Happy Birthday, VC Artist Alexi Kenney!

The VC Artist is celebrating his 29th birthday today!

A graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein, Alexi was awarded a 2020 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and a prestigious 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant. He is a former prize winner at the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2012 Menuhin Competition. Alexi is a member of The Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

In April 2021, Alexi released his first recording, Paul Wiancko’s X Suite for Solo Violin, accompanied by a visual album that pairs each of the seven movements of X Suite with seven contemporary sculptures from the Donum Estate in Sonoma, California.

In 2023, Kenney's new project Shifting Ground will weave together pieces for solo violin and violin/electronics by J.S. Bach and composers of other eras to form a program with a dramatic arc, flow, and scope. For this program, he has commissioned two new works by composers Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón.

Kenney's recent solo engagements include performances with the Detroit Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and in a play-conduct role as guest leader of both the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Alexi made his Violin Channel Vanguard Concerts debut in Vanguard Concert Series 2. The episode features works by Bach, Colombi, Wiancko, Muhly, and Biber.