Daisuke Yamamoto is marking his 10th anniversary as concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony, launching the 2023-24 Symphony Series with new music – the premiere of Andrea Portera’s “Eudaimonic” Concerto for violin and orchestra in concerts on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 – and his first full season playing an old fiddle.
The instrument is labeled as having been built in 1705 by Giovanni Battista Rogeri, a pupil of the master violin maker Nicolò Amati. The Richmond Symphony acquired the violin in January, on a permanent loan from an unnamed investor, as part of Music Director Valentina Peleggi’s drive to enrich the sound of the orchestra.
In a recent interview, Yamamoto demonstrated the difference between the new/old violin and the one he had been playing for years. The Rogeri’s “physical size is larger,” he observed. “It can be quite a challenge to adjust to a larger instrument. I have to adjust fingerings, and that can change the way I play, even with pieces I’m familiar with.”
The Rogeri also projects with greater volume, producing “a sound that fills larger spaces,” the violinist said, “but also a somewhat darker sound, with more [tone] colors available.”
The instrument’s capabilities should get a good test in the new piece. Although the composer’s principal instrument is the flute, Yamamoto finds Portera “expert at writing for the violin.”
The Italian composer, who will come to Richmond for the premiere, has written works in a wide variety of media, from solo guitar and percussion ensemble to symphonic and theater music, winning a string of awards in Europe, Japan and elsewhere and having his pieces performed by leading orchestras and contemporary music ensembles.
The “Eudaimonic” Concerto, inspired by poems of Laura Artusio (Portera’s wife) and Maya Angelou, “is more of an interactive piece” than many violin concertos, Yamamoto said, so the soloist’s sound will be heard alongside those of other orchestral instruments rather than riding above the full ensemble. “There are times when the violin has time to shine, but other times when it is contributing tones and colors in larger surroundings.”
A native of Marietta, GA, Yamamoto joined the Richmond Symphony in 2013 after playing in the New World Symphony, the Miami orchestra founded by Michael Tilson Thomas as a post-graduate performance program for young orchestral musicians. The Richmond Symphony and similar-sized orchestras recruit extensively from New World alumni – Yamamoto was one of eight playing in the orchestra last season.
The role of concertmaster – first among an orchestra’s first violinists – is not widely understood by non-musicians. In early orchestras, concertmasters (or “leaders,” as they’re known in Britain) were effectively conductors, standing before the ensemble, beating time and cueing players with gestures as they played. (The putative director, the Kapellmeister – “master of the chapel” – typically presided over performances from a keyboard.)
With the emergence of baton-wielding conductors in the 19th century, the concertmaster “became the conductor’s right-hand man,” Yamamoto said. “We’re interpreting what the conductor wants and says for the orchestra’s musicians, so mutual trust between the conductor and concertmaster is a big part of the job.”
On a more granular level, the concertmaster also is responsible for crafting the bowings of stringed instruments so that string ensembles project the desired collective sonority.
Yamamoto’s model for his role comes from chamber music, in which the first violin is a leading voice, often an arbiter, of the ensemble. “So I think of the orchestra as a big chamber group. Because it’s big, individual players may not be able to hear all the others clearly” – a problem that can be compounded in less-than-ideal acoustic spaces – “so it’s the concertmaster’s job to hear the full ensemble and help with the necessary adjustments.
“It takes careful hearing and a lot of flexibility.”
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