Single tickets for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (KSO) season went on sale yesterday. There are many great reasons to purchase tickets sooner rather than later – Mahler’s Symphony #4, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Violin Concerto #5 – the list goes on and on. But for many violin fans, the biggest reason to get your KSO tickets now is famed violinist Stefan Jackiw.
Jackiw (pronounced JACQUES-eev) is arguably one of the most highly sought-after violinists in the world today. And, in a rare coup, he will perform with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (KSO) on October 19-20 at the Tennessee Theatre. This is no doubt due to the fortunate fact that Jackiw and KSO Maestro Aram Demirjian were college chums. But more on that later.
Jackiw is a brilliant artist whose performing history includes orchestras the likes of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. He is also a dedicated teacher and was appointed to the faculty of Mannes School of Music in New York City in 2021.
If it seems out of character for such a busy artist to teach, look no farther than his parents. Both acclaimed physicists, Jackiw’s late German-born* father, Roman Jackiw, was Professor Emeritus at M.I.T., while his Korean-born mother, So-Young Pi, is Professor Emeritus at Boston University. They placed a premium on Jackiw’s academic studies and also started him on violin at age 4. Like many violinists, Stefan’s early musical training primarily took the form of private lessons, including studies that began in his final year of high school with famed violinist Donald Weilerstein.
When it came time for college, Jackiw toyed with the idea of a conservatory. But the academic route felt like a familiar path. He picked a spot in Boston between his parents’ two workplaces: Harvard University. And it is there that he met young Aram Demirjian – the man who would ultimately become Maestro Demirjian, Music Director of the KSO.
Jackiw’s musical perspective shifted dramatically at Harvard when he had the opportunity to take a chamber music class with the brilliant pianist and musical thinker, Robert Levin, taking Levin’s course six semesters out of eight. He went from focusing only on the repertoire he was studying, to delving into pieces he didn’t know. This background gave Jackiw a roadmap for how to think about various pieces. As his career blossomed, it’s become a personal mission to provide a similar opportunity for other violinists – something he did during the pandemic when he offered highly-successful online masterclasses at no charge.
Much praise has been heaped upon Jackiw by the critics, and deservedly so. But the phrase that might make him most proud was issued by The Financial Times, who wrote that Jackiw is “selflessly musical.” If those words mean that Jackiw makes his performing ego take a back seat to the musical requirements of a given piece, then that just may be the greatest praise an artist can receive.
Jackiw is willing to hold back his sonorous tone and deliver a true pianissimo. He is willing to offer isolated phrases that are not “beautiful” in the obvious sense of the word but seem exactly what the composer wanted. He is willing to not only turn a phrase over to an orchestral musician, but to graciously play a secondary role. He is not there to show us what he can do, but what the composer (and the music) are offering us. It sounds utterly simple. And yet, impossibly rare. Unselfish performing.
For a preview of Jackiw’s artistry in the piece he will perform here in Knoxville, here he is performing the final movement of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia. When a soloist can make the cellists smile, you know he’s doing something right.
There is a lovely moment at the end of this riveting performance in which Jackiw subtly reminds the conductor to acknowledge the harpist, his musical ally in Bruch’s tour de force. Jackiw is then presented with a bouquet of flowers during the concert’s ovation. Without missing a beat, he hands the bouquet to the harpist. These innocent gestures are in keeping with the obvious generosity and collaborative spirit of this young artist — a man who says his most rewarding orchestral experiences are when he feels as if he’s the first violinist in a quartet, rather than a soloist in front of a symphony.
There are myriad virtues music must fulfill and Jackiw is more than willing to delve into all of them. And in doing so, in addition to finding beauty – a virtue he possesses in abundance – he helps his audience discover something equally moving and mesmerizing.
Knoxville audiences are, indeed, fortunate to have Jackiw appear here on October 19-20, performing Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy—an absolute gem which he has truly made his own.
