Vivace 2026 Strings Program

New England Conservatory

Julie Albers

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Edward Arron

CELLO FACULTY

Curtis Institute of Music

Nicholas Canellakis

UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music

Che-Yen Chen

Guest Artist

Stella Chen

2021 Gramophone Artist of the Year

James Ehnes

VIOLIN FACULTY

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Simon James

VIOLIN FACULTY

Cleveland Institute of Music

Jaime Laredo

Robert McDuffie Center for Strings

Amy Schwartz Moretti

Cleveland Institute of Music

Sharon Robinson

String Faculty

Alexi Kenney

iolinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs, commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras around the world, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated artists of our time.

Alexi has appeared as soloist with orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. He has been featured in a play/lead role with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Lapland Chamber Orchestra, and New Century Chamber Orchestra, and has played recitals at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Frick Collection, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 

A fierce advocate for new music and always searching for collaborations across art forms, Alexi will give the US premiere of Gabriella Smith’s violin concerto in 2027, as well as continuing to tour Shifting Ground, a recital program in collaboration with the new media artist Xuan, which weaves together pieces for violin and electronics by J.S. Bach, Rafiq Bhatia, Matthew Burtner, Mario Davidovsky, Salina Fisher, Nicola Matteis, Angélica Negrón, and Paul Wiancko. He also frequently explores his love for period instruments and playing, performing and recording the complete Schumann Violin Sonatas on gut strings with Amy Yang on fortepiano and appearing with Philharmonia Baroque.

Chamber music continues to be a major part of Alexi’s life, performing at festivals including Caramoor, ChamberFest Cleveland, Chamber Music Northwest, La Jolla, Ojai, Marlboro, Ravinia, Seattle, and Spoleto. He is a founding member of Owls—an inverted quartet hailed as a “dream group” by The New York Times—alongside violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabriel Cabezas, and cellist-composer Paul Wiancko. Alexi is also an alum of the Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. Previous mentors in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, as well as winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, Alexi has been profiled by The New York Times and has written for The Strad. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow made in Port Townsend, Washington by Charles Espey in 2024.

Outside of music, Alexi enjoys hojicha, modernist design and architecture, baking for friends, and walking for miles on end in whichever city he finds himself, listening to podcasts and Bach on repeat.