An American in Paris
An American in Paris
Saturday, April 18, 2026 | 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 19, 2025 | 3:00 PM
The Granada Theatre
Concert Duration: Approximately 90 minutes including a 20-minute Intermission
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Saturday Pre-Concert Chat | 6:30-7:00 PM
Sunday Pre-Concert Chat | 2:00-2:30 PM
Coming in April
Program Notes and Digital Program
Gershwin’s jazzy musical postcard, An American in Paris, highlights this program of America’s masters as the nation turns 250. Alexi Kenny, acclaimed by The New York Times for virtuosity that is “breathless and often daring” plays Barber’s haunting Violin Concerto. Charles Ives’ vibrant Three Places in New England presents portraits of patriotism. And the inner glow of Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral will soothe long after its sumptuous sound fades to silence.
The Artists
Nir Kabaretti, Conductor
Alexi Kenney, Violin
Repertoire
IVES | Three Places in New England
BARBER | Violin Concerto
JENNIFER HIGDON | Blue Cathedral
GERSHWIN | An American in Paris
Alexi Kenney, Violin
Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras around the world, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time. Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.
Read more about Alexi Kenney
Highlights of Alexi’s 2023/24 season include appearing as soloist with the Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee Symphonies, leading a program of his own creation with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and debuting a new iteration of his project Shifting Ground at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Ojai Festival, in collaboration with the new media and video artist Xuan. Shifting Ground intersperses seminal works for solo violin by J.S. Bach with pieces by Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Nicola Matteis, Kaija Saariaho, Paul Wiancko, and Du Yun, as well as new commissions by composers Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón. The album version of Shifting Ground will be released in June 2024.
In recent seasons, Alexi has soloed with the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Detroit Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and l’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, as well as in a play-conduct role as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, on Carnegie Hall’s ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition and laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition, Alexi has been profiled by Musical America, Strings Magazine, and The New York Times, and has written for The Strad.
Chamber music continues to be a major part of Alexi’s life, regularly performing at festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, Kronberg, La Jolla, Ojai, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is a founding member of Owls—an inverted quartet hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times—alongside violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko. Alexi is also an alum of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS 2) at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received an Artist Diploma as a student of Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein. Previous mentors in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by François-Nicolas Voirin.
Outside of music, Alexi enjoys hojicha, modernist design and architecture, baking for friends and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.
Nir Kabaretti
is The Santa Barbara Symphony's World-Renowned Music & Artistic Director
Nir Kabaretti has worked with some of the world’s most sought-after musicians. Some of his most well-known collaborators include Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Joyce Di Donato, Angel Joy Blue, Vadim Repin, Gilles Apap, Hélène Grimaud, and André Watts.
Nir Kabaretti
is The Santa Barbara Symphony's World-Renowned Music & Artistic Director
Nir Kabaretti has worked with some of the world’s most sought-after musicians. Some of his most well-known collaborators include Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Joyce Di Donato, Angel Joy Blue, Vadim Repin, Gilles Apap, Hélène Grimaud, and André Watts.
A very warm and special thank you
to our 2025/26 season donors and the sponsors making
this event possible!
Sponsors
Principal Sponsor
TBAA
Artist Sponsor
TBA
Selection Sponsors
Janet A. Garufis
Judd* & Susan Lundt
Anne F. Sage & Jesse D. Sgro
Pat & Terry Straehley
Wallin Studios
Mike Weems
* in memoriam
2025/26 Concert Season Sponsors
Sarah & Roger Chrisman
Corporate Season Sponsor
Grand Venue Sponsor
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