About Alexi Kenney, Violin

The recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2020 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, violinist Alexi Kenney has been named “a talent to watch” by The New York Times, which also noted his “architect’s eye for structure and space and a tone that ranges from the achingly fragile to full-bodied robustness.”

The 2019/20 season sees Alexi performing as soloist with the Sarasota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Virginia Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, and California Symphony, presenting a solo violin and electronics recital at the 92nd Street Y, and at the Phillips Collection and Rockefeller University, among others. In the 2018/19 season, Alexi returned to the Indianapolis Symphony, debuted with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and the Asheville, Omaha, Wheeling, and Bay Atlantic symphonies, and gave recitals at Wigmore Hall, Union College, Portland ‘Ovations,’ and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern festival. He has appeared as guest concertmaster of both the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.<br/>

Alexi has performed as soloist with the Detroit, Indianapolis, Columbus, Jacksonville, Santa Fe, Portland, California, and Amarillo symphonies, and in recital on Carnegie Hall’s ‘Distinctive Debuts’ series, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, at the Dame Myra Hess Concerts in Chicago, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Jordan Hall in Boston. He is winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild Competition and laureate of the 2012 Menuhin Competition. Alexi has been profiled by Musical America, Strings magazine and The New York Times, written for The Strad, and has been featured on Performance Today, WQXR-NY’s Young Artists Showcase, WFMT-Chicago, and NPR’s From the Top.

Chamber music continues to be a major focus of Alexi’s life, performing at festivals including Marlboro, Bridgehampton, ChamberFest Cleveland, Festival Napa Valley, Kronberg, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Ravinia, and Yellow Barn. He is a member of The Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (formerly CMS 2).

Born in Palo Alto, California in 1994, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received his Artist Diploma and BM under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. Previous teachers include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009.

Outside of music, Alexi enjoys hojicha, bauhaus interiors, baking for friends (his specialty is this lumberjack cake), and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.