this great music..

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