Violinist Hilary Hahn plots out an organically themed program for current tour

Hilary Hahn doesn’t favor themed concert programs, but the world-renowned violinist is looking forward to performing one in recital at Symphony Center on May 24. Spanning a century of French and French-inspired music, her program runs from the well-known to the unknown; from compositions by Fauré, Debussy and Ravel, to those by French jazz violinist and teacher Scott Tixier, Chinese-born composer Bun-Ching Lam and onetime Fauré student Lili Boulanger. But here’s the thing: It came together organically. Hence Hahn’s enthusiasm.

“I didn’t set out to create a French program,” says Hahn, who was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence from September 2021 to June 2023. “I like to work with colleagues on things that they enjoy playing and that I enjoy playing — things where we meet at our interests or at our strengths. And when I was working with Tom [Poster, her pianist] on the program, we were thinking about what to play and what we really enjoyed. Turns out, I wanted to do the Debussy Sonata, which he loves, and he wanted to do the Fauré Sonata. And I said, ‘Are you sure? That’s a lot?’ And he was like, ‘I love it. I want to do it.’ It’s not impossible by any means. It’s just renowned for having cascades of notes.” 

As they continued talking about other pieces to include, they decided to lean into the emerging French theme. 

“I tried a lot of different orders of the pieces, because I know them,” Hahn says of how she planned the French program. “There are a few pieces that are a little bit newer to me, but I know them by ear. And there’s a world premiere piece [the Tixier] that I’m touring, but I know the composer very well. So I kind of play-listed the pieces and I thought about the audience experience. I always think about what it’s like to be an audience member coming in from your day. Maybe you’ve had a nice dinner beforehand, or maybe you’ve rushed home from work, given all the info to the baby-sitter [before heading out]. Where are you [mentally] when you arrive at the concert hall and settle in?” 

As ever, Hahn thinks beyond the music and tries to envision how her audience might experience a program emotionally — which means considering, at least hypothetically, their everyday lives. It’s a holdover, she says, from her long-ago busking days. Different pieces would resonate differently depending on day and time. Fast, slow, piano, fortissimo — there was no way to predict what might land. Playing a stylistic range, therefore, assured there’d be something for almost everyone and “helped me understand more about what people pick up on when they listen to music in the course of their daily lives.”

At her orchestral concerts and recitals, she also builds in quieter moments “for the energy to settle a bit.” And just as there are many ways to interpret a program, Hahn knows, there are many reasons people attend concerts. That’s a factor in her calculation, too. Along with the dazzling virtuosity for which she is so well-regarded, it’s all part of the Hilary Hahn experience that has captivated legions of fans for more than three decades. 

In addition to her overview of the May 24 Symphony Center program, Hahn offered more specific — and sometimes personal — insights into less widely familiar selections from Tixier (Ressemblance) and Lam (Solitude d’automne), plus, thoughts on Boulanger’s semi-regularly performed Nocturne. Written (for violin or flute) when Boulanger was only 18, it is the program’s shortest selection at only three minutes. 

Tixier, Ressemblance (recently composed and currently on its world-premiere tour): “When we think of a jazz identity, it could be many different types of identities. There are a lot of different styles. There are a lot of different locations and traditions based on those locations: the ensemble style, the improvisation school. There are certain methods of improvisation based on certain trail-blazers, and people play into those traditions or away from them.

“I think Scott is a combination of certain traditions, and one of his main mentors is [French violinist-composer] Jean-Luc Ponty. He also grew up going to the conservatoire and really found his belonging in jazz after that particular training. And he has a company that contracts for sessions and big performances for pop artists, and he has played in many sessions himself, and he teaches. I brought him in to do a master class on improvisation [at Yale].

“The thing he brings that he doesn’t mention in his note about the piece is that his twin brother Tony is a jazz pianist, so Scott grew up hearing jazz piano, and Tony was obsessed with writing. He wrote all of these different harmonies from all the different composers who he was studying. So Scott grew up with the piano and the violin linked in his mind and in his performance. That’s why I wanted to commission him to write Ressemblance as a duo piece, because the way he plays violin, his technique and the way he puts the notes together is very distinctive and very unique to him. I also wanted him to approach writing for piano and really explore that relationship between the two instruments.”

Bun-Ching Lam, Solitude d’autumne (originally commissioned for Hahn’s 2013 project with pianist Cory Smythe In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores): “For me, Bun-Ching is very French, because she spends half her time in Paris. A lot of her works are written in Paris. She’s also a multi-disciplinary artist. When she was writing this piece, she also would make her own paper and print limited-edition artworks on it. I didn’t ask her to write a piece with a French title. She simply wrote the French title because she’s fluent in French — because she was probably writing it with Paris on her mind.

“At the same time, I have a very beautiful, strong memory of when I was touring the ’Encores’ [album]. Antón García Abril, the Spanish composer, was in Paris for one of my recitals, and [Bun-Ching] was there, because she was in Paris at that time. Afterward, we were looking for someplace to eat, and we wound up in a hamburger dive restaurant, because it was the only thing open. Antón [who died in 2021] was a very special influence in my life, but he didn’t speak English, so there was always either his son or his best friend who translated for us.

“We had this wonderful artistic conversation, and [he and Bun-Ching] started bonding over something. I was sitting there feeling like, wow, it’s really amazing what art can do. I just felt like one of the luckiest people in the world to be able to create an environment in which these people could meet and talk and have a wonderful artistic understanding and discussion — and become new friends. I was sitting there, feeling like I was part of a really beautiful ecosystem. It reminded me a little bit of those legendary cafés in Paris, maybe a century ago, where groups of writers and artists and intellectuals gathered. So when I thought about this program, I thought of course I have to put her piece in there.”

Lili Boulanger, Nocturne: “I think that it’s hard to know how much someone learns from their teacher in the way that we think of student-teacher transfer of knowledge. And everyone is also a product of their environment. What had Lili heard around her at that point in her life, being so young? Every composer I’ve talked to who teaches says you can’t teach composition. You can teach someone the skill of composing. You can provide feedback. You can give information on what they’ve written, or encourage them to explore another direction. But [the students] have to have the ideas. They have to be the composers.

“So I try not to read too much into historical connections. What the performer hears in the music, through their own research and conclusions and personal stories, is going to be very powerful. It’s a beautiful piece that I really love. It takes sophistication to be straightforward and simple in a way that’s moving. I’ve played it for a number of years now — the pianist Robert Levin introduced me to it quite a while ago — and I wanted to make sure it got in the program.”