Tim Fain, Portals

This live concert/video hybrid presentation by violinist Tim Fain is his musical exploration of the human longing for connection in the digital age. Expect a combination of music and film including a work for solo violin by Philip Glass (written for Fain), film choreographed and directed by Black Swan’s Benjamin Millepied, the music of Pulitzer Prize winning composers Aaron Jay Kernis, William Bolcom, and Kevin Puts, and the acclaimed Nico Muhly and Lev Zhurbin, all interwoven with films by Kate Hackett and spoken-word poetry by Leonard Cohen, read by radio personality Fred Child.  

“I wanted to expand on what a performance can be. Plenty of people use video, but I wanted to make something that really reflected growing up with Skype and Facebook—I mean, I’m addicted to my phone as much as everybody else, but I wanted to use that for something compelling and beautiful.” -Tim Fain

Tim Fain

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 on 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.
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About Portals

FROM TIM FAIN:

Combining music with film, dance and spoken word, Portals explores the ways in which we communicate, and, through communication, find meaning in the digital age. In an era when our expressions of love and sorrow, of togetherness and longing—such private emotions—are sometimes displayed so publicly on the web, the potential for artistic communication through digital media is endless. The creative team and I set out to expand the boundaries of possibility in live performance whereby the performers and artists appear onscreen as if signing on (such as via Skype), each from his or her respective private space, interacting with each other as well as with me on stage.

For example, at times one sees the performers readying themselves for performance, warming up, or just relaxing in their own private spaces, as if glimpsed by webcam. By contrast, at other times Nicholas and I meet in an imagined performance space which combines a feeling of an empty concert hall with a sound stage, (the empty chairs and pixilated projections) in which we perform together. Sometimes the two worlds collide and combine, as in Graceful Ghost, where we occasionally switch places, passing through these different worlds, real and imagined. Though we’re not always face to face or feeling someone’s touch or the warmth of their breath, we are deeply connected.
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