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Few people travel more than performing artists, and given the environmental ramifications of such globe-trotting, German violinist Julia Fischer is doing everything she can to cut down on her carbon footprint.
She drives an electric car. She takes the train whenever she can in Europe, where most of her career is centered. And she has cut back her trips to the United States to no more than once a year.
But she has made a point of keeping Symphony Center in her plans when she does cross the Atlantic, last appearing two years ago with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti, now the CSO’s Music Director Emeritus for Life.
“I love the city and I love the hall,” she said from Germany, where she was tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor, Vasily Petrenko. “I really enjoy Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, I have to say. I think it is a really fantastic hall. It is so beautiful and inspiring to play in it.”
Fischer, 41, will return March 30 for a duo-recital with Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki as part of the Symphony Center Presents Chamber Music Series. The visit will be part of a five-city tour that begins March 25 at Princeton University and runs through April 1 at David Geffen Hall in New York City’s Lincoln Center.
“I haven’t done a recital tour for a long time in America, so I thought this was a good time,” she said.
Lisiecki, 29, who won Gramophone’s Young Artist Award when he was 18, is best known as a soloist. He presented an all-Chopin solo recital in January 2022 as part of the Symphony Center Presents Piano Series.
The collaborators met 2½ years ago at the Rheingau Musik Festival in Germany, where the two were artists-in-residence. Organizers asked them to perform a duo-recital, which was the first time they performed together, and they immediately clicked. “We both enjoyed it so much that we decided that we would do a tour,” she said.
Unlike some star soloists, who devote nearly all their time to duo recitals and orchestral concerts, Fischer makes a point of regularly performing chamber music, including tours with the Julia Fischer Quartet. The ensemble has maintained the same personnel since its founding in 2010.
“I love doing all of it,” she said. “I love doing chamber music. I love doing quartets, recitals, as well as orchestra tours. And I try to have everything per season in my life.” That typically means each season at least one quartet tour, one or two recital tours, two orchestra tours, plus sets of subscription concerts with orchestras.
But things sometimes vary. “In the end, I decide purely artistically what I’m interested in,” she said. “So if I have interesting offers from conductors and orchestras in a season, then it might be more orchestra [engagements],” she said.
In 2024-25, she is doing more duo-recitals than usual because she is enjoying playing with Lisiecki so much. In November, they teamed for a 10-concert European tour that took them to such countries as Italy and Spain, and now the two are back together for this American jaunt.
For their March 30 recital, Fischer and Lisiecki will present a program with three repertoire stalwarts: Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 26 in B-flat Major, K. 378; Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Spring, Op. 24, and Robert Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op.121.
Fischer is quick to admit that she typically likes to include at least one lesser-known work on her programs, but she largely yielded to Lisiecki on this recital. “I have to say that I enjoyed the tour with Jan in November [which had a virtually identical lineup]. It was also nice to go back to the roots [of the classical repertoire],” she said.
One piece she did insist they include was the selection by Schumann, which is one of Fischer’s favorite sonatas. “The problem with the Schumann Second is that you need a superb pianist — absolutely first class — because it is a very difficult piano part,” she said. “And it happened that when we first played together, we did the Schumann Second, and I was absolutely blown away by Jan and how he played it. It was breathtaking, so I’m enjoying the Schumann Second so much that I try to program it with him whenever possible.”
Liesicki very much wanted to do the works by Beethoven and Mozart, whose music he performs regularly. “Since he has not played that much with violin, all of these pieces are new to him, so the Mozart sonata he played for the first time in November,” Fischer said. “It’s interesting to work on these pieces with him since he is doing them for the first time, and it’s also refreshing for me and inspiring.”
