STATE OF INDEPENDENCE

Chad Hoopes launched his career with a spectacular win aged 13 in the Junior division of the Menuhin Competition in 2008, but in subsequent years, the forward-looking, innately positive US violinist has deliberately taken less obvious paths to musical success, as he tells Toby Deller

Main Chad Hoopes performs Tchaikovsky with pianist Gilles Vonsattel and cellist Clive Greensmith for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall, New York, in March 2019 Inset Hoopes performs Dvořák at Alice Tully Hall in January 2018

When reflecting on his career so far, the American violinist Chad Hoopes often talks about having followed his own path. It certainly got off to an exceptional start, launched in earnest when he won the 2008 Menuhin Competition Junior division. And it took an interesting detour when, his high-school studies and a handful of years of international tours behind him, he decided to study with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy in Germany (2013– 15). He then returned to the US to live in New York, a city he had always wanted to explore, and shortly afterwards received an Avery Fisher Career Grant from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

It is less the accumulation of rare milestones that mark out his personal path than his internal journey and how that is influencing his output as a violinist. ‘I think that’s maybe why I pushed myself out of my comfort zone,’ he says of his decision to spend time in Germany. ‘I could have gone to Juilliard or Curtis or another of the American schools, but I wanted to experience a different culture and a different tradition. Not necessarily better, but just a different perspective.’

He admits that in the earliest stages of his career, music was all-consuming. ‘But as I get older, I see how so many things are connected in music and in art and culture. It’s something that I am very curious about and am constantly trying to learn more about. I’m listening carefully to the people who know more than I know.’

Until Chumachenco, his principal teacher had been David Cerone, with whom he studied via a programme at the Cleveland Institute of Music. ‘David was there for the formative years of my learning and gave me my sound and technique, the foundational aspects. Ana Chumachenco has a different approach, though not completely different – musically, it is similar in many ways, it’s just a different process. She helped me find the way to explore things on my own, not as a student but as an artist. But also she instils confidence: every time I’m playing a new concerto, I go to her. I play it, and then she makes me play it over and over and over again, and throws ideas at me along the way. She is a mentor, has been a huge support and has given so much time to me. She also inspires me because she has one of the most beautiful sounds as a violinist. She doesn’t have many recordings, but her Schubert sonatinas, for example, might be the very best.’

At 27, Hoopes has already passed the point at which he has spent half his life as a performer. His relative youth means he still has time to allow his artistic identity to emerge through the work he chooses to do, rather than feeling obliged to rush towards certain career-defining targets. This has included a commitment to playing new music, even if he is content to pick up and revisit pieces that others havepremiered, thus helping to establish a performance tradition for them.

PHOTOS TRISTAN COOK

‘I joke that I’m always a little bit behind the curve: I don’t know the trends until after they’ve happened. But I recorded the 1993 John Adams Violin Concerto in 2013 when it was not necessarily old, but also not necessarily new – he has since written another concerto (his 2003 work for electric violin and orchestra, The Dharma at Big Sur). And in 2016, when I made my London debut at the Royal Festival Hall, I played the Michael Daugherty Fire and Blood concerto, which is a relatively new piece (from 2003). I also did the French premiere (in 2018) of La Joie de la Souffrance (‘The Joy of Suffering’) by Qigang Chen, a Chinese composer living in Paris. This guy is amazing – talk about sound worlds!’

Hoopes talks about learning newer pieces as an organic process of exploration, one that allows the artist to rely on their perspective and experience to work out what will sound best – particularly important when there are either no or few recordings available to consult. ‘There’s not a right or wrong way to learn how to take a new piece and make it your own, but you do have to make it your own.’

This is something for which he feels he has an instinct, and he chooses an interesting analogy to describe his outlook. ‘I have this addiction to designer furniture – mid-20th-century furniture that’s not new – and am able to curate a room, to choose the way things look and are perceived. It’s like a new concerto: you can choose a way that you organise and formulate your interpretation. Of course, the composer gives us a very clear outline or map to follow, but the journey that we take is up to us, musically.’

Hoopes performing at the 2008 Menuhin Competition Junior division – which he won

Meanwhile, one senses that his respect for older repertoire derives not from politeness or duty, but because old and new both have a place in his musical personality. The choice of pairing for his 2013 concerto recording for Naïve is a case in point, the Mendelssohn E minor sitting alongside the aforementioned Adams like two pieces of furniture from contrasting eras adorning the one room.

‘There’s always a search for something trendy, or something new, or something that hasn’t been done, and those are the pieces that are pushed forward – which is great, because it’s helping the evolution of 21st-century classical music. But at the same time, as a violinist – as an artist –I don’t want to sell myself short. I still want to explore great repertoire and believe I have something to add; I have a unique voice and feel it should be heard. That’s sometimes tricky, when people say,

‘I WANT TO EXPLORE GREAT REPERTOIRE AND BELIEVE I HAVE SOMETHING TO ADD; I HAVE A UNIQUE VOICE AND FEEL IT SHOULD BE HEARD’

On stage with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott for a collaboration between the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and Roundup River Ranch in 2016

MENUHIN PHOTO BRIAN TARR. BRAVO! VAIL PHOTO ZACH MAHONE

Teaching Performer’s Diploma student Juhyun Kim at the Meadows School of the Arts in 2021

“Oh, that’s been done already.” Yes, but it’s meaningful to me, right now in this moment, and I want to do it.’

A forthcoming recital disc with Anne-Marie McDermott, whose scheduled autumn release has been postponed owing to Covid-19 delays, does present a more typical programme: sonatas by Debussy, Ravel (no.2) and Saint-Saëns (no.1).

These choices are, nonetheless, of a piece with his artistic preoccupations and interests: French music and art, in this case. He is a regular gallery visitor on tour and at home, and refers to impressionist painting, its effects, techniques and preoccupations, as he talks about this music. ‘I love finding different sounds, textures and colours on the instrument – sound is something I’m just obsessed with, as a violinist. The violin is such an expressive instrument – the viola and the cello, very similar – and I adore the things I can do with it. It’s fun to experiment, to push things to the limit and find sounds that are absolutely breathtaking.’

Although Hoopes’s recording plans have been delayed and his performing schedule interrupted, the pandemic has brought him early to a new juncture. He had already been in discussions with Southern Methodist University in Dallas about taking on a teaching position there, and it was just as institutions in New York were shutting down that he was offered the post of professor of practice in violin. Having taken it on, he is emphatic about wanting to continue, post-pandemic.

Performing at the 2017 Avery Fisher Career Grant awards concert

MEADOWS PHOTO KIM LEESON. AVERY FISHER PHOTO STEVE J. SHERMAN

Based at the university’s multidisciplinary Meadows School of the Arts, the role puts him in touch with a more broadly academic environment than might have been the case at a more specialist institution. ‘Many of my students are majoring in other things, not necessarily violin performance or even music. Those are some of the most interesting students that I get to teach because they are so quick and so bright and articulate, and really willing to work hard and soak up everything that they possibly can. That’s where it’s fun because I feel like I can leave a deeper impression artistically.’

He hopes to be a ‘bright spot’ in their lives at a difficult time. ‘I can’t imagine what it would be like to be at a conservatory during these days – it’s supposed to be a time when you’re with your friends playing tons of chamber music and reading and listening to recordings with a glass of wine: all of these things that I was able to experience, they haven’t really been able to experience.’

And he downplays the idea that his experience makes him an authority figure; he pictures himself as more of a role mod el and custodian of the art form: ‘I want to pass along the knowledge and the influences that I have had. And we all have a responsibility to preserve the rich traditions that have come today. It’s not enough to be a good violinist any more. So many young people’s mindsets are: “How am before us. Everyone feels this in a certain way. But there’s a legacy that I want to preserve, at the same time as introducing a kind of 21st-century mentality of what it means to be an artist today. It’s not enough to be a good violinist any more. So many young people’s mindsets are: “How am I going to be a superstar? How am I going to be famous?” And that’s a touchy thing. The industry is changing and there’s a need for more than just that.’

On stage with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and conductor Eivind Gullberg Jensen in 2019

Another aspect of his role at the Meadows School of the Arts is the young artist programme he is establishing for high-school students who are a couple of years away from applying to conservatoires or universities, giving them a foretaste of the environment and early experience of playing alongside advanced-level colleagues. ‘It’s a programme that allows them to be part of the community of conservatory students. So they have to audition and they have to be, bare minimum, at the level of the conservatory students as a high schooler. They have to be very gifted so they can be placed within chamber ensembles and in the orchestra, participate in violin classes and perform alongside the conservatory students.’

Hoopes explains that this reflects his own positive experiences as a school-age musician on a similar programme at the Cleveland Institute of Music. ‘A lot of the skills needed to be a successful musician we learn on our own: everybody has their own path, everybody has their own musical voice and we are all affected by the world around us in different ways. The most meaningful moments on my musical journey have been when my teachers or my colleagues have treated me as an equal and looked at me in a serious, very collegial way, even when I was much younger than them. That’s how I want to work with my students because I think it’s a much more open way of communicating. And also it leaves room for me to learn, because there’s a lot that I can learn from my students.’

Meanwhile, Hoopes is looking forward to returning to his own chamber music appearances, an important part of his portfolio. He was selected for the Bowers Program for emerging chamber music leaders run by the Chamber Music Society (CMS) of Lincoln Center in 2015–18 and remains a CMS artist. This month, for instance, he joins up again with CMS colleagues for some English repertoire:

Purcell’s Chacony (arranged by Britten), Britten’s Three Divertimentos and Bridge’s Piano Quintet. The works are relatively new to him, but it’s not hard to imagine them becoming another future area of musical interest.

‘I know we’re sort of turning the corner, but much is still unknown. A lot of my goals and visions as an artist and as a human evolved during the pandemic. Not being able to see family and friends, as everybody knows, is difficult, right? So after this we should choose to take on projects that feel good and that involve genuine people who also have the goal of being positive. Let’s get through this; let’s meet, let’s be positive about what we can do in creating projects and helping preserve what we have as classical musicians.’

HOOPES ON HIS INSTRUMENT

I was playing on a beautiful Stradivari (the ‘Cooper, Hakkert, Ceci’ of 1713) for about ten years, gave it back and began searching for a new instrument. I played on several beautiful instruments but I think part of my process as an artist is finding something new and fresh, and going about things a little differently from the way that other people do. I have my own path.

I came across an instrument by Sam Zygmuntowicz (see page 42). By chance, I met him at a dinner party and he had an instrument with him. I tried it and fell in love with it in about five minutes because there were so many things I could do, so quickly, that I wasn’t able to do on an older instrument. There was an ease and an immediacy, so many qualities that I loved. So I said, ‘I want to buy this!’ He replied, ‘Slow down. It’s not for sale – it’s my personal instrument.’

It happened to be the violin he made for Isaac Stern in 1991, a copy of Stern’s ‘Ysaÿe’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ of 1740. But he said, ‘Let’s talk; I’d love to make you a violin.’ We kept in touch for a couple of months, but it’s tough when somebody makes you a violin. There are a lot of unknowns about that process: you don’t know if you’re going to like it, and if there’s a waiting list it might mean not getting a violin for five years or more. And in this case it was going to take that long because he has a huge following and a huge list of people for whom he’s making beautiful violins. So I said, ‘Are you sure I can’t play this violin that you already have and I love?’

I bugged him about it for a while, and finally he said, ‘OK, you can buy it.’ I bought it in 2016.

It’s cool that there’s this kind of historical element to this instrument. I also have a 1766 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, my first major instrument (which has undergone a full restoration by John Becker in Chicago), and two beautiful bows: a Tourte and a Dominique Peccatte. The Peccatte was one of Arthur Grumiaux’s bows.