Biography
With his adventuresome spirit and vast musical gifts, violinist Tim Fain has emerged as a mesmerizing presence on the music scene. The "charismatic young violinist with a matinee idol profile, strong musical instincts, and first rate chops" (Boston Globe) is seen and heard in the film Black Swan, and gives "voice" to the violin of the lead actor in the hit film 12 Years a Slave, as he did with Richard Gere's violin in Fox Searchlight's feature film Bee Season. Most recently, Fain collaborates with Google on a virtual reality (VR) music and film project RESONANCE that introduces VR capability for YouTube to the world.
Launching his career with Young Concert Artists and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he went on to electrify audiences at debuts with the Baltimore Symphony with conductor Marin Alsop, at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival and with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Fain has also appeared with the Mexico City, Tucson, Oxford (UK), and Cincinnati Chamber Symphonies; Brooklyn, Buffalo and Hague Philharmonics; the National Orchestra of Spain; and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in a special performance at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center. In addition, he was the featured soloist with the Philip Glass Ensemble at Carnegie Hall in a concert version of Einstein on the Beach, which he performed again this season in South Korea, and he continues to tour the US and Europe in a duo-recital program with Philip Glass.
His multi-media evening Portals premiered to sold-out audiences in New York, Los Angeles, at its mid-western debut at Omaha's KANEKO, and at Australia's Melbourne Festival and Le Lieu Unique in France, with continued interest and success world-wide. The centerpiece of the evening is Partita for Solo Violin, a new work written especially for him by Philip Glass; the production also features collaborations with Benjamin Millepied, Leonard Cohen, and filmmaker Kate Hackett, with radio personality Fred Child appearing on screen.
Highlights of the 2015-16 season include solo performances for Pro Musica in Mexico, the Pittsburgh and Tallahassee Symphonies, and the Portland Chamber Orchestra. He also appears with pianist Timo Andres at New York's Le Poisson Rouge, where he'll premiere a new multi-media work by Randall Woolf and filmmakers Mary Harron (American Psycho) and John C. Walsh on the Composers Concordance Eclectic Virtuosi Series. Other appearances include the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston for Paola Prestini's Labyrinth Installation Concertos project, and with the PostClassical Ensemble and pianist Michael Boriskin in a concert of works by Lou Harrison at the Indonesian Embassy in DC. Recent engagements include the Cabrillo, Chautauqua, and McCall Music Festivals; the Buffalo Philharmonic; and a reprise of his soloist role with the National Orchestra of Spain conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.
Fain's recitals have included the Ravinia Festival, Amsterdam's venerable Concertgebouw, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Kennedy Center, Mexico's Festival de Musica de Camara in San Miguel de Allende, Carnegie's Weill Hall, California's Carmel Mozart Society, Boston's Ives Festival, The Broad Stage, Ringling International Festival in Sarasota, the San Diego Art Institute, the University of California at Davis, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St Y, and elsewhere world-wide. A sought-after chamber musician, he has performed at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York's Bargemusic, Chamber Music Northwest, and at the Spoleto (Italy), Bridgehampton, Santa Fe, Caramoor, Bard, Lucerne (Switzerland), "Bravo" Vail Valley, Moab, and Martha's Vineyard Festivals, and has toured nationally with Musicians from Marlboro.
A dynamic and compelling performer of traditional works, he is also a fervent champion of 20th and 21st century composers, with a repertoire ranging widely from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Aaron Jay Kernis and John Corigliano; as the Los Angeles Times recently noted, his career "is based, in part, on new music and new ways of thinking about classical music." Fain's discography features River of Light (Naxos), which showcases modern virtuosic short works for violin and piano by living American composers; Arches, which combines old and new solo works and reflects Fain's inquisitive passion and intellect; The Concerto Project IV with the Hague Philharmonic featuring Philip Glass's Double Concerto for violin and cellist Wendy Sutter, and Tim Fain Plays Phillip Glass (both on Orange Mountain Music); and most recently First Loves (VIA Records), a collection of quintessential violin masterpieces which first inspired him to be a violinist.
Fain has collaborated with such luminaries as Pinchas Zukerman, Richard Goode, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Mitsuko Uchida, and Jonathan Biss, and has appeared with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Seán Curran Company, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. In addition, he performed onstage with the New York City Ballet alongside the dancers in the acclaimed premiere of Benjamin Millepied's "Double Aria." Never limited by genre, Fain has also worked with jazz pianists Billy Childs and Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus), Joanna Newsom, Bryce Dessner (The National), guitarist Rich Robinson (Black Crowes), Matchbox Twenty singer-songwriter Rob Thomas (in an appearance at Jazz at Lincoln Center), James Blake, and rappers Das Racist and Rahzel.
A native of Santa Monica, California, Tim Fain is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko; and The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. He performs on a violin made by Francesco Gobetti, Venice 1717, the "Moller," on extended loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
