Anne Akiko Meyers is on a mission to bring new music to the world. This spring alone, the violinist has released three albums in as many months featuring new works she commissioned.
Meyers, 55, started playing the violin at age four. She has collaborated with some of today's most prominent composers like Arvo Pärt, Jennifer Higdon, Arturo Márquez and Wynton Marsalis. "I get so moved by their music," she says. "I'm here to tell the stories of these composers… These giants, these genius minds."
Meyers is quick to admit she tends to shy away from more atonal music. "It just feels like I have to eat a whole plate of dry kale to get through it. It just doesn't do anything for me," she says. "I've watched [audience] reaction to a lot of this kind of music, and it just looks painful. And I think that's what scares a lot of audiences away, too." Instead, Meyers is drawn to more expressive and lush textures, which can be heard on all three of her new albums.
Requesting a new piece from a composer, Meyers says, requires patience, "There are definitely some composers who are just like, 'No, no' and 'talk to the hand,' and it's five years, 10 years, and I try again and still they say no. And then you just realize, okay, the timing is not right. So we'll just move on."
One thing that helps Meyers in all her endeavors is one very special violin, which she brought to NPR's Culver City, Calif. studios on a recent visit. The instrument was made in 1741 by the Italian luthier Giuseppe Guarneri — known by his nickname del Gesù.
"The power and the resonance of this instrument is pretty much unparalleled," Meyers tells Morning Edition host A Martínez. The Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù is considered to be one of the finest-sounding violins currently in existence and was valued at an estimated $16 million in 2012, when an anonymous buyer purchased it then later gifted it to Meyers on a lifetime loan.
Meyers remembers the first time she played the "Vieuxtemps," so named after its most famous owner — 19th century Belgian virtuoso and composer Henri Vieuxtemps. "The second I put my bow to the string, it was like the heavens parted," she says. "The G string is so rich, and the E string is so cathedral-like in its resonance."
The violinist has recorded numerous albums with the instrument. In April, she released her 43rd, a recording of Michael Daugherty's Blue Electra. Inspired by the life and mysterious disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the violin concerto also honors her legacy as a professor, writer and advocate for women's rights.
Meyers says she gets goosebumps when playing the piece, channeling "the freedom that Earhart felt when she was in the air." The work ends with the orchestra mimicking the plane's engine. At one point, it sounds like Earhart is falling from the sky, a nod to her 1937 disappearance while flying her Lockheed 10-E Electra over the Pacific Ocean.
In May, Meyers released recording premieres of works by Eric Whitacre and Ola Gjeilo, as well as a requiem by jazz pianist Billy Childs. The latter work is based on a text by Persian poet Rumi and composed in honor of Childs' mother, Mable Brown Childs, who is portrayed by the violin in the music. "I play his mother's voice," Meyers says, joking: "I told him to clean his room a lot."
A short piece by Philip Glass is the star of Meyers' latest release, out Friday. She premiered New Chaconne last year, after composer and violinist met in New York.
It's an usually joyous chaconne, filled with Glass' signature arpeggiated lines that seem to continuously advance forward until the whole thing comes to an abrupt stop. A harp, played by Emmanuel Ceysson, provides the bass line. The work is paired with Glass' Violin Concerto No. 1, recorded with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel.
"When it was sent to me, I just couldn't believe it," Meyers says, "This is for the canon of violin literature, and it will live on forever."
And through her relentless commissioning and recording, Meyers is helping to push new works into the canon, inspiring future generations.
The broadcast version of this story was edited and produced by Olivia Hampton, who edited the online version, with production and editing support from Tom Huizenga.
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