Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and lifelong friend, cellist Wendy Warner, recently recorded “Double Play: Twentieth Century Duos for Violin and Cello” for Cedille Records, capping their musical collaborations and prodigious accomplishments begun in 1985 as members of the Diller String Quartet in Winnetka.

Rachel Barton Pine seems to be part of the life’s blood of the Strings as she returns to center stage for the seventh time. Considered “Chicago’s own,” she has performed all over the world, including the Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas, Montreal, Vienna, New Zealand and Iceland Symphonies, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Israel and Scottish Chamber Orchestras. Her festival appearances include Ravinia, Marlboro and Salzburg. She holds top prizes from the J.S. Bach, Queen Elisabeth, Paganini, Kreisler, Szigeti and Montreal international competitions and has 13 critically acclaimed albums for the Cedille, Forian and Cacophony labels. She performs on the “ex-Soldat” Guarneri del Gesu 1742.

Wendy Warner emerged on the world stage in 1990 when she won First Prize in the Fourth International Rostropovich Competition in Paris, followed by her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rostropovich and subsequent tour of North America. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, she studied with Nell Novak from age 6 at the Music Center of the North Shore (now Music Institute of Chicago) until joining Rostropovich at Curtis. In 1991 she was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career grant and debuted at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Major orchestral appearances have included the symphonies of Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Francisco and Philadelphia in the U.S., and London, Berlin, Hong Kong and the Moscow Virtuosi abroad. This marks her second appearance with the Strings.

Welz Kauffman, president and CEO of the Ravinia Festival since 2000, brings a new dimension to his position as one of the leading arts administrators in the United States with his innovations in programming, audience development and professional education for young artists. A talented pianist who studied music at California’s Occidental College and Tanglewood, he will narrate “Lincoln Portrait,” following in the footsteps of many celebrities attracted to the role such as Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck and Carl Sandburg.

Haydn Bicentennial (1732-1809) ~ Haydn’s Symphony No. 85, “La Reine,” also known as “The Queen of France,” was the fourth of six symphonies he wrote in 1785-1786 for Parisian musical society, which included patroness Marie Antoinette, formerly an Austrian princess who took particular delight in this work.

Mendelssohn Bicentennial (1809-1847) ~ Often influenced by his travels, Mendelssohn visited Fingal’s Cave, a huge sea grotto on the island of Staffa in the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland in 1829. The locale inspired him to suggest its atmosphere in an overture by “pure” musical means, entirely without benefit of special effects. It stands as one of the most successful pieces of its kind in the literature.

Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial (1809-1865) ~ In “Lincoln Portrait,” for full orchestra composed in 1942 as part of the WWII patriotic war effort, Copland (1900-1990) excerpts material from speeches and letters of our 16th President as a narrative with original folk songs as the moving backdrop.

From top: Rachel Barton Pine, Wendy Warner, Welz Kauffman

Mendelssohn
Hebrides Overture
(“Fingal’s Cave”)

Copland
Lincoln Portrait
Welz Kauffman, Narrator

Haydn
Symphony No. 85
in B-Flat Major
(“La Reine”)

Brahms
Concerto for Violin,
Cello and Orchestra
in A Minor,
Op. 102
Rachel Barton Pine, Violin
Wendy Warner, Cello