Violinist Mimi Rabson Commissions New Works for Solo Violin
Berklee instructor debuts repertoire by her colleagues that appeals to contemporary tastes
Mimi Rabson, who teaches at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and is the founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, loves music in any number of styles. A few months ago, she premiered a half-dozen short solo works she had commissioned, via grant money, from her Berklee colleagues. Some of the pieces use electronics, some are through-composed, and most provide opportunities for improvisation. The influences run the gamut from rock to Latin to jazz, but each item would be equally at home in small clubs and classical concert halls. “It seems like the gold standard for solo violin is Bach, and those sonatas and partitas are full of dances, 18th-century dances like gigues and courantes and allemandes,” Rabson points out. “I thought it would be fun to have suites of contemporary dances—rock, hip-hop, jazz—so they would be more accessible. There’s often a big disconnect between what people study as violin players and what they listen to for fun.”
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