Source: Radio New Zealand
Brandon, a place in Manitoba Canada, is so proud of world-renowned violinist James Ehnes , it’s naming a street after him.
“It’s pretty surreal. Of course, I mean, my old high school buddies and I have been making a lot of jokes about it naturally. But in seriousness, it’s a tremendous honour”, Ehnes told RNZ’s Sunday Morning .
The street is right across from the university where his father taught trumpet and the local auditorium where his mother was the chair of the board for years.
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Ehnes is in New Zealand to perform Mozart’s Fourth Violin Concerto at a series of venues around the country.
It was always the violin for Ehnes, who started playing at four and now has more awards than any classical musician in history.
James Ehnes sawing away at the 1985 World Suzuki Conference in Edmonton, Canada.
James Ehnes
“I had this this great plan that I would be a professional baseball player in the summer, and I would be a professional violinist in the winter.
“So, I like telling people that I’m only 50 percent failure in my life.”
Ehnes plays a 1715 Marsick Stradivarius violin.
Violinist James Ehnes
Ben Ealovega
“There was only one Rembrandt. There was only one Van Gogh. There was only one Titian or Leonardo.
“And we have a little bit of that with Stradivarius, that what he was attempting to do was very specific. And his instruments have a range of tonal palette, I guess I’d say, that is very special.”
He’s played on many Stradivarius violins, including the famous ‘Baron Knoop’ which sold for over NZ$40m, it was a golden age of instrument making, he says.
“It’s when you start playing entire pieces of music where you realise that there’s just an entire world to explore on some instruments, whereas on other instruments, they might sound nice, but kind of all the same. And that gets just a little bit less interesting in terms of musical storytelling. “
Car fanatic Ehnes likens it to Formula 1.
“What I do with my violin is really, really specialised. And in terms of F1 stuff, I always tell people, you know, you don’t take an F1 car to the grocery store. That’s not what it’s for. And there are very few people that can really bring the most out of it.
“You brought me ten race cars, I would be the same driver in all of them, which is to say not capable.”
James Ehnes is currently touring NZ.
Benjamin Ealovega 2012
Given that you “can’t just buy a new one” he transports his Strad around the world with great care.
“When you’re talking about an instrument that’s 300 years old, you realise that it’s not really yours. You’re just sort of the caretaker for the next generation of people that will have the opportunity to use it.
“My case is advertised by the company that you can supposedly drive a car over it. I’ve never tried that. I don’t plan on trying it, but it does give me a little bit of confidence. And yeah, so I try to keep it out of harm’s way.”
Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for his classic 1979 Ferrari 308 GTS.
“There was a fire in my garage and I sadly no longer have one.
“So, if anyone wants to find me another one, I’d be very eager to replace it. But yeah, at least my violin was not in the garage. So all OK.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
