DeLay Prize–Winning Violinist Performs Monday

DeLay Prize–Winning Violinist Performs Monday

SHANNON ASHER

Festival Focus Writer

Returning for her fifth summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School, violinist and 2019 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner Gallia Kastner will perform with the Aspen Conducting Academy (ACA) Orchestra on Monday, July 5. This will be Kastner’s first live performance since February of 2020.

“Aspen is my second home,” Kastner explains. “The moment I set foot in Aspen every year, I feel comforted by the mountains and by all my friends I get to see again or meet for the first time. I get to work with my teacher, Robert Lipsett, and play in an incredible orchestra all summer. Aspen has given me so much in the past few years. It is all I could ever ask for.”

Kastner started playing the violin when she was four years old after a failed attempt at tennis lessons. Her grandfather in Indonesia suggested to Kastner’s mother that she sign her up for violin lessons. “Little did she know that I was going to stay up all night practicing violin to the point where she had to force me to put it away for the night,” Kastner says.

Kastner spent her pandemic year completing her master’s degree on Zoom at the Colburn School. “While I was devastated that I couldn’t be there to have lessons, academic classes, and perform music with my incredible colleagues, knowing that I was headed to Aspen in the summer kept me motivated.” Kastner conveys. “I am most excited to see an audience again. I was able to do some recording work during this time, but I miss the energy of a live audience.”

As the winner of the AMFS’s prestigious Dorothy DeLay Prize, Kastner has the opportunity to play a work on the stage of the Benedict Music Tent with the ACA Orchestra. She chose to perform Joseph Bologne’s Violin Concerto No 9. in G major, op. 8. “This is a charming work that has joy, nostalgia, and cheerfulness,” Kastner says. “This piece has meant so much to me in the past year, as it’s given me strong motivation to continue working throughout the pandemic.”

AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian notes, “Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is a black eighteenth-century composer, a contemporary of Mozart’s. In fact, he actually was slightly older. He was a colorful character—a great fencer, he even fought in wars. He was the concertmaster of the Royal Orchestra in France. He was a wonderful composer and a great violinist as well. He was certainly prolific, and just between you and me, Mozart stole the idea of the multiple instrument concerto from him.”

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher predicts grand things for Kastner and her career. “Every summer we have standout violinists, that’s never failed, but Gallia is in the Simone Porter, Will Hagen, Joyce Yang, Conrad Tao category,” he notes, citing Aspen alumni who are rising stars in the field. “You know instantly when you hear her play what kind of career she is going to have. When these artists were students you thought, not only will they have truly important 2019 Dorothy DeLay Prize Winner careers but they are simply such fabulous people and people you want to be with. They’re so magnetic and positive and Gallia was like that from her first summer. I predict she will be one of the great ones.”

Kastner admits that music is the one part of her life she can always depend on. “Music is my safe place,” Kastner says. “It has given me comfort, motivation, and consistency in my life. If there is one thing that has repeatedly kept me on my feet, it’s the violin. The violin is my voice.”

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