A former BBC New Generation Artist, violinist Geneva Lewis has chosen an all-American programme for her Delos recording debut. She’s accompanied with palpable empathy by fellow New Zealander Gemma New conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Samuel Barber’s concerto receives an airy, poetic reading with Lewis and New embracing the music’s lyrical pastoralism while pointing up the opening movement’s scotch snap. The ongoing Celtic motif is seized upon by the orchestra and pays off in a moto perpetuo conclusion that feels second cousin to a highland fling. Lewis’s tone is warm and full of feeling, aching in the allegro and andante, feisty and folkish in the finale.
