Johnny Gandelsman; photo credit: Marco Giannavola

Johnny Gandelsman; photo credit: Marco Giannavola

Monday, October 5, 2026

7:30 PM

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*

The Athenaeum Jazz Fall 2026 Series opens at the Scripps Research Auditorium on Tuesday, November 3, with an Athenaeum debut by one of the great saxophonists of our time, Joshua Redman, bringing his own quartet to San Diego for the first time in 15 years.

Groundbreaking violinist Johnny Gandelsman opens our season with an exciting solo recital, combining his own original compositions, works he commissioned and premiered as part of his This is America project, and monumental works by J.S. Bach.

Program (no intermission)

Johnny Gandelsman: Winter Smoke & Forgotten March

JS Bach: Cello Suite No.5 in C minor, BWV 1011

Ebun Oguntola - Reflections

Justin Messina: Music For Solitude

JS Bach: Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004

About Johnny Gandelsman:

Called “A violinist who can do anything” by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Grammy-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman integrates a wide range of creative sensibilities into a style unique amongst today’s violinists. Richard Brody of The New Yorker has called Johnny Gandelsman “revelatory” in concert, placing him in the company of “radically transformative” performers like Maurizio Pollini, Peter Serkin and Christian Zacharias. He is a 2024 MacArthur Fellow.

In the 25'-26’ season Gandelsman premiered “Johnny Loves Johann”, which united him with acclaimed choreographers John Heginbotham, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Melissa Toogood. The collaborative project pairs Johnny’s folk-inspired violin interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete cello suites with original choreography performed by its creators. Johnny Loves Johann unfolds as a vibrant and intimate conversation with Bach’s music, celebrating the dance and humanity at the heart of these iconic works.

Johnny's recording of JS Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, which reached #1 on the Billboard Classical Chart, and made it onto NY Magazine and NY Times Best of the Year lists, was described by the Boston Globe as "...sparklingly personal Bach, shorn of grandeur, lofted by a spirit of dance, and as predictable as the flight of a swallow." Johnny’s next release, featuring Bach’s complete Cello Suites, transcribed for violin was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike. His interpretation was described by The New York Times as “radically weightless, at times seemingly improvisatory, and completely grounded in dance.”

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires in California raged and America reckoned with entrenched systemic racism, police brutality and a deeply polarized presidential election, Johnny created the project This is America as a form of creative documentation and response to a time of disruption and disconnection. Working with twenty presenters across the country, he invited twenty-two US-based composers to reflect on the time they were living in. The resulting anthology was called “profound and engaging” (NPR Music), “A new vision for classical music” (Pitchfork) and “potentially one of the important recordings of our time”. (Gramophone) Now expanded to include 28 works, Johnny has performed This is America throughout North America, including year-long residencies with the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College during the ’23-’24 season and with Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina during the ’24-’25 season.

A passionate advocate for new music, Johnny has premiered over 80 new compositions, including the music of Clarice Assad, Kinan Azmeh, Don Byron, Layale Chaker, Christina Courtin, Olivia Davis, Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Rhiannon Giddens, Osvaldo Golijov, Gonzalo Grau, Ted Hearne, Vijay Iyer, Colin Jacobsen, Maya Miro Johnson, Gabriel Kahane, Carla Kihlstedt, Dana Lyn, Justin Messina, Nico Muhly, Angélica Negrón, Aoife O'Donovan, Matana Roberts, Kyle Sanna, Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey, Kojiro Umezaki, Du Yun, Evan Ziporyn and John Zorn.

As a founding member of Brooklyn Rider and a member of the Silkroad Ensemble, Johnny has closely worked with such luminaries as Bela Fleck, Martin Hayes, Kayhan Kalhor, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark Morris, Anne Sofie von Otter, Alim Qasimov & Fargana Qasimova, Joshua Redman, Suzanne Vega, Abigail Washburn and Damian Woetzel.

Johnny has been producing records since starting his label, In a Circle Records in 2008. In addition to his 3 solo albums, recent credits include Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein’s PBS documentary films The American Revolution, and The U.S. and the Holocaust, Silkroad Ensemble's Falling out of Time, Brooklyn Rider's The Four Elememts, and Grammy®-nominated Healing Modes (In a Circle Records); Magos Herrera & Brooklyn Rider's Dreamers (Sony). Silkroad Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma's Sing Me Home (Sony), a Grammy®-award winner for Best World Music Album, was co-produced by Johnny and legendary producer Kevin Killen (U2, Elvis Costello).

Johnny was born in Moscow in 1978, and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1990. He’s lived in NY since 1999.

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