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Rachel Barton Pine (born Rachel Elizabeth Barton, October 11, 1974) is an American violinist. She made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 10 and became the first American and youngest winner of the gold medal in the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. The Washington Post wrote that she "displays a strength and confidence that puts her in the upper echelon." Pine tours internationally as a soloist with prestigious orchestras, maintains an active career in the recording industry, and since 2001 has directed the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation, which provides services and funding to promote classical music education and performance.
Pine tours worldwide as a soloist with prestigious orchestras, has an active recording career, and has run the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation since 2001, which provides services and funding to promote classical music education and performances. Pine was born in Chicago, and began playing the violin at age 3 after being inspired by the example of older girls playing at her church. She debuted with the Chicago String Ensemble at age 7, and with the Chicago Symphony under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf at age 10. Her passion for violin compelled her to practice 4 or 5 hours a day as a second grader, prompting her elementary school principal to encourage her parents to begin home schooling, which allowed her to focus on her music, practicing 8 hours a day. Her principal teachers were Roland and Almita Vamos of the Music Institute of Chicago. At age 14, she began taking paid gigs playing at weddings and in orchestras, which allowed her to contribute significantly to her family's income as they experienced financial difficulties. Explaining how she managed, she says, "I put on a lot of makeup and pretended I was older than I was." She attained notable success in a number of violin competitions, including winning the 1992 Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition in Leipzig, Germany. She also earned 2nd prizes in the József Szigeti Violin Competition (1992) and the International Fritz Kreisler Competition (1992), as well as awards from the Montreal International Musical Competition (1991), the Paganini Competition (1993), and the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition (1993). Pine has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the world including the Chicago, Montreal, Atlanta, Budapest, San Diego, Baltimore, St. Louis, Vienna, New Zealand, Iceland and Dallas symphonies; the Buffalo, Rochester, Royal, Calgary, Russian and New Mexico philharmonics, the Philadelphia, Louisville, Royal Scottish and Belgian National orchestras; the Mozarteum, Scottish and Israel chamber orchestras, and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. She has performed under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, John Nelson, Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, Neeme Järvi, Marin Alsop, Semyon Bychkov, Plácido Domingo, and José Serebrier, and with artists including Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Christopher O'Reilly, Mark O'Connor, and William Warfield. Her festival appearances include Marlboro, Ravinia, Montreal, Wolf Trap, Vail, Davos, and Salzburg's Mozartwoche at the invitation of Franz Welser-Möst. Her premieres of pieces by living composers include “Rush” for solo violin by Augusta Read Thomas, Mohammed Fairouz's “Native Informant” Sonata for Solo Violin and “Al-Andalus” Violin Concerto, and the Panamanian premiere of Panamanian composer Roque Cordero's 1962 Violin Concerto. In April, 2017, Pine performed solo violin with the Phoenix Symphony under the baton of Tito Munoz debuting the Violin Concerto, "Dependent Arising" by Earl Maneein (b. 1976). Her "American Partitas" is a recital program of suites of dance movements composed for Pine by Bruce Molsky, Darol Anger, Billy Childs, and Daniel Bernard Roumain written in response to the Bach Partitas for solo violin paired with their Bach counterparts. In addition to her mixed recital programs, Pine has regularly given single evening performances of the six Bach Sonatas and Partitas, the 24 Paganini Caprices, and the complete Brahms Sonatas. In 2015, Pine released her debut Avie Records recording Mozart: Complete Violin Concertos with one of her “musical heroes” conductor Sir Neville Marriner and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Pine grew up listening to Sir Neville and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields’ recordings and their performance on the Amadeus movie soundtrack. Studying Mozart's operas she gained an appreciation for the drama, playfulness and flirtation of his violin concertos featured on the new album. The recording also contains Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, recorded with violist Matthew Lipman, a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient. Pine started exploring esteemed violin concertos and the concertos that inspired them with Brahms and Joachim Violin Concertos, recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Carlos Kalmar in 2002. Her 2008 Beethoven & Clement Violin Concertos, recorded with The Royal Philharmonic and conducted by Serebrier, offered the world premiere recording of Clement's D Major Violin Concerto. Her 2013 recording with pianist Matthew Hagle, Violin Lullabies, debuted at number one on the Billboard classical chart. Pine's recording of Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries was nominated for a National Public Radio Heritage Award. Carl Fischer Music recently published a sheet music book of cadenzas and virtuosic encore pieces composed by Pine, as well as her arrangements of other works for violin and piano, as part of its Masters Collection. Pine became the first living composer and first woman to be so honored. Pine has also edited a 4-volume collection of compositions associated with America's pioneering female solo violinist Maud Powell, many of which she has also recorded [CD shown below]. In 2014. Pine helped to accept a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award on behalf of Maud Powell, after successfully campaigning the Recording Academy for the honor.