Art Restart Podcast: Johnny Gandelsman

A black and white headshot of Johnny Gandelsman. In this episode of the Art Restart podcast, violinist Johnny Gandelsman describes how he shifted from being a young talent focused on a traditional soloist’s career to becoming an adventurer, challenging classical music’s conventions to prove that experimentation and community are as essential to music as technique.

Johnny Gandelsman Episode

Johnny has long championed the dissolution of genre boundaries to celebrate music’s unique power to bridge cultural divides. During COVID, He set out to commission 22 composers from all over the country to create new works for the solo violin. The project has now resulted in an album titled “This Is America: an Anthology 2020-2021,” a three-CD set with a 40-page booklet produced by In a Circle Records. Pitchfork raves, “'This Is America' stirs feelings about our country that are almost hard to recognize: pride, hope, and the simple relief of consensus reality.”

The Art Restart podcast is hosted by Pier Carlo Talenti and is produced by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts. Photo by Marco Giannavola.