James Ehnes
The Canadian violinist tells James Naughtie how he can’t wait to play for live audiences again when, after such a long absence, even the most familiar works may sound brand new
“The first time that I was able to get up in front of a live orchestra for several months was pretty overwhelming”
When you’re speaking to a string player, it pays dividends to talk to them about their instrument – the one that travels with them everywhere. I’m talking to the Canadian violinist James Ehnes who’s around 100 miles north of Ottawa in the snow, which his children, Florida-born, are seeing for the first time. (I’m in Edinburgh, which isn’t quite as cold.) But when he talks about his violin, it’s all warmth.
Antonio Stradivari built Ehnes’s violin in 1715 in the middle of his so-called ‘golden’
