Violinist James Ehnes reveres his longtime bonds with the CSO and Noseda

Touring soloists commonly develop close working relationships with certain conductors they feel a close musical affinity. That’s certainly the case with Canadian-American violinist James Ehnes and Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, who have performed and recorded together regularly for some 20 years and become good friends.

“There are certain people where you just feel things the same way,” Ehnes said. “It’s difficult to describe. It can be something as simple as feeling [rhythmic] pulse the same way, feeling musical momentum the same way.”

It also helps, Ehnes said, that Noseda “knows how to quickly establish a warm, productive working environment, something that does not always happen with every guest conductor. “Sometimes, you can imagine, I walk into a hornet’s nest, because it’s not gone so well,” said Ehnes, who usually arrives on the second day of rehearsals.

Chicago audiences will have a chance to experience the rapport between these two artists when Ehnes returns Dec. 11-13 to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a program that includes Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4 and Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

For Ehnes, any chance to perform with the CSO has particular significance because of his father’s connections to the orchestra. Alan Ehnes (1946-2019), a longtime trumpet professor at Brandon (Manitoba) University and native of Valparaiso, Ind., studied at Northwestern University with CSO members Vincent Cichowicz and Adolph Herseth and played a few times with the orchestra as an extra. "This is the orchestra that he grew up worshipping, and therefore, that I grew up worshipping. So it’s a particularly special thing to get to play with the CSO.”

Instead of the oft-heard violin concertos by, say, Beethoven or Bruch, Ehnes will perform Benjamin Britten’s lesser-known Violin Concerto, Op. 15, which was composed in 1938-’39 and then revised several times in minor ways, including a final version in 1965.

According to Ehnes, the work has been more often performed in the last 10-15 years, and it got a boost in 2013 from all the attention that Britten received during the centennial celebration of his birth in 2013. “It was at that point that people realized: This piece is magnificent, and we should hear it a lot more often than we do,” he said.

The work was a favorite of his early teacher, Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin. Ehnes learned it as teenager, but did not play it publicly until around 2010. He has performed it regularly since, in part because he appears frequently in Great Britain, where it is more frequently heard, along with the concertos of Edward Elgar and William Walton, two other 20th-century British composers.

“Over the last 20-25 years, I’ve played a lot of Elgar, Walton and Britten,” he said. “I think, lucky me, because I love those pieces. None of the three [violin concertos by those composers] are played all that often, but I usually end up playing all of them at least once a season.”

Cristina Rocca, the CSO’s vice president of artistic administration, was artistic director of the French National Orchestra when Ehnes played the Britten concerto with that ensemble. So it was not surprising when she proposed that he perform the work at Symphony Center.

“The most wonderful thing about the concerto is that there is nothing even remotely like it in the repertoire in terms of the particular, almost peculiar emotional impact of the piece. I find it to be a quite a profound experience in a way that is difficult to describe.”

He characterized it as immediately engaging and exciting and emotionally intense with moments of extreme beauty. “But it’s also a piece that plants a seed,“ he said. ”I think a great performance leaves the audience really thinking about it and really considering what they just heard and what it means and how it made them feel.”

"The CSO is the orchestra that he [his father, trumpeter Alan Ehnes] grew up worshipping, and therefore, that I grew up worshipping. So it’s a particularly special thing to get to play with the CSO.” — James Ehnes

In 2018, New York Times music critic Joshua Barone called Ehnes “one of great Nice Guys of the violin world, up there with Gil Shaham.” His down-to-earth sensibility and geniality were in evidence recently as he spoke for this interview as he drove from the airport to Indiana University, where he is a professor of practice in violin, for his monthly teaching stint there.   

Some of those same qualities will likely be on view next year when undertakes an unusual series of recitals. Though he no longer resides in Canada (his home is in Ellenton, Florida, north of Sarasota), he still feels a loyalty and connection to his native land. So he is marking his 50th birthday in 2026 with a series of three recital tours across the vast country, starting May 1 in Kingston, Ontario. 

“I did the same sort of thing when I turned 40,” he said. “It was like my 40th birthday present to myself, and I just had a such a good time with it. As soon as we finished the last one, the pianist I was working with, my wife and I were like, let’s do it again.”

While he will perform in larger cities like Ottawa and Winnipeg, there also are some towns on the itinerary as well, including some of the venues where he appeared as a budding soloist. He has made a point of not forgetting those roots. “That’s where I learned to do what I do,” he said.

The programs, which also will feature pianist Andrew Armstrong, will include works by Brahms, Bartók and a commission from one of Ehnes’ good friends, Carmen Braden. The composer lives in Yellowknife, the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories, where one of the concerts will take place.

The 50th-birthday concerts will be more like what Ehnes calls “old-school, variety-show recitals” than anything stuffy.  “We leave the second half fairly open so we can do what we like,” he said. “The last time, these concerts became — I suppose it would be too much to say interactive — but particularly in the smaller centers, there is a lot of talking to the audience and playing what feels right at the time.”

More than many soloists, Ehnes has made a point of a balancing his time among concerto performances, chamber music and duo recitals, though he admits that he does more orchestral dates than anything else because of the realities of today’s classical-music market. “I enjoy them all, and I feel each one of them makes me a little better at the other,“ he said. ”It keeps me more well-rounded.”

He puts a special emphasis on chamber music, as he has served since 2012 as the artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, which presents a monthlong festival in July, plus, other concerts year-round. While other full-time soloists sometimes serve as artistic heads of summer festivals or engage in one-year residencies, taking on such a demanding job is highly unusual. “That’s the greatest thing in my life,” he said. “I love it so much. I feel that is a huge source of musical nourishment, I would say.”

After more than three decades as a performer, Ehnes has discovered that the definition of success, at least for him, isn’t what many people might think it is. He is thrilled to have the opportunity to play with top-drawer orchestras like the CSO. “It doesn’t get more flagship than that,” he said. “These are the sorts of things that are incredibly exciting, and that you dream of as a kid.”

But sometimes, he said, people in the business become single-minded in chasing those kinds of major engagements instead of realizing that any night with music can be special. “I feel really lucky at this stage of my life that I can look through my calendar and see a reason to be excited for everything that is in it,” he said. “That obviously includes something like the Chicago Symphony, but it also includes a recital in Sackville, New Brunswick, for my 50th birthday.”