Violinist Geneva Lewis Discusses Her Influential Teachers, Playing Joachim’s Stradivarius, and More
Geneva Lewis and Marisa Gupta perform Amy Beach’s Romance for the 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant Award Ceremony
Sunset ChamberFest is delighted to welcome violinist Geneva Lewis to the Festival. Geneva was born in Auckland. Her father is a professional tennis player from New Zealand and her American mother, a runway model who also trained as a Montessori educator, home schooled Geneva and her siblings. As a child Geneva moved to the Los Angeles area where she spent her formative years, until re-locating to Boston to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she is currently completing an Artist Diploma. She is a recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the 2020 CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition. Hear her on July 12 performing pieces by Harrison Garff and Brett Dean, and on July 18 performing Shostakovich’s Quintet. She tells us about her teachers, the special instrument she performs on at Sunset this year, and upcoming plans.
Could you tell us a bit about your musical upbringing and education - how have your teachers contributed to your personal qualities and voice as a musician now?
I’ve had two major violin teachers in my life, Aimée Kreston and Miriam Fried, who have been my strongest musical influences. In the most basic sense, I feel that Aimée taught me to build and follow my intuition, and Miriam has taught me to understand and explain my intuition. They also both have an obsession with sound, which I think they’ve passed on to me.
Left: Miriam Fried, photo by Henry Fair; Right: Aimée Kreston, photo courtesy of the Colburn School
You are performing on a very special instrument during Sunset this year. Could you tell us about that?
I’m fortunate enough to be playing on the Joachim-Ma Stradivarius, c. 1714, generously on loan from the New England Conservatory. It’s an incredible violin with a very rich history - as one of Joachim’s favored instruments, it was likely often heard and played with by the likes of Johannes Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann, etc. Theres also a good chance that this is the violin the Brahms Violin Concerto was premiered on, which is amazing to think about!
Left: Geneva Lewis, photo by Motti Fang-Bentov; Right: Joachim-Ma Stradivarius, photo courtesy of Tarisio
What was the experience learning Brett Dean’s Seven Signals and working with the composer like?
It was a really special experience for me, largely because I so enjoyed working with my three collaborators, Marisa Gupta, Yoshi Masuda, and Sérgio Coelho. There’s something really magical about four people discovering a piece together and bringing it to life. It was also really inspiring to have had the chance to work with Brett Dean over Zoom, where he generously imparted his thoughts about both his piece, and our interpretation of his piece.
Geneva Lewis, Yoshi Masuda, Mike Kaufman, Marisa Gupta and Sérgio Coelho after performing Seven Signals
What are some of the performance highlights that you are looking forward to?
After such a long and difficult period of cancelled concerts and projects, it’s really exciting to start seeing things happen again. This season, I have some really exciting upcoming recitals, including performances at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, Tippet Rise, Emory University, Purdue Convocations, Kravis Center, and Dame Myra Hess, among others.
Geneva Lewis and Nathan Lewis perform William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag