Year in Review: Violinist.com's Best Reads of 2025

December 27, 2025, 4:00 PM · Holiday greetings from Violinist.com headquarters in Pasadena, Calif.! As 2025 comes to an end, I'm taking a little time to wind down, visit friends and family and take stock of a year that has seen some serious ups and downs. While I take some time from writing, I wanted to present to you some of our best reads of 2025 - from news events to think pieces, interviews to stories about technique and a deep dive into new repertoire. All of them are full of that human touch that we hold so important here at Violinist.com - in art, music and communication. So enjoy some good reading, and Happy New Year!
- Laurie

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Pasadena Symphony Helps Community Grieve and Give After Fires
The concert was about to begin in January 2025, and I looked across the stage at my colleague Irina Voloshina, sitting right by the audience in the first violins. I could see she was having a hard time holding back the tears. Pasadena Symphony conductor Brett Mitchell was finishing his opening words, acknowledging that it had been a very difficult few weeks in the community of Pasadena and Altadena, California, where the Eaton Canyon fire had reduced a huge portion of the area to rubble and ash over the course of one night. Irina's home had burned to the ground during the fire. She was out of the country when it happened, but - thankfully - she had called a friend to retrieve her violin from the house. However - the violin was the only thing that was rescued. Keep reading....

Violinist.com Interview with Composer Jessie Montgomery
"I think that music is an emotional thing," composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery told Violinist.com in an interview in February 2025. "Yes, music is a phenomenon that we can study intellectually. But the thing that makes music impactful or meaningful is if it can speak to emotional qualities as well. And you can write music that speaks to emotions without being overly sentimental or corny about it. The emotional arc and emotional qualities within a piece of music are also part of the infrastructure of the music itself." Keep reading....

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Behind the Scenes: the LA Phil Goes to Coachella
LA Phil Associate Concertmaster Bing Wang said she'd never been to Coachella - until now. On a Saturday in April 2025, Wang and the entire Los Angeles Philharmonic loaded into a bus at the Hollywood Bowl and traveled four hours to Indio, Calif. - the desert town where the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes place, about 150 miles east of Los Angeles. Once there, they gave an hour-long show - led by Gustavo Dudamel - that meshed classical with a huge range of genres and guest artists. What did Wang think of it? She loved it - they all did. Keep reading...

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How to Win Any Violin Competition
I've been watching the classical music world long enough to know that the real "winners" and "losers" in any competition are often completely unrelated to which person has walked away with the gold. It's true for high-level international competitions, and for more entry-level ones as well. Perhaps surprisingly, it's often the musician who came in second, or fifth, or not at all, who gets into that famous college, or becomes a beloved soloist, or makes a revelatory recording, or starts an amazing chamber series or becomes a well-respected professor at a top music school. Or just has a happy life. Keep reading...

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Supporting Young Musicians: The Story Behind the Arkady Fomin Scholarship Fund
Late last century, in a country half a world away, two very gifted teenage musicians - violinist Vadim Gluzman and pianist Angela Yoffe - faced an uncertain future. Both had grown up in a Jewish community behind the Iron Curtain, in Riga, Latvia, and just as the Soviet Union was falling, their families had decided to emigrate to Israel. Once there, they connected again through music - then they fell in love. Then, they came to America. Now, some 35 years later, they balance international careers with a deep commitment to the community in suburban Chicago they now call home. But it never would have happened without a man named Arkady Fomin. Keep reading...

Interview with William Hagen: From Suzuki Violin to the World Stage
In early May 2025, violinist William Hagen sat down with a group of Suzuki teachers to talk about his violin journey: from being a Suzuki kid, to studying at The Colburn School, to the world stage as a soloist. Hagen told us that it all began when he heard a violin at church, at age three. He was so taken with it that he started begging his parents for a violin - begging intensely. "Apparently the begging lasted longer than the normal 20 minutes - so it must have made a huge impression on me!" he told us. They relented, and by age four he had started violin lessons. Keep reading...

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Katie Lansdale: Irresistible Violin Repertoire from Around the Globe
It's pretty amazing that single violin can make you feel like you've taken a trip around the world and soaked up myriad cultures, but that is exactly what violinist Katie Lansdale did in her lecture at the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies in June 2025. It was a beautiful way to become familiar with five of todays most popular living composers through their works for violin, and Laurie's article will help you dive into these pieces by Fazil Say, Lei Liang, Carlos Simon, Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Reena Esmail and the late Jaroslav Vanecek. Complete with videos, links to the music and performance tips from Katie. Keep reading...

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How to Play the Violin: The Many Motions in a Single Bow Stroke
A perfect, rapid whole bow stroke is a beautiful coordination of speed, varying hand force from frog to tip, and control of bow angle by using circular motions of the shoulder, arm, and wrist to produce a straight line motion of the bow. Violinist and teacher Michael Schallock shares this deep dive into the whole bow stroke, from frog to tip, including the mechanics of sound production on the violin, an analysis of the individual motions of the right hand and arm, and a discussion of common errors and their correction. Keep reading...

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Master Class with Cornelia Heard
It was one of those master classes where every violinist played so exceptionally - you kind of wonder what a teacher could possibly say. Yet Cornelia ("Connie") Heard, a Professor of Violin at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music and member of the Blair String Quartet, worked with each of five student artists in a way that acknowledged their considerable accomplishments while also opening a door for further exploration. She offered some new angles on their playing, should they choose to explore them. Keep reading...

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Utah Violinist Describes Terror of ICE Detainment
Utah violinist John Shin, who was detained for 17 days by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sat next to his wife Danae Snow Shin in September 2025 and spoke at length on about his experience at an ICE detention center in Aurora, Colorado. "I was absolutely terrified. I cried all day." Keep reading...

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Ditching Sheet Music for the iPad - on the Concert Stage
In September 2025, Laurie Niles played her first symphony concert using an iPad instead of sheet music - and it worked! While this practice is not crazy-unusual, she did need to drum up some courage and expand her comfort zone to do so. And it was also novel enough to draw some attention from curious colleagues - two iPads on the music stand? Keep reading...

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First Look: Colburn School's New Concert Hall for Los Angeles
It gave me a grand and momentous feeling in early October 2025, to be standing in the center of a place that holds so much potential for the future: the site of the Colburn School's new Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall, currently under construction in downtown Los Angeles. Imagine the concerts that will happen here, the student and professional artists who will come to make music and dance, the people who will come to see it all! What a hopeful moment for classical music! Keep reading...

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We also remember these musicians and people of significance to the violin world, who died in 2025 (Click on their names for the obituary):

Violin Dealer Charles Beare (1937-2025)
Violinist Roberto Cani (1967-2025)
Chicago Symphony Violinist Fox Fehling (1949-2025)
Frank Gehry (1929-2025), Architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall
Bassist Gary Karr (1941-2025)
Violin Collector and Luthier Dr. William Sloan (1941-2025)
Longtime Violinist.com member Andrew Victor (1934-2025)

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Year in Review: Violinist.com's Best Reads of 2025

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