“Fain has the honeyed tone, spectacular technique and engrossing musicality of an

old-school virtuoso tied to a contemporary sensibility.” – LOS ANGELES TIMES

With his adventuresome spirit and vast musical gifts, violinist Tim Fain has emerged as a mesmerizing

presence on the music scene. The “charismatic violinist with a matinee idol profile, strong musical instincts,

and first rate chops” (Boston Globe), was seen on screen and heard on the Grammy nominated soundtrack to

the film Black Swan, can be heard on the soundtrack to Moonlight and gave “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 the film Bee Season. Fain

captured the Avery Fisher Career Grant and launched his career with Young Concert Artists.

He electrified audiences in performances with the Pittsburgh, Chautauqua, and Cabrillo and Baltimore (both

with Marin Alsop) Symphonies, 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, National Orchestra of Spain (with conductor Dennis

Russell Davies), and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in a special performance at Philadelphia’s Kimmel

Center. He appears with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in Glass’s violin concerto this

season, and in a recital based on film music at Ravinia. In addition, he was the featured soloist with the Philip

Glass Ensemble at Carnegie Hall in a concert version of Einstein on the Beach and continues to tour the US

and Europe in a duo-recital program with Philip Glass.

Fain has been heard in recital at 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 across the globe. 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.

His multi-media evening Portals premiered to sold-out audiences in New York, Los Angeles and at its

Midwestern premiere at Omaha’s KANEKO, and has been seen at Australia’s Melbourne Festival, Le Lieu

Unique in France and continues to travel world-wide. The centerpiece of the evening is Partita for Solo Violin, a

new work written especially for him by Philip Glass, and also features collaborations with Benjamin Millepied,

Leonard Cohen, film maker Kate Hackett, and with radio personality Fred Child and pianist and composer

Nicholas Britell appearing on screen. It also includes music of Pulitzer Prize winners Kernis, Bolcom, and Puts

along with works of Muhly, and Zhurbin.

A dynamic and compelling performer in 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 reflects Fain’s

inquisitive passion and intellect and combining old and new solo works; and The Concerto Project IV with the

Hague Philharmonic featuring Philip Glass’s Double Concerto for violin and cellist Wendy Sutter, and most

recently Tim Fain Plays Philip Glass (both on Orange Mountain Music), and First Loves, with repertoire he fell

in love with as a child from Sarasate to Wieniawski.

Fain has collaborated with an eclectic array of artists from Pinchas Zukerman and Richard Goode, to Jean-

Yves Thibaudet to Mitsuko Uchida, has appeared with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Seán Curran Company,

and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and appeared onstage with the New York City Ballet,

performing alongside the dancers in the acclaimed premiere of Benjamin Millepied’s “Double Aria.” He has also

performed for the Dalai Lama's 80th Birthday, worked with jazz pianists Billy Childs and Ethan Iverson (The

Bad Plus), Joanna Newsom, Bryce Dessner (The National), guitarist Rich Robinson (Black Crowes), appeared

at Jazz at Lincoln Center with singer-songwriter Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty), and collaborated with James

Blake, and rappers Das Racist and Rahzel. He recently teamed up with Google on a Virtual Reality music

video for his composition, Resonance, which introduced its 360 stereoscopic VR capability for YouTube to the

world, which was recently shown at The Sundance Film Festival, and composed the music for a virtual

experience, Flock, which premiered at The Future of Storytelling in NYC, and recently performed with Shimon,

an improvising, marimba-playing AI robot.

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.

Photo: Briana Blasko

PRESS NEW YORK TIMES “Mr. Fain brought technical finesse, lyrical ardor and cagey control to his alluring performance [Prokofiev’s

Violin Concerto No. 1]. …the brilliant young American violinist gave a rippling, zestful account of the scherzo

and dispatched the streams of intricate scales and ornate passagework of the final Moderato with ease. A hit

with the audience, this boyish virtuoso offered a sizable solo encore, “Arches.” It is a 10-minute, volatile and

technically arduous work by the American composer Kevin Puts, and he played it scintillatingly.”

VANITY FAIR “Violinist Tim Fain plays like a virtuoso and thinks like a cinematographer. The show, Portals, is a smart mix of

sound and vision for the Facebook age who love Bjork and Beethoven with equal ardor.”

CHICAGO TRIBUNE “Playing from memory, Fain tore through the furious double stops, rhapsodic melodic flights and other

flourishes like a possessed dervish. If you didn't know all the music was written down, you'd have thought the

fiddle virtuoso was improvising the entire piece. You had to hear it to believe it. Fain was astonishing.”

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia)

“He throws off Glass' trademark cascading arpeggios with jaw-dropping ease, yet the effect is anything but

mechanical. On the contrary, the violinist allows the music to breathe organically, shaping each movement with

expressive lyricism and exquisite beauty... with his virtuosity, his warmth and above all his humanity.”

NEW YORK TIMES

“Fain’s tone is dark yet athletic; he plays a mean violin…he played distinctively; establishing versatility,

lyricism, virtuosity. The dynamic, technically nimble American violinist Timothy Fain….a performer with a

burgeoning career”

FANFARE Magazine

“…a by-god spellbinder...those who think the violin has become as irrelevant…those who ardently pray for a

reawakening of interest in it among composers, and those who enjoy exploring little-known literature - these

will find an additional award in Fain’s playing of Bach should find the recital irresistible.”

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

“Timothy Fain delivered one of the best performances of the Beethoven Violin Concerto I’ve ever heard. It was

strong, beautifully shaded, and intensely emotional.”

WASHINGTON POST

“Tim Fain has everything he needs for a spectacular career. What brought the audience to its feet demanding

three encores was his sheer youthful exuberance and dazzling technical skill.”

THE STRAD

“Tim Fain’s performance [Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2] was expressive, brilliant and elegant.”

BOSTON GLOBE

“A charismatic young prize-winning violinist, Tim Fain…with a matinee idol profile, strong musical instincts, and

first rate chops.”

VARIETY

“Simply put, Fain's playing was transcendent; the sheer difficulty of the piece, combined with his flawless

execution left the most indelible impression from the entire evening.”

Erica Jeal Thursday 4 May 2017 13.15 EDT

A very enjoyable disc … the violinist Tim Fain.

Lou Harrison had a pioneer’s imagination, not least regarding what might be walloped in

the name of music – his Violin Concerto calls for flowerpots, plumber’s pipes and clock

coils in the percussion. What’s more striking in this performance by Tim Fain,

the PostClassical Ensemble and conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez is the brilliance of his

writing for violin, a collision between itchy dance rhythms and soaring lyricism. Dating

mostly from 1940 but completed in 1959, this piece could have been written yesterday. The

half-hour Grand Duo, for which Fain is teamed with pianist Michael Boriskin, is also

inspired, although Harrison’s trademark application of the eastern scales used in gamelan

to a western form works better in some of its five movements than others: where the first

sounds ruminative, even mesmerising, the second seems stuck, whirling around frantically

on itself. Double Music, the percussion mash-up Harrison wrote together with John Cage,

finishes off a very enjoyable disc.

COVER OF THE STRAD – NOVEMBER 2016

JULY 2015

SOUNDS OF AMERICA

Glass

Partita. Einstein on the Beach – Knee 2.

Book of Longing – solo violin music.

Violin Concerto No 2 – Interludes

Tim Fain vn

Orange Mountain Music OMM0050 (46’ DDD)

Tim Fain's combination of Power, precision and deeply expressive playing has made his recordings almost as ubiquitous as Philip Glass's music. Chances are that you have already heard his distinctive violin on soundtracks to Black Swan or Twelve Years a Slave, but there are far more strings to this violinist's bow than film music.

Fain's debut recording, 'Arches' (Image Recordings, 2008), featured new worksfor solo violin by Kevin Puts and Daniel Ott alongside an impressively controlled performance of Bach's Solo Partita No 2 in D minor, and was soon brought to Glass’s attention during recording sessions for the composer’s cycle of Leonard Cohen

poems, The Book of Longing (2008). Fain’s cameo performance on the latter work is heard on ‘I Enjoyed the Laughter’, played again by him here in a version simply called Book of Longing. One can see why Glass was keen to collaborate further: his transparent and direct style demands crystal-clear articulation and razor-sharp accuracy, attributes that Fain’s playing possesses in abundance. The Partita for solo violin, composed especially for Fain in 2011, comprises seven movements, which (with the exception of the ‘Opening’) are grouped neatly into alternating pairs of songs, dances and chaconnes. The near absence in some movements of Glass’s trademark triadic ostinatos and scale passages will come as a surprise to some, maybe a relief to others; however, a minor-key darkness and intensity typical of the composer is sustained throughout. The fiery 'Dance 2' probably comes closest to 'default' Glass, and, as if to make the point, Fain's brilliant, scintillating rendition of 'Knee 2' from Einstein on the Beach, previously heard on 'River of Light' (Naxos 8.559662), is also included. The disc ends with a set of four Interludes for solo violin, which form part of Glass's Violin Concerto No 2. Again, Fain's incisive playing cuts through, and is altogether more direct and immediate than Robert McDuffie's live recording with Marin Alsop and the LPO (Orange Mountain, 12/l0). Author: Pwyll ap Siôn

Tim Fain Fights Slavery Through Music By Nexus - November 28, 2016

By Melissa Jane Kronfeld & Megan Legband

A renowned violinist, composer and producer, Tim Fain combines exquisite talent with a cutting-edge mindset. Trained and educated at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, Tim now performs across the globe for hundreds of thousands of music fans, including, notably, the Dalai Lama. He also works closely with the world’s foremost living classical composer Philip Glass. A California native, Tim now divides his time between Montana and New York City.

In the fall of 2015, Tim collaborated with Google on a Virtual Reality music video for his song, Resonance which introduced 360 stereoscopic Virtual Reality (VR) capability for YouTube to the world and was recently shown at The Sundance Film Festival.

Featured in the Academy Award winning films Black Swan and 12 Years a Slave, Tim‘s innovative approach to the violin has been praised around the world for its incredible musicality, tone, and technique.

And it was through his work in film, and especially during his time working on 12 Years a Slave, that Tim discovered the existence of human trafficking, and became an advocate for abolition. Now, Tim focuses his acclaimed talent on the greater good, seeking to better the world by reminding us of the beauty that exists in it.

And in honor of #GivingTuesday, Tim has released a brand new, original track EXCLUSIVELY for our Profiles in Abolition series RIGHT HERE on Millennial Magazine! Proceeds from the sale of the track will support the anti-trafficking work being done by one of our favorite organization’s Made In A Free World, founded by our friend, rockstar-turned-abolitionist Justin Dillon!

Philip Glass, Tim Fain, Pittsburgh Written by Elizabeth Bloom on Tuesday, 12 January 2016 1:39 pm.

In case you missed it: Philip Glass has written a couple of things since he was the composer-in-residence for the Pittsburgh Public

Schools in the early 1960s.

OK, so maybe he's done more than a few. And whattya know: For the first time on its main subscription series, the Pittsburgh

Symphony Orchestra will perform a piece by Mr. Glass, the composer of "Einstein on the Beach" and one of the elder statesmen of

American classical music.

Philip Glass (left) and violinist Tim Fain. (Photo credit: Brian Hall)

On Sunday, I heard from a couple of people whose story was woven in with his.

First was the story of Louise Gray, the prudential schoolteacher I mentioned in the article, who rescued a Philip Glass manuscript from

the trash. She wrote me this email:

"In October 2013, as I was reading Pittsburgh magazine, I came across an article by Rick Sebak about Philip Glass and his Pittsburgh

connection. I taught music in the Pittsburgh Public Schools from 1979-2007. In the late 1980's, I was involved with the National Arts

Education Research Center and was completing a project on contemporary music with my students. I was well aware of Mr. Glass and

his work in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Public Schools offered a free Saturday program for students which provided at no cost private

music lessons, theory classes, choral experiences, theatre, etc. This program was called the Centers for Musically Talented and was

located at the old Peabody High School. I performed various tasks there but one of my very first jobs was to organize and maintain the

music library. This was a room which housed all of the music and scores which the teachers would check out for use of their students.

"Since "the Centers" was at the mercy of Peabody as far as room assignments and storage, the music library was subject to frequent re-

location. When I first entered the new music library room, it looked as if there had been a hurricane with papers, boxes, and music

stands strewn everywhere. As I began to restore order to the room, I noticed a large round metal garbage container filled to capacity

with yellowed sheet music, tattered scores, and rumpled manuscript papers. Something else caught my eye. It was a hand-written

score for woodwind instruments by Philip Glass. I could not believe what I was seeing and quickly removed it from the trash. I was

going to think on this one. I put the precious music in a Volkwein's folder, took it home, and then quickly forgot about it. Fast forward

to Rick Sebak's article. After reading it, I recalled the retrieval of the Glass score but panic set in. We had purchased a fixer-upper

home in Shadyside in 1988 and it was still in the process of getting 'fixed up.'

"Where did we put that we asked ourselves and fortunately it was quickly located. I shared my story with Pittsburgh Magazine and

they printed a little blurb about it in a later issue. By that time, I made up mind to donate the music score, but I was undecided about

where it should go. The University of Pittsburgh has a Center for American Music and probably would have welcomed the addition to

their collection. The Carnegie Library has one of the largest music collections in the country and the score would add to it. After much

thought, I donated it to the Carnegie Library since it has been such a great source of pleasure and education for me throughout my

entire life. I also thought that if the score were placed at the library, a greater number of people would have access to it. So I am glad

that I was able to preserve a piece of Pittsburgh music history and that the Glass score now has a respectful home. So now you know

the whole story of the score that almost wasn't."

I love that story! Thank you very much to Ms. Gray for sending it along.

Owen Cantor, a French horn player turned dentist who lives in East Liberty, messaged me about what it was like to work with Mr.

Glass as a student in the city schools:

"I was one of the young public school kids who worked with Phil when he lived in Pittsburgh. Both years! Looking back, how lucky I

feel. I played horn in his Woodwind Quintet and also his Brass Sextet. We worked directly with Philip, often at his East Liberty loft

[on Baum Boulevard, after he moved out of Shadyside], which he sublet from Robert Qualters, a legendary Pittsburgh painter. He also

wrote orchestral and band music, and as a French horn player, I was always principal horn. He let me save my horn parts. I could

probably find them somewhere in my house."

He continued: "It was amazing to have Beethoven and Philip Glass equal partners in my earliest musical life. Maybe that's why I never

had bias against 'new music'(?). When I was forming my life in music every period was equal.

"Also, Phil had the first electric eraser I ever laid eyes on. He'd compose, have us play, then take the parts back and erase what he

didn't like."

As Mr. Cantor pointed out, Carnegie Mellon University's School of Music will produce the music/theater piece "Hydrogen Jukebox,"

with music by Mr. Glass and a libretto by the poet Allen Ginsberg, Jan. 21-24.

Another couple of things worth noting:

• Mr. Glass last year published a memoir, titled "Words Without Music."

• As I briefly mentioned in the article, one of Mr. Glass' many collaborators was David Bowie, who died on Sunday and whose

music informed his Symphonies No. 1 ("Low") and No. 4 ("Heroes"). The artists discussed their influences on each other in

this video:

In Sunday's article, I didn't get a chance to delve deeply into the work of Mr. Glass' talented collaborator, Tim Fain, who will perform

the solo on Glass' Violin Concerto No. 2 this weekend and who has taken on some interesting musical endeavors. For example,

he worked with Google on a virtual reality music project, called "Resonance," for which he composed the music. "I was learning how

to write music before I was learning how to write words, or at least simultaneously," he said. Working with Mr. Glass has informed

his composition efforts to some extent. "It's been incredible working with him and talking with him about the way he writes," Mr. Fain

said.

Addendum (posted 1/22): I received one more story from Philip Glass' Pittsburgh days. This comes from David Singer, who was a

student in the city schools at the time. (Thanks to Mike Staresinic, Mr. Singer's former music student during the 1980s, who passed

along Mr. Singer's story.)

"In 1965, I played clarinet in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, All-City High School Orchestra, representing Peabody High School.

Distinctly remember the day we were given penciled copies of an orchestral composition that was difficult to follow and difficult to

listen to at best. After a brief rehearsal of the piece, we were introduced to the composer, Philip Glass. At the time, Glass was a Ford

Foundation composer in residence with the Pittsburgh Public Schools. For many of us, that moment represented a paradigm shift in

the way we thought about music composition."

Correction (1/22): Owen Cantor lives in East Liberty. A previous version of this post had an incorrect neighborhood. The post was

also amended to clarify his title.

THE BUFFALO NEWS

A masterful playing on Friday with the BPO

By Garaud MacTaggart

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Instruments should be played. That said, an expensive and historically important violin like the one played by

Tim Fain would be silenced were it not for Buffalo based benefactors Clement and Karen Arrison. They own

the 1717 Francesco Gobetti violin and loaned it to Fain, a young virtuoso whose skills showcase the creator’s

art in ways that pay honor to Gobetti and the Arrisons.

Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade, after Plato: Symposium” is a violin concerto in all but name and Fain’s

performance of it Friday with JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra was masterful. The

evocative opening strains of the solo violin bordered on elegiac, and the orchestra’s string players moved

from a measured support into a boisterous companionship.

The result displayed Bernstein (and Fain) at their most beguiling as drama and release alternated over

the course of the work’s five movements. It all ended with a big finish and a standing ovation for the

musicians.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Gustav Mahler’s first symphony, an anthology of themes knitted

together and serving as an introduction to what would become one of the 20th century’s finest symphonic

cycles.

Mahler meshed folk tunes, marches, and dance rhythms in ways that ran the gamut from dark to light and back

again; lengthy passages were packed with emotional undercurrents vying for primacy as episodes paced

between the quick and the deliberate, recycling thematic material by placing them in different instrumental

groupings.

At one point (in the third movement) the French folk tune “Frere Jacques” appeared amongst the basses as the

timpani pulsed in the background. Then the cellos, horns, and violas all had their shot at picking up the theme.

Before the movement ended Mahler even dipped into the klezmer bag for some material.

Falletta’s control of the orchestra and mastery of the score was solid, as usual. Watching her movements on the

podium as she led the musicians through the various sections revealed as much about her commitment to the

music as it did about her abilities to communicate that commitment to the orchestra.

Bruno Walter, a former assistant to Mahler and a world class conductor in his own right once said of his mentor,

“His was a turbulent world of music, impassioned humanism, poetic imagination, philosophic thought, and

religious feeling.”

That about sums up the music and the BPO’s performance.

http://buffalo.com/2015/05/30/news/music/concert-reviews/a-masterful-playing-on-friday-with-the-bpo/

Tim Fain’s Multimedia Concert ‘Portals’ Comes to Boston

The violinist from Black Swan explores longing for human connection in a

digital world with an innovative concert at the Isabella Stewart Gardner

Museum.

By Ingrid Adamow | Arts & Entertainment | October 14, 2013

In our tech-obsessed day and age, interpersonal communication is all iPhone screen and clicking keyboard.

When we want to find a life partner, we hit up Match.com; when we’re checking in on family, we shoot them a

text, and when we dare simulate face-to-face interaction, we log onto Skype. All these interfaces are new

portals through which we communicate.

“Portals” is also the namesake of a multimedia concert performance by Black Swan violinist Tim Fain. The

show, which will make its Boston stop at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on October 17, has been touring

since 2011. Portals is an artistic exploration of the longing for real and true human connection in the digital age.

The recital was produced in 2011 and includes dance, music, and film all on one stage, but you’ll see only a

single live performer: Mr. Fain himself. Film of the dancers is projected onto a screen, and the pre-recorded

music of pianist Nicholas Britell is piped in through theater speakers along with NPR’s Fred Child’s readings of

Leonard Cohen poetry.

The interwoven videos of Fain performing everyday tasks like hailing a taxi may have been filmed a couple

years ago, but this distance in time only feeds Portals’ theme of longing for emotional connection through

digital media.

“It’s about this idea of, how close can you get to not being there, and still feeling like you’re sort of there? It has

this weird quality that’s inherent in, let’s say, Skyping with your loved one, on a tiny little screen, from 5,000

miles away,” Fain said.

Fain worked with friend and famed composer Philip Glass to generate the original music for the performance,

while Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied crafted the accompanying dances, and director Kate

Hackett worked on the film components.

“Collaboration has always been, for me, something that makes what I do really special, really deeply fulfilling,”

Fain said. “There’s a collaboration and back-and-forth experience between the performer and the crowd, and

that becomes a collaboration, too.”

Working with so many talented minds at once wasn’t without its challenges, however. Shoot dates were moved,

appointments were canceled, but Fain said it all became part of the creative process.

“I began to not only accept and incorporate these changes that were beyond my control, but [I was] also able to

start to really embrace and actually use them in a way that was productive and even better than what I had

before,” he said.

The Juilliard alum’s resume is star-studded, including ghost playing for Richard Gere’s Bee Season character,

performing onscreen and on the soundtrack for Black Swan, and, most recently, ghost playing for Brad Pitt’s

Steve McQueen flick 12 Years a Slave, set to be released mid-October.

With the success of Portals, Fain plans to create a sequel that will delve deeper into what he and his

collaborators explored with Portals. And he hopes to include a solo violin orchestra, a children’s choir, and

more people overall next time around.

To understand the sequel, though, everyone knows you have to see what came before. Those willing to pry their

eyes off their iPhones and open their ears to the sound of Fain’s violin this fall will experience real

communication in that universal language: music.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/blog/2013/10/14/tim-fain-portals-boston/

The Arts

Perfect union of sight and sound by: Eamonn Kelly October 29, 2012

Tim Fain in Portals. Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, October 26.

PENSIVE, poetic and mesmerizing, Portals is a classical music, contemporary dance, spoken word and

video collaboration that fuses live and virtual concert experiences to create an immersive fantasy world

of urbane beauty, yearning and tranquility.

The work pivots around New York-based violinist Tim Fain, performing a lyrical program of contemporary

American compositions, including a 30-minute Philip Glass commission, Partita for solo violin, and short items

featured on Fain's 2010 recording River of Light. With Fain appearing in person and alongside guest artists in

prerecorded, large-screen video sequences, Portals might sound like yet another of the multimedia presentations

now de rigueur on the classical music circuit, which almost invariably involve music becoming mere

accompaniment to visual stimuli: a further assault on the audile imagination in an overwhelmingly visile world.

Portals, however, is an exception to the rule -- a superb demonstration of what is possible when sense and

sentiment are the drivers of cross-art-form multimedia collaboration, rather than the novelty of new technology

and the incessant quest for innovation.

In part, the work's success derives from the framing of the music and visuals as abstract responses to the

intense, prehensile imagery of spoken word passages taken from Leonard Cohen's poetry, song lyrics, letters

and interviews. Spliced together to evoke mood rather than narrative, Cohen's haunting meditations on life and

love are delivered onscreen with compelling, idiosyncratic inflection by classical radio presenter Fred Child,

while Kate Hackett's richly textured cinematography amplifies the sensory depth within the everyday physical

world. Without the music, the visuals would seem piecemeal and disjunct. With the visuals, the music's

contours and colours find amplification and counterpoint. Portals creates a seamless and perfect union.

Modest and personable, Fain possesses an effortless playing style, unforced technique and sweet, warm tone.

Perfectly synchronised with the moving image, Fain combined the fluent spontaneity of a country fiddler with a

profound musical intelligence and sensitivity, proving that nothing bridges the real and virtual worlds like talent

and feeling.

With a winning smile and no visible effort, violinist heats Glass like a modern Paganini

Review: Composer-pianist Philip Glass and violinist Tim Fain at the Ravinia Festival. ****

By Lawrence B. Johnson

June 25, 2012

No doubt the large crowd gathered June 23 at the Ravinia Festival’s Martin Recital Hall was drawn mainly by the

prospect of seeing 75-year-old composer-pianist Philip Glass perform a program of his own music. And no doubt they

came away delighted by the 90-minute sampler of Glass through the decades and his affable flair for story-telling.

But the brightest light on this evening was cast by the youthful, California-born violinist Tim Fain, who played – among

other things — one prodigious movement from an unaccompanied suite that Glass has written for him. Fain’s

performance of Glass’ Chaconne, its ambitious and technique-defying sweep clearly modeled on Bach, instantly tagged

this tall, slender musician with the beaming smile as one of the authentic virtuosos of his generation.

Fain, 35, who grew up in Santa Monica, Cal., and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Juilliard

School in New York, is a familiar face at Ravinia, where attended the Steans Music Institute in 1996 and ’97. He made his

festival debut in 2007 playing Glass’ “Book of Longing,” and appeared on Ravinia’s Rising Stars series the next year.

There’s a boyish brio about Fain that belies his maturity — no, his absolute mastery – as a violinist and musician. And I

do make a distinction between the facets of whiz kid and poet. While Fain tossed off the most formidable demands of

Glass’ Chaconne with almost casual ease, what really made his performance so appealing was its fundamental musicality

– his embrace of the inherent poetry that again links Glass’ splendorous music to Bach’s.

And yet I also confess that I sat gob-smacked by Fain’s sheer technical prowess, not only in the grandly arching Chaconne

but also in Glass’ more Paganini-like “Knee Play No. 2” from this opera “Einstein on the Beach,” with its whirlwind

spiccato sprints and sudden rhythmic shifts, all hurtling forward in unbounded perpetual motion. I suspect Paganini

himself made just such an impression, one moment the demonic virtuoso capable of hellfire feats of prestidigitation and

the next moment caressing his listeners with lyrical phrases of gossamer finesse.

In his stage persona, Fain also cuts a figure of radical opposites – all smiles and engagement when he strides in to view,

then all concentration first note to last, then the bright-eyed kid again, delighting in the knowledge of what he has just

accomplished and soaking up his listeners’ joy in turn.

The virtuoso put his songful foot forward to great advantage in three movements from Glass’ suite “The Screens,” with

the composer at the piano. In episodes titled “The Orchard,” “France” and “The French Lieutenant,” Fain drew out long

lines of tremulous romanticism, the stuff of calming encores after the heady blistering of the Chaconne and “Knee” music.

Glass, for his part, recalled his minimalist journey with the hypnotic harmonic stasis of two solo piano pieces: “Mad

Rush” and “Metamorphosis.” Also from his classic roots, he offered “Wichita Vortex Sutra,” his keyboard interaction

with the recorded voice of Allen Ginsberg reciting verses about Middle America and unfettered youth — and unilaterally

declaring an end to the Vietnam War!

Virtuoso Violinist Tim Fain Redefines the Violin Recital

October 13th, 2011

By Geoffrey Maingart

Santa Monica, CA(Hollywood Today)10/13/11/—The Broad Stage in Santa Monica presented on Sunday

afternoon, October 9th the West Coast debut recital of the extraordinary violinist, Tim Fain, in the solo multi-

media violin performance of original music by some of the greatest modern classical composers of our

time. The title of the concert was “Portals” A Multi-Media Exploration of Longing and Connection in the

Digital Age. The Broad Stage provided the perfect venue for the performance and the acoustics of the hall

made it an intimate experience.

Backed only by a large video screen, Tim Fain commanded the stage alone for more than an hour accompanied

by images of dance, the extraordinary spoken words of Leonard Cohen and Tim, himself, often in duo or unison

with himself or with the pre-recorded accompaniment of the brilliant pianist Nicholas Briteli. The charismatic

Fain, looking a bit like Richard Chamberlain flawlessly held the audience focused throughout while performing

some of the finest virtuoso modern repertoire that this listener, also a concert violinist, has ever heard.

With the collaboration of such brilliant composers as Philip Glass (Partita for Solo Violin), Lev Zhurbin

(Sicilienne), Nico Muhly (Honest Music), Aaron Jay Kermis (Air), William Bolcom (Graceful Ghost Rag) and

Kevin Puts (Arches), the concert truly explored the technical possibilities of the solo violin reminding us where

Bach, Ysaye and Paganini might have pointed us and now where the future of the art will be leading us. It is a

daunting undertaking to command the attention of an audience with a violin alone. Adding film, dance, the

spoken word, a visual slide show and brilliant composition made it possible to change the mood from heartfelt

melody, to virtuoso techniques to light hearted comical interludes.

The compositions, often lyrical showed the full range of the instrument’s possibilities and Tim easily gave us a

glimpse of the virtuoso of the future while redefining the idea of the violin recital. There were wonderful

moments in the style of Scott Joplin. Fred Child, the actor was brilliant on film reading the words of Leonard

Cohen. Tim and Glass have now added a wonderful new solo work to the repertoire of the violin. The

coordination required by Tim to perform flawlessly and easily with the film background was brilliantly

conceived. Sometimes on stage, sometimes center stage, sometimes watching the film with the audience, Tim,

in this multi media setting guided us through a visual and musical journey. The last piece, Arches, was a

virtuoso cadenza that left the audience breathless and on their feet. As the words of Leonard Cohen

state; “Alive is in command and magic is alive.”

http://thebroadstage.com/Portals

Reviews of Musical Events on the Monterey Peninsula

Apr 4, 2010

By Lyn Bronson

With a nice Irish name like Tim Fain, can’t you just imagine him down at the pub playing darts with the lads? Well, the truth of it is that

anyone who has ever heard Mr. Fain put bow to fiddle, would know in ten seconds that he was born to play the violin. Since last night’s

recital presented by the Carmel Music Society at Sunset Center represented Fain’s third appearance in Carmel, we knew what to

expect, and we were not to be disappointed. Fain brought along with him on this occasion a pianist we had not heard before, Cory

Smythe, also an extraordinarily gifted and accomplished musician, whose presence added substantially to the evening’s success.

The concert’s first offering was a work familiar to generations of accomplished amateur musicians, Dvořák’s Sonatina in G Major, Op.

100, a charming work that is distinctly user friendly. However, what we heard in the performance by Fain and Smythe last night was a

far cry from what we might experience from amateurs in an evening devoted to Hausmusik. We heard playing last night that was

polished and honed to perfection, and doubly charming because it still retained a high degree of spontaneity.

There were two other familiar works on the program: the Chaconne from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor and Ravel’s Tzigane. We

heard Fain play the Chaconne in 2007 in the intimate acoustical environment of All Saints’ Church in Carmel, where it made perhaps a

greater impact. However, it was astonishing how Fain’s subtle dynamics and shaping a phrases still came across very effectively in the

larger space of Sunset Center. As on the previous occasion, one of the great magic moments in his performance was the dramatic

pause just before the hushed pianissimo beginning of the D Major section, and in all the difficult passages, Fain’s virtuosity made what

was difficult sound very easy.

In the Tzigane, we heard a bold and dramatic performance with extraordinary playing from Fain and Smythe (who was especially

impressive in this work and gave us a hint of what else he is capable).

However, the big hit of the evening were three contemporary works. The first was “River of Light” by Richard Danielpour, which Fain

described as a very dark piece suggesting preparation for the end of life and entry into our state of un-being, whatever it may turn out

to be. This is a contemporary work that is surprisingly tonal and comfortable for a first time listener. Its hauntingly lyrical moments

combined with dramatic flights into dissonance (however, comfortable dissonance, not ugly or shocking), always managed to retain a

cohesive center that held our attention throughout.

Fain added one work not listed on the program. It was a section of a suite written for him by Philip Glass. Not being an avid fan of Mr.

Glass and his sometimes irritating minimalism, I was amazed to hear in this fragment from Mr. Glass some of the loveliest sounds I

have ever heard coming from a violin. Once again Fain exhibited an amazing range of dynamics, plus beautiful precision and intonation

in double stops and harmonics. Another contemporary work that made a powerful effect was Sicilienne for Violin & Piano by Lev

Zhurbin. Lovely sounds and lovely playing made an immediate impression on us and made us yearn to hear more from this gifted

composer.

December 2012

Tim Fain’s disc ‘River of Light’ (Naxos 8.559662) takes a whistle-stop

tour through short works for violin and piano by US composers, all

written in the last 60 years and sharing a similar lyrical aesthetic. Fain

shows off his impeccable technique in the streams of impossibly fast

spiccato arpeggios of Philip Glass’s Knee Play 2, but he is equally

winning in more melodious territory. Aaron Jay Kernis’s Air somehow

has the spirit of a much-loved Paul Simon song in the modal feel to its

melody and its melancholy harmonies, as Fain relaxes into its gorgeous

phrases. William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag is reflective and lovely,

and Fain makes the complexity and intensity of Richard Danielpour’s

River of Light really speak. The recorded sound throughout is bright and

immediate. Particularly appealing, too, is Jennifer Higdon’s plaintive and

chromatic Legacy, with its searching, brittle melodies, and Ruth Shaw

Wylie’s wandering and enticing Wistful Piece.

-- Catherine Nelson

For more information:

timfain.com

Booking and media inquiries:

Dworkin & Company Elizabeth Dworkin, elizabeth@dworkincompany.com Allison Weissman, allison@dworkincompany.com 914-244-3803 dworkincompany.com