NICK GRANT, PRINCIPAL ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER
Nick Grant is the only violinist in the U.S. to win auditions for and serve in all three top violin positions in a single major orchestra, the San Diego Symphony. Grant is a former concertmaster of the SDSO, having served for six years. Click here to see the official announcement of Grant's appointment to the concertmaster position. He is also the longest serving string principal in the 100 year history of the SDSO and has won an unprecedented five auditions for different positions in the SDSO. He is also the only musician in the history of the SDSO to win advertised auditions in four different decades, the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Click here for principal bass Jeremy Kurtz’s fascinating description of the audition process. Grant is also the winner of the first concertmaster audition in the history of the SDSO. It was previously a political appointment without open competition. The San Diego Symphony recently promoted him to a new principal position, principal associate concertmaster.
Nick Grant is a San Diego native, his family having settled here in 1911. He started piano at four years and violin at eight. His first performance with the San Diego Symphony was at the age of fifteen playing the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2.At age seventeen, he was one of the youngest musicians to audition successfully for the SDSO, entering the first violin section that year. His teachers include John Metzger and Dr. Robert Emile of San Diego and Jascha Brodsky of Philadelphia. He has also worked with Michael Rabin, Josef Gingold, Erick Friedman, Michael Tree, Jaime Laredo, Mischa Schneider, Isidore Cohen and Pinchas Zukerman.
Mr. Grant has a Bachelor's degree from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and is the first prize winner of the Julia Klumpkey Memorial Competition in San Francisco, the Arizona National String Competition and the Musical Merit Foundation in two separate years. Nick has concertized on the east coast in a piano trio with Peter Wiley, cellist of the Guarneri Quartet. He has been a featured soloist for tours of Japan, Europe and the United States and is noted for his performances of the Bach, Ysaye and Paganini violin cycles. He also performed the SDSO premiere of the encore showpiece "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" and has been a frequent soloist with the SDSO over the years.
Nick Grant has also conducted the SDSO in Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the A minor Concerto by J.S. Bach. Nick is also a BMI affiliated composer-arranger and has been active in Hollywood for many years as a recording artist on violin. He enjoys a continuing association with Project Concern International, the Alzheimer's Association and the Monarch School.
EXCERPTS FROM REVIEWS:
"Nick Grant as concertmaster demonstrating what an expressive and technically adept violinist he is," (Jonathan Saville, SD Reader)
"A remarkable display of bravura bravado . . . an altogether superior violinist," (David Gregson, San Diego Union)
"Mr. Grant is a superb musician . . . the concert was exemplary." (Linda Castile, San Diego Blade Tribune)
GETTING TO KNOW NICK GRANT...
Q: How did you choose your instrument?
A: I chose the violin after listening to my uncle improvise on the violin during his visits to
our home in Mission Hills.
Q: What are your favorite travel destinations?
A: Hawaii and Fiji.
Q: What do you love most about San Diego (other than the weather)?
A: I love the climatic diversity, the beach, mountains and desert.
Q: What are some of your favorite San Diego restaurants?
A: PB Bar and Grill, Kono's and Piatti's
Q: Where might you be found on a Saturday night if the Symphony is not performing?
A: You could find me camping in the desert under the stars on a Saturday night.
THE PAGANINI CAPRICES
100 years ago in Dec. 1910 a group of musicians played the first concert of the newly formed San Diego Symphony in the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego. In honor of the Symphony’s Centennial Nick Grant is releasing excerpts from his San Diego premiere of the twenty four caprices for unaccompanied violin by Nicolo Paganini at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. This iconic and transcendent work has been described as the “New Testament of the violin” by the late Sir Yehudi Menuhin, preeminent violinist and humanitarian. Click here for access to this live concert that remains the only performance of this legendary cycle in San Diego history.
A note from Nick Grant:
I have always thought that playing a major unaccompanied cycle was the ultimate challenge for a concert violinist. Playing concerti with orchestras or recitals with piano seemed like a walk
in the park in comparison. There is something unique and daunting about walking on stage alone and entertaining an audience with no accompaniment for an hour and a half.
As the Paganini Bicentennial was approaching I did some research and discovered that the entire Caprices had never been performed in San Diego. Excitedly, I contacted Daniel Majeski, then the concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and one of the few concertmasters in the U.S. to perform this series in live concert. He gave me some useful insight into the logistics and planning that was invaluable. I also talked with Martin Bernheimer, a widely respected musicologist and music reviewer for the L.A. Times. He had been in L.A. since 1965 and was able to reassure me that this was indeed the first performance in San Diego.
Nick Grant on the Paganini Caprices:
(Click here and here to listen to Nick Grant performing live the San Diego premiere of the Paganini Caprices, may take a few moments to load.)
Caprice No. 1: This caprice seems to me to be the natural evolution and outgrowth of the 24 Caprices by Pietro Locatelli, especially of the 24th and last etude from this series titled "The Harmonic Labyrinth". Locatelli uses a triplet arpeggiated figure to represent the recurring theme and Paganini uses a quadruplet arpeggiated figure with greater intricacy and complexity in his 1st caprice, nicknamed "L' Arpeggio ".
Caprice No. 2: The second caprice in B minor features awkward string crossings at high speeds.
Caprice No. 3: The third caprice is a study of fingered octaves with a perpetual motion middle section. It has what I consider to be the single most difficult finger stretch in the entire series: a unison double trill on E above middle C. I wonder if it was problematic for Paganini...
Caprice No. 4: The longest caprice with cascading runs in thirds, sixths and tenths. A violinistic tour de force.
Caprice No. 5: The main section is a perpetual motion framed by outer sections of four octave scales and arpeggios.
Caprice No. 7: This caprice highlights up and down bow staccato.
Caprice No. 8: The eighth caprice has rapid sixteenth note double stops in a legato framework.
Caprice No. 9: One of the most famous caprices, imitating flutes and horns in repeated sections.
Caprice No. 10: Number ten is another up bow staccato showpiece.
Caprice No. 12: This caprice has prodigious finger stretches in a melodic setting.
Caprice No. 13: No. 13 has the classic horse whinny in the repeated melodic section. I love Kreisler's piano accompaniment.
Caprice No. 15: A theme and variations in the outer sections with a high speed staccato inner section.
Caprice No. 17: One of the most celebrated caprices with the rapid fingered octave passages in the middle section.
Caprice No. 18: The main section is an elaborate display of thirds with a beginning and closing played entirely on the G string, one of Paganini's hallmarks.
Caprice No. 19: This caprice also has a section, the middle section, played entirely on the G string. Reminiscent of the Moses variations by Paganini.
Caprice No. 21: One of the most beautiful melodic excerpts from the entire series, titled Amoroso, contrasted with yet another vertiginous up-bow staccato section.
Caprice No. 23: This caprice features roller coaster octave runs, and a middle section with lightning fast string crossings.
Caprice No. 24: The most famous caprice, the inspiration for many composers, including Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Liszt, Milstein and Schumann among others. It is a virtual compendium of violinistic techniques and devices.
“NEL COR PIU NON MI SENTO”
Watch a video of Nick Grant performing the SDSO premiere of Nicolo Paganini's "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento".
Nick Grant on “Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento”:
Nicolo Paganini was perhaps the greatest violinist of all time and revolutionized and influenced violin playing more than anyone else in history. He popularized relatively unknown techniques such as left hand pizzicato, flying staccato and double harmonics and was a prolific composer in a time when to be considered a great artist, one also had to be a composer. None of his compositions except for his Opus 1, the 24 Caprices for Unaccompanied Violin were released in his lifetime to protect his secrets.
“Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento” literally means 'in my heart I feel no more' and was originally an aria from the opera La Bella Molinara by the Italian composer Giovanni Paisiello. Paganini arranged the aria for violin, wrote an Introduction and Variations and premiered the piece in 1821 in Naples, Italy. It was very well received, so he used it throughout Europe on his concert tours as an encore showpiece.
What are the challenges of playing Paganini's music? First, there are the obvious technical challenges which are considerable but beyond that I think that the real challenge of playing his music is to create a profound quality and depth of emotion. That, I think, is the real test of playing his music.
This is the official SDSO program brochure for the month of November 1998, announcing the appointment of Nick Grant to the concertmaster position. Grant served the Symphony for 6 years as concertmaster:
