ONLINE: RBP on JSB: The Masterclass

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Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Classical violinist Rachel Barton Pine.

media release: Leading classical violinist Rachel Barton Pine is building on the momentum of her current “24 in 24: Concertos from the Inside” weekly streaming show to celebrate emerging artists with “RBPonJSB: The Masterclasses.” In the bi-weekly educational series launching Friday, March 5, at 6:30 pm ET, Pine draws from her lifelong study of Bach’s music to work on all of Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in a masterclass setting with rising star violinists.

Sphinx Laureates Esme Arias-Kim, Claire Arias-Kim, Sabrina Bradford, Brendon Elliott, Julimar Gonzalez, and Allison Lovera will join other up-and-coming violinists to appear in the bi-weekly series. Conservatories attended by participating young artists include the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the Yale University School of Music.

March 5: Partita No.1 in B minor, BWV 1002 

March 19: Sonata No.1 in G minor, BWV 1001 

April 2: Sonata No.2 in A minor, BWV 1003 

April 16: Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004

April 30: Sonata No.3 in C major, BWV 1005

May 14: Partita No.3 in E major, BWV 1006

“Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas form one of the most significant and profound cycles in classical music. I’m filled with joy over what promises to be a mutual continuing journey of discovery, learning, and meaning. We’ll celebrate some incredible young musicians and gain insight into how different performers arrive at their creative decisions,” says Pine. The six-part bi-weekly series is open to the public and targeted towards professional violinists, advanced violin students, violin teachers, and violin enthusiasts. The cost is $15 per show or $60 for the whole series. Each episode will begin at 6:30 pm ET and will be available on demand directly following. More details are available at OurConcerts.live/rbp.

Free entry to the series has been granted to all Sphinx Laureates and participants in the Sphinx Performance Academy, as well as to the young performers playing in the masterclasses. Revenues from the masterclass series will benefit the not-for-profit Rachel Barton Pine (RBP) Foundation, which assists young artists through its Instrument Loan Program and Grants for Education and Career. The RBP Foundation also runs Music by Black Composers (MBC), which works to rectify historic and ongoing racial injustices in the classical music sphere.

The quality of Pine’s scholarship and depth of her experience has continued to distinguish her interpretation of Bach’s music. She is the only American gold medalist of the J.S. Bach International Violin Competition in Leipzig, Germany, an honor she won in 1992 at age 17. In addition to studying and performing Bach’s solo and chamber works, she has extensively researched many of the composers Bach admired. She has given numerous historically informed performances of 17th and 18th century music from Germany, France, and Italy, which served as direct influences on his compositions. Her background in performing multiple styles adds nuanced layers to her phrasing and ornaments.

Pine’s 2016 Testament: Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach hit number one on the Billboard Classical chart. Her insights about these works, including her suggestions for dynamics, phrasing, bowings, and fingerings, are detailed in her Carl Fischer publication J.S. Bach: Six Sonatas and Partitas. Through her popular #RBPonJSB video series on The Violin Channel, she discusses each movement of Bach’s Six Solo Sonatas and Partitas. Her numerous performances of the complete cycle include recitals for Ravinia, the National Gallery, the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, and Seattle Early Music.

Wrote Joan Reinthaler of The Washington Post of her National Gallery performance, “violinist Rachel Barton Pine aimed the spotlight not at her own dazzling technique but rather at the music in as astonishing and joyful a performance of all three sonatas and three partitas as I’ve ever heard… What Pine communicated was pure Bach, his pleasure in working out musical ideas, his architectural structures large and small and his reverence for both the struggle and the peace that music can offer.”

Pine is the only American to have received the Gold Medal at the Bach International Violin Competition in Leipzig, Germany, and she remains the youngest person to have received the award, at age 17. She is an award-winning, chart-topping artist who performs with the world's leading orchestras and has recorded 39 acclaimed albums. Her performances are heard on NPR and stations around the globe. She has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, CNN, and PBS NewsHour, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and in media outlets around the world. In January 2021, she launched “24 in 24: Concertos from the Inside with RBP,” a weekly series in which she performs the entire solo violin part of the greatest violin concertos unaccompanied and shares her perspective on each masterwork. Her RBP Foundation runs the Music by Black Composers project and assists young artists through its Instrument Loan Program, Grants for Education and Career, and Global HeartStrings, which supports musicians in developing countries.

For more information, please visit OurConcerts.live/rbp.