VC Artist Simone Porter’s New Album, “ad tendo”

Released on Bright Shiny Things, Simone’s debut solo album features works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Hildegard von Bingen, and more

VC Artist Simone Porter has released “ad tendo,” her debut solo violin album inspired by philosopher Simone Weil’s view that “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer... Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” 

The Latin root of the word “attention,” the phrase “ad tendo” translates as “I stretch toward.”

“The solo violin works on this album animate this stretch by calling upon one another to hear and understand how attention can yield the possibility for greater spiritual alignment,” Simone explained. 

The first track on the album is a premiere recording of Reena Esmail’s “Drishti (दृष्टि),” which comprises ten movements: I. Shimmering; II. Tense, volatile; III. Searching; IV. Diaphanous; V. Swiftly; VI. Yearning; VII. Brewing; VIII. Wild, erratic; IX. Luminous; and X. Reaching. 

More works include Lachen Verlernt by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Improvisation on O Virtus Sapientiae by Hildegard von Bingen/Olivia Marckx, Sabina by Andrew Norman; and the Passacaglia in G Minor, C. 105 “Guardian Angel” by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. 

The album is now available here for digital download, on CD, and vinyl. 

“[Weil’s] idea resonates so deeply with a feeling that I seek out and cherish, in which an experience of total absorption offers a kind of deliverance,” Simone added. “Weil’s words electrified my thoughts about what the focus of practice and performance could unlock in a culture where human attention is treated like a commodity.”

“‘ad tendo’ is an album of solo violin repertoire, but was in no way whatsoever a solo venture,” she posted on Facebook. “I’m immensely grateful to the myriad people whose care, effort, and love comprise this record.”

Born in 1996, Simone made her solo debut at age 10 with the Seattle Symphony and her international debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at age 13. In 2015, she was named a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Mentored by Margaret Pressley and Robert Lipsett, Simone is a student of the Colburn Conservatory of Music. Her studies also involved attending the Aspen Music Festival for seven years, Indiana University's Summer String Academy, and Italy’s Schlern International Music Festival. Among the orchestras she has played with include the New York Youth Symphony, as well as the Pittsburgh, Minnesota, San Diego, Indianapolis, Vancouver, Edmonton, Seattle, Nashville, and Utah Symphonies. 

Simone plays on a 1745 J.B. Guadagnini violin on generous loan from The Mandell Collection of Southern California.