About Rachel
The acclaimed American concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills international audiences with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and emotional honesty.
The acclaimed American concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills international audiences with her dazzling technique and lustrous tone. With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music. She is a leading interpreter of the great classical masterworks and of important contemporary music.
Pine performs with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Vienna Symphony Orchestras. She has worked with renowned conductors that include Teddy Abrams, Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov, Stéphane Denève, Neeme Järvi, Christoph Eschenbach, Erich Leinsdorf, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Tito Muñoz, and John Nelson. As a chamber musician, Pine has performed with Jonathan Gilad, Clive Greensmith, Paul Neubauer, Jory Vinikour, William Warfield, Orion Weiss, and the Pacifica and Parker quartets. Recital and festival appearances have included Davos, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Marlboro, Ravinia, Salzburg, Bravo! Vail, and Wolf Trap.
2025-2026 Season
Highlights of Pine’s 2025-26 season include performances of the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica, the Glazunov Concerto with the Newport Symphony Orchestra, the Korngold Concerto with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and the Bruch Concerto with Symphony d’Oro Rancho Cordova. At Summermusik, in Cincinnati, Pine gives the world premiere live performance of Malek Jandali’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, which she recently recorded with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra led by renowned conductor Marin Alsop (Cedille, 2023). She will also be in residence at the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition in Leipzig, Germany, and will give recitals across the U.S., including at Duke University in all-Brahms program with Gilles Vonsattel, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD.
Previous Appearances
Pine’s 2024-2025 and 2023-2024 seasons included a performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for its premiere of the violin concerto by José White, an Afro-Cuban composer whom Pine has long championed; the world premiere of Harry Stafylakis’ Violin Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony; Billy Childs’ Violin Concerto No. 2 (written for her) with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Stéphane Denève at the Hollywood Bowl; the French premiere of Earl Maneein’s Dependent Arising (written for her) with the Orchestre National de Bretagne, and performances with the Puerto Rico Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Mercury Chamber Orchestra, Toledo Symphony, National Symphony of Uruguay, Minas Gerais Philharmonic, and Kaohsiung Traditional Orchestra Taiwan at Festival X in Mikkeli, Finland.
Pine has also substituted for fellow soloists on short notice for a number of concerts. Most notably, in 2021, with just 3.5 hours’ notice, she performed Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, replacing Midori, to critical acclaim.
Recent Album Release
This season Pine releases the new album French Impressions: Chamber Music by Chausson & Tailleferre, her 25th release on Cedille Records, featuring the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Orion Weiss. In 2024, Cedille released Corelli Violin Sonatas, Op. 5, in which Pine performs on violin and viola d’amore and improvises all her ornaments. The album also includes an audiobook-style spoken track of the program booklet, recorded by Pine herself. Dependent Arising, Pine’s previous album on Cedille (2023), revealed surprising confluences between classical music and heavy metal by pairing Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Earl Maneein’s violin concerto Dependent Arising, written for Pine and performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In 2022 Cedille released Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries: 25th Anniversary Edition, featuring Pine’s new recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Jonathon Heyward. Pine has made over 40 recordings, including 25 for Cedille Records. She is one of the label’s best-selling artists.
Additional Albums and Collaborations
Dependent Arising, Pine’s previous album on Cedille (2023), revealed surprising confluences between classical and heavy metal music by pairing Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Earl Maneein’s Dependent Arising, written for Pine and performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Tito Muñoz. Pine’s recording of Malek Jandali’s Violin Concerto No. 2, performed with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, was also released in 2023 on Cedille. The previous year, the label released Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries: 25th Anniversary Edition, featuring Pine’s new recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Jonathon Heyward, and reprisals of her 1997 recordings of masterworks by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1775), José White (1864), and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1899).
Pine’s discography consists of over 40 recordings, including Blues Dialogues, with a program of blues-influenced classical works by 20th- and 21st-century Black composers (Matthew Hagle on piano); Dvořák and Khachaturian Violin Concertos (Teddy Abrams and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra); Brahms and Joachim Violin Concertos (Carlos Kalmar and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), and Elgar and Bruch Violin Concertos (Andrew Litton and the BBC Symphony Orchestra). Pine and Sir Neville Marriner’s Mozart: Complete Violin Concertos, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and her Bel Canto Paganini both charted at #3 on the classical charts. Testament: Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach, and Violin Lullabies both debuted at #1.
Celebrating Composers Past and Present
Pine frequently performs music by contemporary composers, including major works written for her by Billy Childs, Mohammed Fairouz, Marcus Goddard, Malek Jandali, Earl Maneein, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Daniel Bernard Roumain, José Serebrier, Augusta Read Thomas, Harry Stafylakis, and Augusta Read Thomas. In addition to her career as a soloist, she is an avid performer of Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music on Baroque violin, viola d’amore, Renaissance violin, and rebec.
Popular Performances and Accolades
Pine has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Prairie Home Companion, NPR’s Tiny Desk and All Things Considered, and Performance Today. In 1992 she became the only American and youngest person to win a gold medal at the J.S. Bach International Violin Competition in Germany. Other prizes include the Paganini and Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competitions.
Interpreting the Canon
With the publication of The Rachel Barton Pine Collection, Pine became the only living artist and first woman in Carl Fischer’s Masters Collection series. During the pandemic, she performed the entire solo violin part of 24 different violin concertos, live and unaccompanied, for her weekly series “24 in 24: Concertos from the Inside.”
Educational Initiatives and Philanthropy
An active philanthropist, Pine has led the Rachel Barton Pine (RBP) Foundation for over two decades. Since 2001, the RBP Foundation’s Music by Black Composers project has collected more than 900 works by over 450 Black composers from the 18th-21st centuries, and has published pedagogical books for violin, piano, and flute. The RBP Foundation also helps young artists through its Instrument Loan Program and Grants for Education and Career. Pine has also served on the board of many non-profits, including the Sphinx Organization.
Rachel resides in Chicago with her husband, Greg and daughter, Sylvia. She performs on the “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat” Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesù” (Cremona 1742), on lifetime loan from her anonymous patron.
With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music.
Violinist Rachel Barton Pine is celebrated as a leading interpreter of early music, besides great classic and contemporary works. Her performances combine an innate gift for emotional communication and a scholarly fascination with historical research. As a modern violinist, Pine performs with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Vienna Symphony Orchestras.
2025-2026 Season Highlights
Pine’s early music engagements in the 2025-26 season include being a juror at the International Bach Competition, in Leipzig, Germany; a recital on viola d’amore at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston; a Bach recital with harpsichordist Jory Vinikour for Bach Ascending, in Savannah, GA; a performance of Bach’s entire six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin on an original-condition Stainer violin at the National Music Museum, in Vermillion, SD; a program of chamber music by Corelli at Indianapolis Early Music; teaching and performing for Baroque Day at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; and appearing as a soloist and guest leader of the Davis High School Baroque Ensemble.
Exploring Centuries of Sound
Pine has been involved in and committed to historically informed performances of early music since age 14. Gramophone has declared her “a most accomplished Baroque violinist, fully the equal of the foremost specialists.” She has also studied extensively and performs on the viola d’amore, Renaissance violin, and medieval rebec. She has appeared as soloist with Apollo’s Fire, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, Baroque Band, and Ars Antigua, as guest leader of the Haymarket Opera Orchestra, and has performed concertos with Nicholas McGegan, Jeannette Sorrell, and Frans Brüggen. She has led play-conduct programs of baroque concertos and orchestral repertoire with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Columbus and Seattle symphonies, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Her album Vivaldi: The Complete Viola d'amore Concertos, recorded with Ars Antigua for Cedille Records, is featured in the 2018 Oscar-winning film The Favourite.
Previous Collaborators
Besides Trio Settecento, Pine frequently performs with harpsichordist Jory Vinikour, with whom she released the album J.S. Bach: The Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord. Albums with Trio Settecento include the complete Handel Violin Sonatas, a four-disc set entitled Grand Tour, which surveys 17th- and 18th-century music from Italy, France, Germany, and England; and a complete recording of Francesco Maria Veracini’s monumental Opus 2, “Sonate Accademiche.”
Other chamber music collaborators include leading artists such as Luc Beausejour, Elizabeth Blumenstock, Paul Cienniwa, David Douglass, Marilyn McDonald, Robert Mealy, Hopkinson Smith, Elizabeth Wallfisch, and Elizabeth Wright, and ensembles including the Callipygian Players, the Newberry Consort, and Temple of Apollo.
Recent Album Release
In 2024, Cedille Records released Pine’s newest early-music album, Corelli Violin Sonatas, Op. 5, a two-disc set with the 12 sonatas for violin and continuo that constitute the Baroque composer’s opus 5. Pine performs on violin and viola d’amore, holding the violin against her chest, which history suggests is the way Corelli performed. The different performance style resulted in subtle changes in tempos and timing because of the slightly different use of the left hand and of the bow arm. The approach led to a different tone compared to that of Pine’s 2007 recording of the third sonata with Trio Settecento, featuring John Mark Rozendaal and David Schrader, frequent collaborators of Pine’s who join her again in the new recording. Brandon Acker joins the trio on archlute, theorbo, and guitar. Pine improvised all her ornaments, using a historically informed approach.
Pine is the only American to ever receive the Gold Medal at the J.S. Bach International Violin Competition in Leipzig, Germany. Having received the medal at age 17, she remains the youngest winner ever. She has been known to give many recitals of Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in a single evening. The Washington Post called Pine’s concert at the National Gallery “as astonishing and joyful a performance of all three sonatas and three partitas as I’ve ever heard,” adding that her spoken comments displayed “consummate scholarship delivered with humor and modesty.”
Previous Performances
Pine has performed period instrument recitals for the Frick Collection; Columbia University’s Miller Theatre; Dumbarton Oaks; Early Music Houston; Seattle Early Music; San Diego Early Music; Early Music in Columbus; Great Lakes Baroque; the Montreal Chamber Music Festival; the Viola da Gamba Society of America Conclave; the University of Chicago; the Music Institute of Chicago; the Boston, Madison, Indianapolis, and Chicago early music festivals; the chamber music societies of Buffalo, Detroit, and Salt Lake; WFMT radio (Chicago); and OurConcerts.live. She has been a guest artist at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival for historically informed chamber music performances of Romantic-period music. In addition, she has the distinction of having given the first-ever Baroque violin performance at Marlboro Music.
Popular Performances, Recordings, and Insights
Pine’s solo Bach performances have also been featured on American Public Media’s Performance Today and National Public Radio’s popular Tiny Desk series. She recorded all of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin on her album Testament, released on Avie Records. RBP on JSB, Pine’s instructional video series discussing each movement, was released in collaboration with The Violin Channel. Her edition of the music is published by Carl Fischer.
Educational Initiatives and Philanthropy
As an advocate for early music education, Pine has given master classes and workshops for Juilliard Historical Performance and Oberlin Conservatory’s Historical Performance Division. Her many sessions on early-music pedagogy at the American String Teachers Association National Conference have included hosting the first symposium on pre-college early-music education. She coaches and performs with high school period instrument orchestras, and has served as Baroque Ensemble Director of the Northwestern University Music Academy Strings.
For more than a decade, Pine has served on the faculty of the Jink and Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling, a camp devoted to historically informed interpretation of printed music from 18th-century Scotland. She hosted the 15th Bi-Annual Congress of the International Viola d'Amore Society, and has served on the board of directors of Early Music America.
Pine’s baroque violin (1770) and baroque viola d’amore (1774) were made by Nicola Gagliano using wood from the same tree. Both are in their original condition.
Rachel plays on the “ex-Bazzini ex-Soldat” made in 1742 by Joseph Guarneri “del Gesu” on lifetime loan to her by an anonymous patron.
Guarneri and Stradivari are considered to be the two greatest violin makers of all time. “Del Gesu” violins have been the preferred instruments of many famous violinists including Paganini, Ysaye, Kreisler, Heifetz, Stern, and Zukerman. Many of these violins have special histories, and this instrument is no exception.
In 1875, an extremely talented young musician named Marie Soldat (1863-1955) decided to give up the violin to develop her talents in piano and voice. Hearing Joseph Joachim perform in Graz three years later, however, inspired her to return to the violin, and to study with him.
Marie Soldat was introduced to Brahms at Pörtschach during a summer tour of Austrian spas in 1879. After hearing her play, he arranged a benefit performance to help pay for her studies. Brahms also gave her money for a train ticket to join him and Joachim in Salzburg. When she began to play the Mendelssohn Concerto with Brahms at the piano, the strings on her violin snapped. Joachim handed her his Stradivari, and her performance was so impressive that Joachim accepted her into his class at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin.
Pictured: Marie Soldat standing posing with violin
Soldat (later Soldat-Röger) became a member of Brahms’s inner circle and a regular chamber music partner. Their friendship continued throughout his life. The famed pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow once introduced her as “Brahms’s understudy.”
Soldat was widely considered one of the greatest violinists of her day. She studied the Brahms Concerto with both Joachim and Brahms, and it became her signature piece. She introduced it to many European cities, including Vienna in 1885, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. She gave it its second performance in Berlin, with Joachim conducting.
Brahms selected this violin for Soldat in 1897 and arranged for a wealthy Viennese businessman to purchase it and loan it to her for her lifetime. The Strad magazine, in 1910, remarked that “…[it] bears most of the characteristics we have learnt to associate with this maker in a remarkable degree. The tone is of extraordinary beauty, and suits the violinist’s virile style admirably.… The tone is full and rich, and noticeably deep on the G string. All the outlines of the fiddle seem to breathe life and strength.”
Rachel believes Brahms may have chosen this violin, in part, because its voice represents most closely what he envisioned for his concerto.
After Marie Soldat passed away, her violin was bought by a collector and not heard in the world for many years. Rachel has been using it since 2002 when she recorded the Brahms and Joachim Concertos with the Chicago Symphony.
All of Rachel’s Violins
Top Row (left to right)
Baroque violin, Nicola Gagliano, 1770
Modern viola d’amore, German, 19th Century
Modern set-up violin, Guarneri del Gesu, the “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat,” 1742
Baroque viola d’amore, Nicola Gagliano, 1774
Renaissance violin, the "ex-David Douglass," Jason Viseltear, 2001
Lying Down
Pochette, Michael Rennels Thompson, 2003
On Floor (left to right)
Stroh violin, c.1910
Medieval rebec, Kate McWilliams, 2007
Viper-style extended-range electric violin, Mark Wood and Paul Becker, 2009
