Rising star violinist Geneva Lewis discusses her blues-inspired concert at Emory’s Schwartz Center
Geneva Lewis performs at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts on Friday, Nov.12.
Don van Hasselt
Geneva Lewis has got the blues in the very best way. The 23-year-old New Zealand-born violinist will perform an “Homage to the Blues” with pianist Chenny Gan on Friday evening at Emory University’s Schwartz Center. The concert will celebrate perspectives on the blues from an array of very different composers. Lewis joined “City Lights” Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about how she adapted the musical language of the blues to her virtuoso violin artistry.
Lewis, a current student at the New England Conservatory, recently won the 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant among other recognitions such as “Artist of the Month” from Musical America. She’s also a former competitive tennis player who still loves the game and attests to a similarity between tennis and classical violin disciplines. “The kind of work and dedication and love that both of those endeavors require is extremely comparable,” Lewis said.
Lewis designed a program for Friday’s concert that includes works by Americans like William Grant Still, David N. Baker, George Gershwin and the Europeans Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Such a pastiche invites the listener to hear shades of blue in surprising places while still celebrating the art in its purest forms.
“[The blues] sounds wonderful on the violin,” said Lewis. “It’s interesting approaching this idea of playing the blues, which is a genre with such a meaningful and important history that of course belongs to African Americans. So trying to play this music respectfully and authentically is something very important. It’s just very exciting to have the privilege to play this music and to share it with people.”
Lewis will perform her compositions precisely as written, but the music conveys its sense of spontaneity to her. “I’m much more comfortable in the realm of fully-notated music,” she said, “But it’s definitely exciting to have the feeling of sounding as if you’re improvising.”
Of the Debussy composition ‘Violin Sonata in G Minor,’ Lewis said, “[There] is this narrative and storytelling element throughout the piece. It is so vivid and colorful, and many parts of it to me are so gestural and improvised that it’s definitely the farthest reach from the blues, but I feel that it still shares all these incredible similarities.” The composition was one of Debussy’s last, written during his decline due to cancer and in the throes of World War I. “It’s a very meaningful and sad, sad piece really,” Lewis said.
Geneva Lewis’s concert “Homage to the Blues,” accompanied by pianist Chenny Gan, takes place this Friday, Nov. 11 at Emory University’s Schwartz Center. More information and tickets are available at https://tickets.arts.emory.edu/lewis.
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