Strings Sessions Presents: Nancy Zhou

Zhou recorded this Strings Session on a 1725 Carlo Bergonzi violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music

When chatting with Greg Cahill in “Tales Interwoven” (September/October 2025) about her new album STORIES (re)TRACED (Orchid Classics), violinist Nancy Zhou had this to say about what she had hoped to accomplish with the recording of solo virtuoso works by Ysaÿe, Bartók, Bach, and Kreisler: “Featuring a quartet of interwoven stories with Bartók’s solo violin sonata as the cornerstone, the album is a response to the question of our humanity and pays tribute to the violin as an art medium. The instrument is a unique vehicle for all-encompassing expression that spans from lyrical beauty to elemental and visceral honesty.”

Stories (re)Traced is Zhou’s debut album, but she made her orchestral debut twenty years ago and has since collaborated with leading orchestras throughout the world. She is also a passionate chamber musician and educator. Her instrument, a 1725 Carlo Bergonzi, is a continuing source of inspiration to Zhou: “Her character and soundscape match her physical beauty: dark, lush, gritty, and quintessentially violinistic. But, like any ideal partner, she doesn’t lend herself easily to conformity! She challenges and—at just the right time—confronts. My understanding of expressive technique has grown with this instrument. She has made me learn to listen with more discernment and sensitivity, and in turn, to play with more specificity.”

Zhou recorded this Strings Session on location at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she played two pieces that appear on the album (Bach’s Partita No. 1, Allemande, and Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice) and one that does not (Paganini’s Caprice No. 24). Enjoy here.

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