Released on Canary Classics, violinist Gil Shaham's latest album, "Premieres," was recorded with conductor Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now.

This album features violin concertos written for and premiered by Shaham. 

 

Recorded at the Fisher Center at Bard, the album documents three concertos composed between 2013 and 2025. Scott Wheeler’s Birds of America (2025), commissioned by Bard College for The Orchestra Now, opens the release. Cast in three movements, the work incorporates references to birdsong and to earlier musical depictions of birds, alongside extended violin techniques developed in consultation with Shaham. Wheeler explained that “a chance encounter [with a woodpecker] inspired me to start the third movement … with taps on the body of the violin.”

Avner Dorman’s Nigunim (Violin Concerto No. 2), originally written as a violin sonata, appears here in its revised orchestral form. The four-movement work draws on shared melodic traits found across Jewish musical traditions, as well as rhythmic influences from Georgian and Balkan folk music.

Bright Sheng’s Let Fly (2013), written for Shaham and premiered with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, concludes the album with a concerto in three connected movements inspired in part by Chinese folk-song traditions.

 

International soloist Gil Shaham has made concerto appearances with major orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic, alongside recital and chamber performances at leading venues and festivals worldwide. A Grammy Award winner and recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, he has recorded more than two dozen albums, many on his own Canary Classics label, and is particularly associated with projects such as the 1930s Violin Concertos series and recordings of Bach’s solo works. Born in Illinois and raised in Israel, Shaham studied at the Juilliard School and Columbia University and performs on a 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius.

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate-level orchestra founded in 2015 by Bard College and led by music director Leon Botstein. Comprising musicians from leading conservatories worldwide, the ensemble performs regularly at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard.  TŌN has released recordings on labels including Hyperion, AVIE, and Sorel Classics and appears frequently on national broadcasts such as Performance Today.