Christmas shopping for violin aficionados

Here's a list to help you find that right download or cd for someone special this holiday season who digs violin:

10. Viktoria Mullova/Guiliano Carmignola: Vivaldi Concerti for 2 violins (DG Archiv)

9. Lara St. John: Corigliano Red Violin Suite (Ancalagon)

8. Joshua Bell: Vivaldi Four Seasons (Sony)

7. Gil Shaham: Elgar Violin Concerto (Canary Classics)

6. Lisa Batiashvili: Beethoven Violin Concerto (Sony)

5. Leila Josefowicz: Knussen Concerto (DG)

4. Hilary Hahn: Schoenberg/Sibelius Concerti (DG)

3. Janine Jansen: Bach Itunes album -Trio Sonata & selections(Decca)

2. Janine Jansen: Shostakovich Quintet/Trio (Onyx)

1. Anne-Sophie Mutter: Bach Concerti/Gubaidulina In tempus praesens (DG)

Ask Hilary

In celebration of Arnold Schoenberg's birthday on Saturday, September 13th, violinist Hilary Hahn will launch a custom-designed YouTube channel that will include new video content she will create in response to fan questions about her most recent album - the violin concertos of Schoenberg and Sibelius - as well as a collection of past performance and related videos. Hahn's YouTube channel will give fans the chance to comment, rate, and respond to the new video content, and will allow users to embed the videos on their own websites, blogs, or any of the popular social networks such as Facebook or MySpace. Hahn will use her new channel as a hub for video content for her most recent release and future projects as well.
To submit questions about the album for Hahn to video-answer, please e mail questions@firstchairpromo.com. Twenty fan questions will be selected and posted on http://www.youtube.com/hilaryhahnvideos throughout the day beginning at midnight on September 13th.
Here's my question, How do you choose recital partners and cd collaborators? Read about Hilary's cd launch party in NYC this last April here.

And I'm thankful!

There's a nice article in many respects, about the generation of young women violinists:
The violin femmes
By Kyle MacMillan, Denver Post, Fine Arts Critic

You can read the entire article here.

You can also hear some of my interviews with these violinists, a blogposting and audio here for Janine; and here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for real audio files with Hilary.