For her performing debut with the Brooklyn Philharmonic on March 8 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, musician Leila Josefowicz is going to plug in her violin.
John Adams’s “Dharma at Big Sur” calls for an electronic violin, but its challenges haven’t dimmed Josefowicz’s enthusiasm for the work.
“It’s one of my specialty pieces,” the violinist told GO Brooklyn. “I love it. It’s a hybrid piece between a western composition and an Indian-style raga. The funny thing is, it’s neither one nor the other, but walks the line in between.”
Performing with amplification does bring risks, Josefowicz admitted.
“It’s very difficult to do, and I’m one of the few traditional soloists today who does this,” she explained. “I have a speaker behind me, because it’s amplified. I wouldn’t hear myself otherwise.
“This is a major tradition that’s being broken,” she continued. “In an acoustic concerto, the orchestra might overwhelm the soloist, but here, it’s the other way around, which is kind of a power trip for me!”
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