Celebrating 50 Years of Stulberg with Rachel Barton Pine in Kalamazoo

Celebrating 50 Years of Stulberg w/ Rachel Barton Pine
November 23, 2024, 7:30 PM
Dalton Center Recital Hall
Duration: ~1 hour, 30 minutes

Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Matt Hagle, piano

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 301 (14')
Leoš Janáček - Sonata for Violin and Piano (16')
William Grant Still - Suite for Violin and Piano (15')
Johannes Brahms - Violin Sonata No. 4 in F minor, Op. 120, No.1 (21')
Niccolò Paganini - La Campanella (7')

World-class violin performer, and former two-time Stulberg medalist Rachel Barton Pine makes her return to Kalamazoo to present a solo recital with pianist Matt Hagle, featuring a program of works that showcase her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and emotional honesty.

What You’ll Experience:
An extensive program with a performance by one of the most esteemed violin performers world-wide.
Heartbreaking and Romantic melodies by Brahms, Still, and Janáček.
Classical flair and fiery displays of virtuosity.

What’s Interesting About This Program:
Rachel Barton Pine got her start as a violin performer in part at the Stulberg Competition in 1986 when she won the Silver Medal and again in 1990 winning the Bronze Medal. Pine’s history with the Stulberg goes deeper than the competition as when she faced an injury to her leg in 1994 from a Chicago commuter train, her surgeon was David Stulberg, son of Julius and Esther Stulberg.


Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano is inspired by three contemporary Black artists that he said he admired. The three artists are, in order of the movements of the piece that they inspired: sculptor Richmond Barthé (1901-1989), painter and sculptor Sargent Johnson (1887-1967), and sculptor Augusta Savage (1892-1962). The exact sculptures that inspire the movements share their namesake with the movement titles.

Paganini’s La Campanella is an adaptation of an equally virtuosic piano work by Franz Liszt of the same name. Arrangements such as these are characteristic of Paganini’s style and oftentimes he wrote these works as pure demonstrations of his technical abilities on the violin.