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Meet the Musician:
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Julia Kuhn
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I have recently joined the AAM as their new Principal Second Violin. In this article I’m going to tell you a bit about myself, my first ever project with the band, which was in every way a very memorable start to my tenure, and about the role of the Principal Second Violin.
I come from a musical family, and for as long as I can remember there was music being played every day when I was growing up. I expressed an interest in wanting to play the violin at the age of 3 after I attended a children’s concert played by the local symphony orchestra. According to my mother I was both fascinated by the violin and by the concertmaster, who was bald and very demonstrative. I was hooked, and my constant nagging about wanting to learn the instrument led to me taking first lessons a year later. That didn’t last very long on the account of me being a little bit too naughty to my teacher, which I find hard to believe, but some colleagues might disagree… I gave the recorder a go instead and sang in my father’s children’s choir before, being more grown up at the age of 5, I started playing the violin very seriously at the Georg-Friedrich-Handel Conservatoire in Halle. My family moved to a charming medieval town in Bavaria a few years later, and it was there that I first encountered the concept of early music due to a very good and avid amateur renaissance and baroque ensemble, headed by my piano teacher. As a teenager I became very serious about the violin and went on to study violin performance at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. I did make sure however to occasionally take a break from learning things like Shostakovich’s 2nd violin concerto to come back to my hometown to play the crumhorn in the annual renaissance festival. After I graduated from the Mozarteum I pursued my interest in early music and went on to study baroque violin with Simon Standage at the Royal Academy of Music in London. I have led orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the English Concert, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, to name a few, and aside from everything related to historical performance practice, which nowadays goes well into the late 19th century, I’m very interested in 20th century music written by persecuted and ostracized composers.
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My first project as Principal Second Violin with AAM was in April 2023, and it was a most memorable first patch! We played a “Scherzi musicali” (musical jokes), programme of music by Biber and Schmelzer. Advertised as “expect the unexpected” in the programme notes, I certainly didn’t expect to act out Biber’s Battalia on my first patch with the band, which included dancing whilst playing the violin, pretending to be in a battle with the theorbo player, and, having lost said battle, faking my death (still whilst playing the violin) and ending up lying flat on the floor at the end of the piece. It was tremendous fun to reinvent the piece like this under the guidance of theatre director Thomas Guthrie, and everyone in the ensemble pulled together to make it work. It was brilliant teamwork and it will definitely stick with me as my most memorable first project ever!
I have always very much liked the role of the Principal Second Violin. Depending on repertoire it has different functions, from accompanying a melody to providing motoring rhythms, and it also has independent features. The second violins are often in conversation with other sections of the orchestra. From this position it’s possible to influence how a melody section can play and phrase, it adds stability in rhythmic sections and often has interesting harmonic functions. In short, it’s very much a chamber music role, something I thoroughly enjoy!
Thank you for taking time to read this article and I hope to see you soon at many more AAM concerts!
Julia Kuhn
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