Dorothy Delay

Dorothy DeLay, teacher and mentor to some of the world's most celebrated violinists, died Sunday at her home in Upper Nyack, N.Y., after a more than yearlong battle with cancer. She was 84. DeLay's long teaching career spanned two generations of players. Her students included violinists Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Cho-Liang Lin, Gil Shaham, Schlomo Mintz and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Other pupils, such as Joseph Swenson and Peter Oundjian, went on to become conductors.

Dorothy DeLay, teacher and mentor to some of the world's most celebrated violinists, died Sunday at her home in Upper Nyack, N.Y., after a more than yearlong battle with cancer. She was 84. DeLay's long teaching career spanned two generations of players. Her students included violinists Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Cho-Liang Lin, Gil Shaham, Schlomo Mintz and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Other pupils, such as Joseph Swenson and Peter Oundjian, went on to become conductors.

There's a mob scene outside Room 530 at the Juilliard School. A line of students clutching violins snakes down the hall for what looks like a four-hour wait. But at times the line has been longer. Sooner or later, serious student violinists will end up as a pupil of Dorothy DeLay, the instructor who has virtually cornered the violin-teaching market. Her students regularly win top prizes at competitions, get snatched up by major managements and are launched on the high-stakes concert circuit.

Classical music critics and audiences claim to yearn for artists with personality, but Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is more than some of them bargained for. She's been called the Method Actor or the Bad Girl of the Violin. She's been criticized for interpreting music too intensely, for overpowering the composer's intentions. Some people also don't like her sultry looks, tough talk on TV shows, or concert dress that is either too casual or too revealing. Take your pick.

There was a time when Dvorak's Violin Concerto was a repertory staple; it turned up in virtually every symphonic season, as beloved and ubiquitous as Brahms and Tchaikovsky are today. No longer. The Violin Concerto by Dvorak has gone the way of those by Goldmark and Vieuxtemps--exhumed sporadically, but largely forgotten.

At 15, Midori Goto seems to be a normal, even typical, teen-ager who lives in Manhattan. A native of Japan, she attends high school in her Upper West Side neighborhood; studies algebra, French, English and history; has "a lot of friends" and enjoys shopping at Macy's. But she also has another life. A violinist since the age of 4, Midori--the single word is now her complete, professional name--came to this country five years ago to study with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School.

Joseph Swensen is not an easily daunted musician. "I want to try to change the atmosphere of the place with the music, not change the music to fit the place," says the 27-year-old violinist, who will make his Hollywood Bowl debut Thursday with Brahms' Concerto. Swensen says he is very excited about the possibility of playing for so many people at one time. Indeed, he stressed the issue of excitement, and the challenge of communicating it musically, in a recent phone conversation.

Classical music critics and audiences claim to yearn for artists with personality, but Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is more than some of them bargained for. She's been called the Method Actor or the Bad Girl of the Violin. She's been criticized for interpreting music too intensely, for overpowering the composer's intentions. Some people also don't like her sultry looks, tough talk on TV shows, or concert dress that is either too casual or too revealing. Take your pick.

The snow may have melted, but Aspen is one ski town that doesn't drowse the summer away. Instead, the hills are alive with musicians and fans--the Aspen Music Festival and School serves nearly 1,000 students with more than 200 faculty and guests, drawing an estimated 100,000 visitors to the Colorado town.

The Pacific Symphony has named a new concertmaster: Kevin Connolly, a violinist with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra who also is concertmaster of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. Connolly, 39, worked this past season as guest concertmaster for two performances with the Pacific, Orange County's largest professional resident orchestra. The concertmaster fulfills a leadership role in management of the orchestra, besides being its principal violinist and heading the first-violin section.

The snow may have melted, but Aspen is one ski town that doesn't drowse the summer away. Instead, the hills are alive with musicians and fans--the Aspen Music Festival and School serves nearly 1,000 students with more than 200 faculty and guests, drawing an estimated 100,000 visitors to the Colorado town.

There's a mob scene outside Room 530 at the Juilliard School. A line of students clutching violins snakes down the hall for what looks like a four-hour wait. But at times the line has been longer. Sooner or later, serious student violinists will end up as a pupil of Dorothy DeLay, the instructor who has virtually cornered the violin-teaching market. Her students regularly win top prizes at competitions, get snatched up by major managements and are launched on the high-stakes concert circuit.

Joseph Swensen is not an easily daunted musician. "I want to try to change the atmosphere of the place with the music, not change the music to fit the place," says the 27-year-old violinist, who will make his Hollywood Bowl debut Thursday with Brahms' Concerto. Swensen says he is very excited about the possibility of playing for so many people at one time. Indeed, he stressed the issue of excitement, and the challenge of communicating it musically, in a recent phone conversation.

At 15, Midori Goto seems to be a normal, even typical, teen-ager who lives in Manhattan. A native of Japan, she attends high school in her Upper West Side neighborhood; studies algebra, French, English and history; has "a lot of friends" and enjoys shopping at Macy's. But she also has another life. A violinist since the age of 4, Midori--the single word is now her complete, professional name--came to this country five years ago to study with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School.

There was a time when Dvorak's Violin Concerto was a repertory staple; it turned up in virtually every symphonic season, as beloved and ubiquitous as Brahms and Tchaikovsky are today. No longer. The Violin Concerto by Dvorak has gone the way of those by Goldmark and Vieuxtemps--exhumed sporadically, but largely forgotten.

The International Sejong Soloists, an 11-member string orchestra that made its local debut Tuesday night, is a polished ensemble that produces beautiful sounds and projects high spirits (the ensemble replaced the originally announced Berlin Chamber Orchestra). The conductorless band--originally sponsored by the Samsung Electronics Corp. of Korea, but now independent--plays under the artistic direction of Hyo Kang, an associate of Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School in New York.

Serving as a pinch-hitter, 18-year-old violinist Gil Shaham made his West Coast debut Saturday at Pepperdine University in the final program of this summer's Strawberry Creek Festival. Shaham has performed on short notice before, most notably substituting for an ailing Itzhak Perlman in London earlier this year. This time the Dorothy DeLay student replaced Mark Peskanov, who is reportedly due for finger surgery.